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"Not knowing", or changing one's mind.

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• "Not knowing", or changing one's mind.

• RE: "Not knowing", or changing one's mind.

  davidjackson > 19-02-2017, 09:02 AM

  Quote:How do we ensure that we remain objective?

  
  Point and laugh therapy?
  
  

• RE: "Not knowing", or changing one's mind.

  Torsten > 19-02-2017, 12:20 PM

  (19-02-2017, 08:17 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My main point, or at least what triggered my post, was that, while there are clear differences between the humanities and the 'exact sciences', these may not be so fundamental. It is certainly possible to do what one might call 'scientific' work in the humanities.
  
  The second point was not to try to 'force decisions' when the information to do that is insufficient.
  
  At the same time, it is perfectly valid to work on the basis of assumptions, as long as one does not overestimate the probability that the assumptions are correct.
  
  I don't think that the Voynich MS is entirely unique as a field of unbounded amateur attention.
  While all cases are different, there is also Egyptology, with its theories about the pyramids and the sphinx(es),
  or "life in the universe" (especially when it comes to supposed visits to Earth).
  There's much more, and each has its own community.

  
  It is not an easy task to correct assumptions. 
  
  In the case of the Egyptian hieroglyphs there was the assumption that the hieroglyphs represent symbolic rather than phonetic writing. In fact there was a good reason for such an assumption. There was the book [font=sans-serif]Hieroglyphica[/font] (dating to about the 5th century) by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that explained the meaning of 200 hieroglyphs in such a way. Unfortunately the explanation given by Horapollo was wrong even if some [font=sans-serif]hieroglyphs are identified correctly[/font] in his book. 
  For this reason Anthansius Kircher's 'translations' were hampered by the fundamental notion that hieroglyphs recorded ideas and not the sounds of the language (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). This view changed as the [font=sans-serif]Rosetta Stone was found. A first step was made by Thomas Young. Young was able to identify the name Ptolemy in the hieroglyphs, and he managed to correlate most of the hieroglyphs with their correct phonetic values. But even then Young was not able to shatter the established view that the script was picture writing. [/font]
  Champollion was able to decipher the [font=sans-serif]Egyptian hieroglyphs since he checked this hypothesis. He counted the[/font] 486 words in the Greek text, and expected to find fewer in the hieroglyphic text, since the [font=sans-serif]hieroglyphic text, was incomplete, only a portion of the [/font]text being extant. Instead, he counted 1419 hieroglyphs. This meant that there was no way that each hieroglyph could be an ideograph[font=sans-serif] (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). [font=sans-serif]To understand the nature of the script was the breakthrough for the decipherment of the [font=sans-serif]Egyptian hieroglyphs[/font].[/font][/font]
  
  [font=sans-serif]In the case of the VMS we also didn't know the nature of the script and therefore we simply didn't know what a word or letter in the VMS stands for. With other words the nature of the script is is the main problem for the VMS.[/font]

• RE: "Not knowing", or changing one's mind.

  R. Sale > 22-02-2017, 09:44 PM

  davidjackson,
  
  Great cartoon! All sorts of psychological implications. I would say that objectivity, such as it is, is maintained by a collection of interested individuals, always willing to try and kick the chair out from under any one else who starts spouting off on some obscure and unsustainable, proposed solution to the VMs.  Point and laugh therapy may work for irrational fears, but will it work on alternative facts? The VMs is carefully enigmatic and open to a variety of interpretations and so it is easily misapprehended, shall we say. And for those who have spent some time, trying to be objective, there seems to be this constant bombardment of wanko solutions popping up continually. And it seems that many such, self-directed propositions are lacking in relevant substance. This is why IMO, the VMs needs a communal solution built on a common foundation, not one that is critiqued after the fact.
  
  In the face of this onslaught of flawed hypotheses, some may have lost hope that a valid proposition might be found. Objectivity was lost in the assumption that all proposed theories required the point and laugh therapy treatment. This is the sort of objectivity that is right 99.9% of the time and misses or dismisses the rare discovery of certain significant facts. An example of which starts with the comparison of VMs f68v, the first rosette, with the illustration of the Oresme cosmos. The interior of the VMs is a reasonable match for the Oresme example and several others. The exterior of the VMs is called a simple, repeating, meandering pattern, a 'figure-eight-seashell symbology", a nebuly line, a scallop design, a cloud band / wolkenband and so on.
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  Cloud band, as a general term, includes far more than the well-formed scallop patterns seen in the De Pizan and Oresme examples, but this clear scallop design has not been well represented in other sources or even in other works of the same authors. There are all sorts of pattern permutations in the cloud band examples from the discussion threads. So it is potentially significant that a well-drawn and blue painted example of a scallop patterned band circles around the central VMs rosette. The combination of these two elements of cosmic interior and exterior, in one image, would be closer to the Oresme original that any other illustration that I have seen. The thing is that significant facts need to be combined. And it should also be considered why it is that they are not combined. Does it have any implications to the way images are found on other pages? Is it possible for the VMs to be objective?
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