07-09-2025, 02:43 AM
I guess I'll take your objections one at a time. How much did it cost to produce? This is a question I haven't dug deeply into yet or read that much about. But my question would be: for whom to produce?
I don't think someone commissioned this to use in the way I think it was used. I think it is a product of a monastery (And I think it was probably produced in that setting because that's where the scribes are). The abbot calls a few of the brothers in and tells them his idea. "Work on it during vespers, I'll cover for you." Or something to that effect. "Use that old stack of vellum we have and the cheap ink."
Yes, it still cost money, but people have been getting around accounting systems for thousands of years. Overcharge for what you sell and keep the difference. It might not have "cost" them anything. And this isn't far-fetched. We have found ancient cuneiform records that contain what were first thought to be math mistakes but are now thought to be deliberate embezzlement.
Right now, my framework is conceptual. I am an amateur and not a scholar. But my framework is: if it happened once it can happen again. If one person can encode it another person can decode it. There are people who will go to great lengths to defraud others. Even to the point of taking the secret to the grave. (Wrongway Corrigan).
I won't have time to do this more than a couple times a month, if that.
I don't think someone commissioned this to use in the way I think it was used. I think it is a product of a monastery (And I think it was probably produced in that setting because that's where the scribes are). The abbot calls a few of the brothers in and tells them his idea. "Work on it during vespers, I'll cover for you." Or something to that effect. "Use that old stack of vellum we have and the cheap ink."
Yes, it still cost money, but people have been getting around accounting systems for thousands of years. Overcharge for what you sell and keep the difference. It might not have "cost" them anything. And this isn't far-fetched. We have found ancient cuneiform records that contain what were first thought to be math mistakes but are now thought to be deliberate embezzlement.
Right now, my framework is conceptual. I am an amateur and not a scholar. But my framework is: if it happened once it can happen again. If one person can encode it another person can decode it. There are people who will go to great lengths to defraud others. Even to the point of taking the secret to the grave. (Wrongway Corrigan).
- The Church is well known to have falsified documents, charters, etc.
- Your argument "why not just lie" assumes that the creators knew that alchemy was a fraud and that no one could call them out. Or no one cared. I don't think we can take that as a given.
- I actually don't think I'm thinking in 2025 terms. I am not saying they were worried about a copyright claim. LOL They didn't want someone else coming along and finding their secret. Which is exactly the same reason they would write in code if it really is a code.
- Great wealth is relative. As I frame it, it is a business even if fraudulent, not a get-rich-quick scheme.
Do you remember Indecent Proposal? A comedian at the time said "Well, no I probably couldn't get someone to pay $1M for a night with my wife, but I might be able to get $100 ten thousand times." or something to that effect.
- It was by someone else? Does the book claim that? Would they have had to claim that? Does it matter one way or another? I don't know what their pitch was. You lean on a trope of the time: exotica, foreign/ancient magic. So that is possible, but not necessary.
- And the reason why I lean toward no meaning is the studies referenced here. The failure of major cryptologists to solve it (although, maybe it just hasn't attracted enough attention yet). The statistical analysis. All argue against language and only the last one manages to generate strings very much like Voynichese. (I am still very impressed by that, because it still doesn't allow us to totally rule out a code.)
I won't have time to do this more than a couple times a month, if that.