The Rosette folio and Aristotle's Meteorologica

[juergenw]

Very good thinking Juergen and it looks you've  put a lot of time in this, I still have to read it.
It's not clear to me what your aim of the paper is and why are you publishing it so quickly.
But perhaps the paper has the function of discussion piece?
Could you shed some light on that?

... (shortened for brevity)

The quality of the paper would be much better and with more thorough references if you would work on such a thing together.
Matching anything of Aristotle with another written source is not something you can do in a day, or in some weeks.

Only since last month I've found out that there are parts in the VMS that have a strong "medieval Aristotle sauce".
The matter of Aristotle is so vast that I am now trying to read what other scientists in medieval times wrote on the subject.

That alone is a huge amount of reading. Understanding and applying Aristotle's work onto the Voynich manuscript (VMS) is an idea many people probably have had.
And it is, in essence a very good idea. But you need to change those ideas into medieval thoughts first, then look through the eyes of that person and only after that you can look to the Voynich with the correct perspective.   I was planning to find a summary on all Aristotle works and then work into the 1200-1300 and 1400's but that's probably too much. We'll see.

You are also throwing the Block Paradigm into it? Perhaps that sounds as a bridge too far. But like I said, I still have to read it.

Hi Davidsch
thanks for your comments and feedback. You are correct, it took some considerable time and effort. Most/All of us here will have busy lives so the amount of time spent on favourite pastimes may be limited and, admittedly, reading through a number of sources is very time consuming: Lucretius -De rerum natura; other pre-socratic early thinkers in that area on Elements, Thomas Aquinas, etc all those discussed in the context of the method and how I approached it. Once you've read the essay, you will see some of your comments (hopefully) answered.  Available time was one issue not to go into deep detail with other than Aristotle's Meteorologica, that doesn't mean that they are not mentioned or quoted (NB: I am not sure I understand your sentence correctly on missing references or their quality in the paper when you state twice that you have to read it yet).
Why now? Good question. I think I reached a state where I wanted to put it up for discussion and seek or hope for other people's feedback and thinking. I could have spent another two years refining (and mapping, cross-referencing, etc) - but what if I made a stupid mistake to start with? One may say that my assumption (to start with) or conclusions are wrong for x,y or z reasons, and I rather hear them now than in two years' time. But I am confident that the bulk of what I present is enough to be read and judged accordingly. I like spending time on these things, but I don't want to waste time either.

I'd be grateful to hear more of your feedback. Also happy to discuss further steps (if any)  that you/others think  would be a way to spend more time and effort with and if it is worthwhile pursuing. I had in mind a hyper-linked map of the text references and more, but still more ground work needs to be done... The essay in its current form focusses only on some parts, I had more 'matches' (which I took out for the downloadable version for the reason of brevity): metals, (more) exhalations, reference to the 'primary mover' (i.e. the elevated star layer in the centre of the folio), thunder/hurricane... but more time consuming work is necessary to tighten things up. Coming back to the point, have I made a mistake to start with and not wasting time and effort... so, all up for discussion :-)


I see your point that you make about the medieval thought - though I think that it is critical point because there may not have been a single trail of thought and, subsequently,  I approached it more from the thinking of 'what is the original source'. I quote two Renaissance meteorological works and Thomas Aquinas, which I believe would be good places to start with from an angle that you describe, but I can't see a common thought as a result of that. In the three mentioned sources, all (one way or the other) come back to quoting (or applying) Aristotle's line of thought on Meteorologica in different ways.
Had I had more time I would have analysed the Greek version the Latin/Arabic tradition of the Meteorologica manuscript. The tradition is well documented and the differences between these two strands are important, which may reflect on the underlying source that has been used in the Rosette folio's case (were it to be true that is).