Hi Eggo (do you have Eggo frozen waffles where you live?):
I have problems with much of what you You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
1) Moved the goalposts: I have practically told you what Voynich put in his coffee in the cafe he loved to stop at on his way over to the BNF, and what he and Mr. Grunel were wearing in their chat in Leon's book binding shop, that rainy morning in Joot, or Jost, while discussing Voynich's cut would be, should he unload the Lives of the Martyrs to Greene, and the Hours to Walters. I mean, it is clear I have more than fulfilled the terms of my Voynich Theorem #1... heck I wrote the damned thing, and purposefully didn't put it anything near the levels you now insist on before you accept it has been met! So again, it is clear to me that you will not ever concede it has been met, and that is fine. But it is wrong of you to demand some higher level of standards than I myself stipulated in my own Theorem.
2) You have reversed the probability argument, something I have explained before... you you and Bluetoes, I think. It will get far too long to show all the places in which this has been done, but here is one good example, I think: "Based on what we have found, if he were to have seen 200 books of hours, what are the chances that he would have come across the month name forms as written in the VMS? Obviously mars, may, sept, nov, dec are basic. Octembre + knowledge of em -> ē is also reasonably likely. Augst was common german so that's easy. The ones we have left are aberil, yong, and iollet. jong (technically yong but lets just say jong to give the best chance at success here) is practically a zero chance."
If Voynich were looking specifically for the words used in the zodiac, as we have to do, then of course it would have been very difficult. That is, the way you describe it, for instance, as though he got in his head he wanted to use "octēmbre", SPECIFICALLY, for some reason. Well first of all, if he wanted to use it, he would have to have already known of it, and so would NOT have to search at all! So your premise is flawed from the start. Obviously what happened in place of your version was that he either already had seen octēmbre (and the others), or went looking for either words in general, or month names in particular, in this case, and simply copied ones he liked.
He could have happened to choose the many other spellings and forms... October, Octembre, Octombre (I think) and so on. He didn't have to go searching for them, there would have been, immediately, dozens or more forms in many of the places you and the others found them, and he just found, or already knew, and happened to like, the octēmbre among them.
Put another way, you are looking at this backwards in assuming that he was seeking these specific forms, when he both could not have been as he would have to have already known them (as we do) before knowing to "seek" them; and secondly, he had a great many words to choose from... we know this, as we know he could walk, see and read... so assuming he "needed" certain words is clearly in error.
3) Another thing about this issue, if one wants to apply probabilities to what we each think happened here: In the case that the Voynich is genuine, we have one of several scenarios: One scribe who happened to know, and decided to combine, month names from different eras, in different languages. He/she knew some in Scandanavian/Germanic, Walloon, Old French... I think there are some others... and in a very un-monk-like way for the time, shirked all convention and expectations in doing so. Why? Or, multiple scribes, using a very similar hand, and dipping into the very same inkwell it seems... "Here's the pen, Friar Sven... when you are done, hand the quill to Friar Frenchy over there, he gets October, by the way." "No problem, Friar Gustav". This makes NO sense. This would simply not have been done, and I don't think either of us ever saw it done. It is literally "un-real". And, not that I like probabilistic terms without math to back it up, it is highly unlikely.
Now in my scenario, we have an erudite but a bit inconsistent, careless scoundrel of a forger, Wilfrid, who had walls of books around him, who frequented the best libraries, museums and collections all over Europe, seeing styles of writing, and spellings, correct and not, in all languages, with all the abbreviations, dialects, and in all styles imaginable... well that guy must have seen hundreds of versions of just those month names, alone! Now he finds himself sitting down to scribble some month names on his ridiculous and incomplete and repeating and poorly drawn "animals" of the zodiac... he actually, probably, simply jotted down some of his favorites which he had remembered seeing over the years. Heck he probably didn't remember, nor realize, and certainly didn't care enough, that he was putting such a diverse and eclectic selection of month names in there in the first place!
So I would say that my scenario is far more likely than the "Magic Scribe" makes eclectic set of unmatched month names, which actually rises to not believable.
4) Also, this, which is another example of a demand of a much higher level of evidence than genuine ever deigns to offer, "Could voynich have seen 'jong' on an astrolabe in a museum in london?". To insist that is moving the goal posts, and changing the standards in my own Theorem so that they can appear to not have been met when they have been. This is an example of making an extremely, and really impossible, demand at a level that is unreachable; while at the same time, anyone who believes the Voynich is genuine and 1420 has an entirely different standard, one which is blurry enough to cover any possibility and still be said to point to genuine.
In this case, I must have Voynich's nicotine stained eyeballs on a specific engraving on a specific astrolabe on a particular Saturday afternoon for there to be any chance he wrote that name in there, and instead, the Zodiac month names are claimed to be genuine simply because they existed somewhere in the world... well, or might have (like much "evidence" for authenticity it is said that even though we have not found the thing needed, it probably exists or existed somewhere, so we must accept it as fact). No matter they are all different spellings and in several different languages and from hundreds of miles and possibly years apart, but in the same hand made with the same ink at the same time... no, I must prove Voynich himself actually saw each particular example you all found?
That being said, I actually strive to have my standards for evidence set high, yet find it rich that they are set impossibly and illogically high for forgery, while genuine skates along with wishes and maybes.
5) "Let's say Voynich did have access to the full BNF library, and let's also say that he specifically took an interest in french calendars and sought them out unhindered (would this actually have been the case, by the way?)." Yes, by the way. The access to materials in his time were generally far more lax than in eras since. I've looked into this, read about this, and spoken to people about it. In many cases, libraries, museums and booksellers would let people they trusted take HOME rare and valuable books. The world of scholarship was of a high level of trust, in general.
6) "I mean, technically voynich may have owned a one-of-a-kind calendar with all of these forms, or got lucky and found them all in the first 5 he saw, you know?" What? Why "the first 5 minutes" (of course you mean in a generally short amount of time, but again why?)? Why would one calendar have to have "all of these forms" to have had him use them? And anyway, by asking that question, you actually have buttressed my point #3, above... as you are by using it, unwittingly emphasizing that it would be unusual, and hence unlikely, to even find "all five forms" on one document... exactly my point! It an anomaly to find them all together, and is evidence of forgery.
7) "All of this assumes a specific attempt at perusing french language calendars in particular, when there are hundreds or thousands more calendars in latin." Again, "why?". I don't "assume" that, why would anyone? The calendars exist, and in libraries he frequented, again, why do you imagine he must have made a "specific attempt" at perusing them?
8) "I think you would agree with me that -seperate to theorems- the likelihood of him finding something in a huge national library is quite a lot different to finding something his friend/colleague personally owned. Just like the microscope images were readily accessible to voynich, calendars owned by friends would likely have been as well."
Possibly, but I don't necessarily agree this was the case. Well, at least that the difference between those two possibles, as sources, is unknowable. I do not know how deep into Gruel's collection Voynich read, nor how many hours he spent in libraries. But I think I can safely speculate that he spent a very good chunk of his life in libraries of all kinds, and as I suggested above, his head was probably filled to overflowing with a veritable alphabet soup of almost every character and word known to man, and each in every style. And I think it entirely reasonable and common nonsensical that he, as really almost anyone can, drew from his memories and experiences of them all.
Rich
I have problems with much of what you You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
1) Moved the goalposts: I have practically told you what Voynich put in his coffee in the cafe he loved to stop at on his way over to the BNF, and what he and Mr. Grunel were wearing in their chat in Leon's book binding shop, that rainy morning in Joot, or Jost, while discussing Voynich's cut would be, should he unload the Lives of the Martyrs to Greene, and the Hours to Walters. I mean, it is clear I have more than fulfilled the terms of my Voynich Theorem #1... heck I wrote the damned thing, and purposefully didn't put it anything near the levels you now insist on before you accept it has been met! So again, it is clear to me that you will not ever concede it has been met, and that is fine. But it is wrong of you to demand some higher level of standards than I myself stipulated in my own Theorem.
2) You have reversed the probability argument, something I have explained before... you you and Bluetoes, I think. It will get far too long to show all the places in which this has been done, but here is one good example, I think: "Based on what we have found, if he were to have seen 200 books of hours, what are the chances that he would have come across the month name forms as written in the VMS? Obviously mars, may, sept, nov, dec are basic. Octembre + knowledge of em -> ē is also reasonably likely. Augst was common german so that's easy. The ones we have left are aberil, yong, and iollet. jong (technically yong but lets just say jong to give the best chance at success here) is practically a zero chance."
If Voynich were looking specifically for the words used in the zodiac, as we have to do, then of course it would have been very difficult. That is, the way you describe it, for instance, as though he got in his head he wanted to use "octēmbre", SPECIFICALLY, for some reason. Well first of all, if he wanted to use it, he would have to have already known of it, and so would NOT have to search at all! So your premise is flawed from the start. Obviously what happened in place of your version was that he either already had seen octēmbre (and the others), or went looking for either words in general, or month names in particular, in this case, and simply copied ones he liked.
He could have happened to choose the many other spellings and forms... October, Octembre, Octombre (I think) and so on. He didn't have to go searching for them, there would have been, immediately, dozens or more forms in many of the places you and the others found them, and he just found, or already knew, and happened to like, the octēmbre among them.
Put another way, you are looking at this backwards in assuming that he was seeking these specific forms, when he both could not have been as he would have to have already known them (as we do) before knowing to "seek" them; and secondly, he had a great many words to choose from... we know this, as we know he could walk, see and read... so assuming he "needed" certain words is clearly in error.
3) Another thing about this issue, if one wants to apply probabilities to what we each think happened here: In the case that the Voynich is genuine, we have one of several scenarios: One scribe who happened to know, and decided to combine, month names from different eras, in different languages. He/she knew some in Scandanavian/Germanic, Walloon, Old French... I think there are some others... and in a very un-monk-like way for the time, shirked all convention and expectations in doing so. Why? Or, multiple scribes, using a very similar hand, and dipping into the very same inkwell it seems... "Here's the pen, Friar Sven... when you are done, hand the quill to Friar Frenchy over there, he gets October, by the way." "No problem, Friar Gustav". This makes NO sense. This would simply not have been done, and I don't think either of us ever saw it done. It is literally "un-real". And, not that I like probabilistic terms without math to back it up, it is highly unlikely.
Now in my scenario, we have an erudite but a bit inconsistent, careless scoundrel of a forger, Wilfrid, who had walls of books around him, who frequented the best libraries, museums and collections all over Europe, seeing styles of writing, and spellings, correct and not, in all languages, with all the abbreviations, dialects, and in all styles imaginable... well that guy must have seen hundreds of versions of just those month names, alone! Now he finds himself sitting down to scribble some month names on his ridiculous and incomplete and repeating and poorly drawn "animals" of the zodiac... he actually, probably, simply jotted down some of his favorites which he had remembered seeing over the years. Heck he probably didn't remember, nor realize, and certainly didn't care enough, that he was putting such a diverse and eclectic selection of month names in there in the first place!
So I would say that my scenario is far more likely than the "Magic Scribe" makes eclectic set of unmatched month names, which actually rises to not believable.
4) Also, this, which is another example of a demand of a much higher level of evidence than genuine ever deigns to offer, "Could voynich have seen 'jong' on an astrolabe in a museum in london?". To insist that is moving the goal posts, and changing the standards in my own Theorem so that they can appear to not have been met when they have been. This is an example of making an extremely, and really impossible, demand at a level that is unreachable; while at the same time, anyone who believes the Voynich is genuine and 1420 has an entirely different standard, one which is blurry enough to cover any possibility and still be said to point to genuine.
In this case, I must have Voynich's nicotine stained eyeballs on a specific engraving on a specific astrolabe on a particular Saturday afternoon for there to be any chance he wrote that name in there, and instead, the Zodiac month names are claimed to be genuine simply because they existed somewhere in the world... well, or might have (like much "evidence" for authenticity it is said that even though we have not found the thing needed, it probably exists or existed somewhere, so we must accept it as fact). No matter they are all different spellings and in several different languages and from hundreds of miles and possibly years apart, but in the same hand made with the same ink at the same time... no, I must prove Voynich himself actually saw each particular example you all found?
That being said, I actually strive to have my standards for evidence set high, yet find it rich that they are set impossibly and illogically high for forgery, while genuine skates along with wishes and maybes.
5) "Let's say Voynich did have access to the full BNF library, and let's also say that he specifically took an interest in french calendars and sought them out unhindered (would this actually have been the case, by the way?)." Yes, by the way. The access to materials in his time were generally far more lax than in eras since. I've looked into this, read about this, and spoken to people about it. In many cases, libraries, museums and booksellers would let people they trusted take HOME rare and valuable books. The world of scholarship was of a high level of trust, in general.
6) "I mean, technically voynich may have owned a one-of-a-kind calendar with all of these forms, or got lucky and found them all in the first 5 he saw, you know?" What? Why "the first 5 minutes" (of course you mean in a generally short amount of time, but again why?)? Why would one calendar have to have "all of these forms" to have had him use them? And anyway, by asking that question, you actually have buttressed my point #3, above... as you are by using it, unwittingly emphasizing that it would be unusual, and hence unlikely, to even find "all five forms" on one document... exactly my point! It an anomaly to find them all together, and is evidence of forgery.
7) "All of this assumes a specific attempt at perusing french language calendars in particular, when there are hundreds or thousands more calendars in latin." Again, "why?". I don't "assume" that, why would anyone? The calendars exist, and in libraries he frequented, again, why do you imagine he must have made a "specific attempt" at perusing them?
8) "I think you would agree with me that -seperate to theorems- the likelihood of him finding something in a huge national library is quite a lot different to finding something his friend/colleague personally owned. Just like the microscope images were readily accessible to voynich, calendars owned by friends would likely have been as well."
Possibly, but I don't necessarily agree this was the case. Well, at least that the difference between those two possibles, as sources, is unknowable. I do not know how deep into Gruel's collection Voynich read, nor how many hours he spent in libraries. But I think I can safely speculate that he spent a very good chunk of his life in libraries of all kinds, and as I suggested above, his head was probably filled to overflowing with a veritable alphabet soup of almost every character and word known to man, and each in every style. And I think it entirely reasonable and common nonsensical that he, as really almost anyone can, drew from his memories and experiences of them all.
Rich
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