06-02-2025, 01:52 PM
Hi everyone,
This is my first post here, my apologies if it's formatted badly or a little disorganised in structure. I've been somewhat nervous to post, but I have a lot of things I want to talk about and no easy way to get them all out! So.. if this post is in the wrong section, or should be split into multiple areas please let me know!
I recently became interested in the VM and had no idea where to begin in regards to solving it. As i'm a total beginner with no expertise, I decided to read up on many of the theories, arguments, solutions, interpretations, and tasks that have been shared here (with many of these threads dating back 8 years!). I'm amazed some of these threads are still alive, and I appreciate the threads of banned users being archived and readable, they were rather entertaining to go through.
I have a few general observations, and a couple of ideas and theories, so I thought i would make a thread to go through them and (hopefully) be sent somewhere to catch up on what's been discussed/done already, to be told to keep my opinions to myself, or be sent out to do something useful so I can actually contribute something.
The main reason I am bringing any of these up is that I would like to avoid some the issues others have run into and decide which rabbit hole may be worth going into. I would love to contribute something worthwhile, if I am able. As for my suggestions, I am throwing them out on the off chance that someone finds them worthwhile/valuable.
1) Very few things seem to be generally accepted by most people
Almost everything is still up for debate, including the transcriptions into voynichese. If there are 6 different possible transcriptions/interpretations of the symbols on the pages, many forms of statistical analysis, frequency analysis, cipher cracking, and pattern tracking become "useless" in the eyes of many, even if perfectly excecuted. The best case scenario is that they will say "Your analysis is correct, but you have done it from an incorrect data set". If I were to go down that path, I would like to know what the baseline would have to be for it to be considered correct.
The motivation to finally post here was actually checking the "Positions we can all agree upon" section of the forum. It seems to me that everyone gave up on doing that long ago.
2) Many ideas and theories that led to nothing are hard to find
The forum has a "Solutions" section, which is great! I would love it if proposed methods or ideas were codified somewhere as well. For example, ordering and folding the pages a certain way to reveal a secret message, or removing a certain symbol from the text and then running frequency analysis, or drawing lines between gallows symbols to make a smiley face or map. None of these are claimed solutions, but it's useful to know it has been done. They may no be too awful to categorise (deciphering attempts, transliteration attempts, frequency and position analysis etc)
I have seen many instances of someone saying "I have done this thing over the last few months" only to be greeted by a helpful commenter or two that had already tried it and found nothing. If those instances could be reduced as much as possible, it's more likely that progress would be made. I certainly would like to avoid that happening to me.
3) Many threads get bogged down with mutually exclusive ideas
I would much like to persue ideas that could produce results that could be widely agreed upon, and not lead to huge "agree to disagree" territory. If someone thinks a rosette is the sea, another thinks that it's the embodiment of christ, a third thinks that its a naval map, and the fourth thinks its a description of the heavens and earth, I don't see much benefit to me chipping in and saying that its really a picture of constantinople without convincing proof that it's the case. In fact, my doing so may take attention away from someone else's theory when what the theory needs is deeper discussion.
4) People constantly seem to join the forum, claim to have solved it, do not listen to criticism and then leave
I would very much like to not be added to that list, if I can help it.
What things can I do, that are actually worth doing?
So this leads me to the post title, what should I be doing actually? What are the things that -if achieved- would actually be considered measurable, agreed upon progress on the VM?
A few I could think of:
-Finding voynichese text in another manuscript
-Finding a text match for a sentence or paragraph in another plain text manuscript (lords prayer, charm, recipe etc)
-Finding a 1:1 matching image/diagram in another manuscript
-Finding proof of ownership in the currently unknown time period
-Finding a signature/other marginalia match
-Creating a reproducable translation method that translates at least full paragraphs into meaningful text (not things like "apply forcefully candle goat king slowly moon") with very few degrees of freedom in how you choose the translated word (would even this be enough?)
Please tell me if there are any others.
Additionally, if I have the basis of a plan or idea, is it acceptable to make a thread floating such ideas even if I have not been able to excecute that idea or need help to begin? I would use the search function of course, but many discussions only seem accessible/locatable through the links of people that remember where and when it was discussed.
Hopefully I can help in some way, i'd love to hear what you think.
This is my first post here, my apologies if it's formatted badly or a little disorganised in structure. I've been somewhat nervous to post, but I have a lot of things I want to talk about and no easy way to get them all out! So.. if this post is in the wrong section, or should be split into multiple areas please let me know!
I recently became interested in the VM and had no idea where to begin in regards to solving it. As i'm a total beginner with no expertise, I decided to read up on many of the theories, arguments, solutions, interpretations, and tasks that have been shared here (with many of these threads dating back 8 years!). I'm amazed some of these threads are still alive, and I appreciate the threads of banned users being archived and readable, they were rather entertaining to go through.
I have a few general observations, and a couple of ideas and theories, so I thought i would make a thread to go through them and (hopefully) be sent somewhere to catch up on what's been discussed/done already, to be told to keep my opinions to myself, or be sent out to do something useful so I can actually contribute something.
The main reason I am bringing any of these up is that I would like to avoid some the issues others have run into and decide which rabbit hole may be worth going into. I would love to contribute something worthwhile, if I am able. As for my suggestions, I am throwing them out on the off chance that someone finds them worthwhile/valuable.
1) Very few things seem to be generally accepted by most people
Almost everything is still up for debate, including the transcriptions into voynichese. If there are 6 different possible transcriptions/interpretations of the symbols on the pages, many forms of statistical analysis, frequency analysis, cipher cracking, and pattern tracking become "useless" in the eyes of many, even if perfectly excecuted. The best case scenario is that they will say "Your analysis is correct, but you have done it from an incorrect data set". If I were to go down that path, I would like to know what the baseline would have to be for it to be considered correct.
The motivation to finally post here was actually checking the "Positions we can all agree upon" section of the forum. It seems to me that everyone gave up on doing that long ago.
2) Many ideas and theories that led to nothing are hard to find
The forum has a "Solutions" section, which is great! I would love it if proposed methods or ideas were codified somewhere as well. For example, ordering and folding the pages a certain way to reveal a secret message, or removing a certain symbol from the text and then running frequency analysis, or drawing lines between gallows symbols to make a smiley face or map. None of these are claimed solutions, but it's useful to know it has been done. They may no be too awful to categorise (deciphering attempts, transliteration attempts, frequency and position analysis etc)
I have seen many instances of someone saying "I have done this thing over the last few months" only to be greeted by a helpful commenter or two that had already tried it and found nothing. If those instances could be reduced as much as possible, it's more likely that progress would be made. I certainly would like to avoid that happening to me.
3) Many threads get bogged down with mutually exclusive ideas
I would much like to persue ideas that could produce results that could be widely agreed upon, and not lead to huge "agree to disagree" territory. If someone thinks a rosette is the sea, another thinks that it's the embodiment of christ, a third thinks that its a naval map, and the fourth thinks its a description of the heavens and earth, I don't see much benefit to me chipping in and saying that its really a picture of constantinople without convincing proof that it's the case. In fact, my doing so may take attention away from someone else's theory when what the theory needs is deeper discussion.
4) People constantly seem to join the forum, claim to have solved it, do not listen to criticism and then leave
I would very much like to not be added to that list, if I can help it.
What things can I do, that are actually worth doing?
So this leads me to the post title, what should I be doing actually? What are the things that -if achieved- would actually be considered measurable, agreed upon progress on the VM?
A few I could think of:
-Finding voynichese text in another manuscript
-Finding a text match for a sentence or paragraph in another plain text manuscript (lords prayer, charm, recipe etc)
-Finding a 1:1 matching image/diagram in another manuscript
-Finding proof of ownership in the currently unknown time period
-Finding a signature/other marginalia match
-Creating a reproducable translation method that translates at least full paragraphs into meaningful text (not things like "apply forcefully candle goat king slowly moon") with very few degrees of freedom in how you choose the translated word (would even this be enough?)
Please tell me if there are any others.
Additionally, if I have the basis of a plan or idea, is it acceptable to make a thread floating such ideas even if I have not been able to excecute that idea or need help to begin? I would use the search function of course, but many discussions only seem accessible/locatable through the links of people that remember where and when it was discussed.
Hopefully I can help in some way, i'd love to hear what you think.