• Options
• Login
• Desktop Style

No text, but a visual code

• Index

  • The Voynich Ninja
  • Voynich Research
  • Theories & Solutions
  • No text, but a visual code
• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  nablator > 11-08-2026, 08:18 AM

  (11-08-2026, 06:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do you call him "Orem"?  Is that how his name is rendered in Russian?

  
  Seeing how the name was (incorrectly) latinized to Oreme / Horem the "s" was probably silent.
  So it's phonetically correct. French and its many silent letters...

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Jorge_Stolfi > 11-08-2026, 09:09 AM

  (11-08-2026, 07:59 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't mind at all if someone tells me they disagree with what I write, but it is unacceptable ... to try to convince people.

  
  But what would be the point of saying "I disagree", if I am not allowed to say WHY I disagree, nor present arguments in support of that disagreement?  
  
  By refusing to allow arguments against your claims, you are misleading people who read this thread into thinking that there are no such arguments.
  
  The obvious similarities between VMS mages and images in other manuscripts, like the Balneis, Taccola, Oresme etc., are not "my theory". I pointed out those similarities because they are a problem for your thesis that the VMS is a "visual code". You should explain how you intend to handle that problem.
  
  

  Quote:I only ask for fair play.

  
  People have  posted strong objections to my claims on other threads.  I expect and welcome those criticisms.  If my claims are wrong, I want to know that as soon as possible.   My goal is to solve the VMS puzzle, not to promote "my" theories whether they are right or wrong.  
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  ololololo > 11-08-2026, 09:41 AM

  (11-08-2026, 06:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do you call him "Orem"? Is that how his name is rendered in Russian? (Like "Magalhães" is "Magellan" in English?)

  I apologize for the misunderstanding. In Russian, Oresme is Orem; it was simply more convenient for me to call it that
  

  (11-08-2026, 06:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, unfortunately I think that this conclusion is unavoidable when one has tried to transcribe a significant part the manuscript, or considers the large number of single-use "weirdo" glyphs and words. I discussed the possible sources of those errors in the proper threads. A large fraction of errors makes decipherment harder, but not impossible.

  I also don’t rule out the possibility of spelling errors, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to me that they are really a significant problem.
  

  (11-08-2026, 06:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Only the text of f116v, and perhaps the top line of f17r. And it was Latin script, yes, but the language was a mix of German and Latin, and half the words that he guessed were not valid in any language. That has its thread, too.

  Well, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is even more controversial than f116v. It’s generally unclear what this text was and what it was intended for. Someone says that this is the artist’s name.

  (11-08-2026, 06:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a diagram with 12 "moons" with faces several pages earlier

  Are these the phases of the Moon? Or something else related to the Moon? And why couldn’t the author simply depict the planets as spheres?
  

  (11-08-2026, 07:59 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And they're doing it in my thread—not in their own threads.

  Stolfi objects, I respond. It all started with the fact that I was having a conversation with you, but Stolphi intervened. Someone is very interested in the Oresme map
  

  (11-08-2026, 07:59 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I only ask for fair play.

  No problems

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 11-08-2026, 11:27 AM

  It is frustrating to have to debate with someone who doesn't read what I write and only wants to impose their point of view and inject it into every thread on the forum.
  
    Stolfi, I clearly recalled yesterday that the title of this thread—"visual code"—has nothing to do with the Voynich imagery, but rather with the script, because I conceive of the glyphs as icons—graphic symbols. But it seems you haven't grasped it, even though I've repeated it over the years.
  
     If you disagree with what I write, you can simply say so briefly and refer back to the arguments you’ve made in your threads. There is no need to repeat your ideas, as I—and everyone else on the forum—already know them.
  
      As for you, ololololo, once you've been on the forum for three years, maybe you'll write something original and I'll take an interest in it.
  
     Koen, as a moderator, I ask you once again to ensure fair play and clear rules.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  tavie > 11-08-2026, 11:58 AM

  Everyone, a gentle nudge:  please keep your comments or criticism specific to Antonio's theory.  I can see it did start that way and it's not easy to tell when things start veering off, both in general and in this specific case.  
  
  But if 
  

  • i) you've got a point that you're not specifically addressing to Antonio but to another person and 
    
  • ii) it's the type of point that is likely to lead to a lot of back and forth involving that other person
    

  
  then that's a sign it is at higher risk of derailing the thread, so it may be better to consider another thread.  In this case, probably the Chinese thread, if Jorge is content with that.
  
  This often isn't easy to call, especially when there's no obvious sign that the point is off topic, so please use your judgement and be kind to one another.  
  
  We also do have the one thread-per-theory rule.  This absolutely should not stop anyone from disagreeing with Antonio and pointing out any assumptions he is making where there might be alternate explanations, but there needs to be a balance and if in doubt, flesh out the point in your own theory thread.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Jorge_Stolfi > 11-08-2026, 12:47 PM

  (11-08-2026, 11:27 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Stolfi, I clearly recalled yesterday that the title of this thread—"visual code"—has nothing to do with the Voynich imagery, but rather with the script, because I conceive of the glyphs as icons—graphic symbols. But it seems you haven't grasped it, even though I've repeated it over the years.

  
  My apologies.  Indeed I thought that by "visual code" you meant that the text had no meaning and all the meaning was hidden in the images.  That is what I though when you said that the "nymphs" did not represent human beings but stars.
  
  (And  have been on this forum for only a year. I cannot keep track of every one's theory.  Especially the theories that I think are wrong.) 
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  ololololo > 11-08-2026, 12:52 PM

  (11-08-2026, 11:58 AM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Everyone, a gentle nudge:  please keep your comments or criticism specific to Antonio's theory.  I can see it did start that way and it's not easy to tell when things start veering off, both in general and in this specific case.  
  
  But if 
  

  • i) you've got a point that you're not specifically addressing to Antonio but to another person and 
    
  • ii) it's the type of point that is likely to lead to a lot of back and forth involving that other person
    

  
  then that's a sign it is at higher risk of derailing the thread, so it may be better to consider another thread.  In this case, probably the Chinese thread, if Jorge is content with that.
  
  This often isn't easy to call, especially when there's no obvious sign that the point is off topic, so please use your judgement and be kind to one another.  
  
  We also do have the one thread-per-theory rule.  This absolutely should not stop anyone from disagreeing with Antonio and pointing out any assumptions he is making where there might be alternate explanations, but there needs to be a balance and if in doubt, flesh out the point in your own theory thread.

  I apologize, but my primary goal here is to find arguments from Antonio himself. Stolfi felt he needed to clarify that the diagram I provided (provided AS AN EXAMPLE, not to convince Antonio that I’m right) is an Oresme map.
  The only thing I wanted was criticism and feedback from Antonio. I discussed his theory, but Stolfi apparently needs to assert his own point of view as well.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 11-08-2026, 01:23 PM

  Thanks, tavie, for bringing some order to the debate.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Gregor > 11-08-2026, 04:33 PM

  (28-07-2026, 07:03 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In 2011, the husband-and-wife team of Lincoln Taiz and Sandra Lee—renowned plant biology researchers—published an article in a specialized American journal in which they interpreted the images from Quire 13 of the Voynich manuscript as a plant physiological process. It was the first time an alternative interpretation had emerged for this mysterious section of the Voynich.
  
    This interpretation has the merit of linking the section of female figures with the herbal. For these authors, the naked women could represent the soul of the plant, and the green color, the sap flowing through the plant's vessels.
  
    My interpretation differs in that I believe the female figures are the personification of astral influence; as for the color green—while I do not rule out the possibility that it represents water—I am increasingly inclined to view it as the vital force of the cosmos that gives the plant world its color.
  
     Hildegard of Bingen called viriditas to the force of nature, the sap flowing in plants, the regreening power of the cosmos, and ultimately of God. Setting aside theological aspects, an author like Albertus Magnus—steeped in Aristotelian philosophy—maintained that for a seed to awaken and produce green leaves, it needs to be animated by heat, light, and the movement of the celestial spheres.

  
  What I find particularly interesting is the question of the green fluid. Your reference to Hildegard of Bingen’s viriditas opens up a much broader possibility of interpretation than simple plant physiology. For me, this leads to a rather extraordinary association with The Matrix, the film by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. They made a brilliant conceptual shortcut there: the reality we perceive as material turns out to be, in essence, information encoded in a particular system. Interestingly, this code is represented precisely as flowing green characters. For the viewer, these characters have virtually no linguistic meaning. The point is not to read and translate them. Their function is to communicate one thing: behind the reality we observe, there is a hidden layer of information.
  
  And this is where I see a very intriguing similarity to the text of the Voynich Manuscript. The mysterious green elements in The Matrix and the equally mysterious letters of the Voynich Manuscript may, hypothetically, serve a similar function: not to convey information through the meaning of individual characters, but through the very fact that these characters exist, indicating the presence of a hidden information system. If the green fluid in the Voynich Manuscript does not represent merely water or plant sap, but - as you suggest in connection with Hildegard - a vital force permeating nature, we can ask an even more radical question: could it be a symbol of the flow of information, energy, or even a kind of “code” that animates the world being depicted?
  
  And this brings me to my fundamental hypothesis concerning the text of the Voynich Manuscript. Perhaps this text does not “mean” anything in the classical linguistic sense. Its function may simply be to communicate one fundamental message to the reader: you are looking at a system belonging to another order of communication - a world of information, a digital model of reality, a kind of “mind” or information cloud. If this is the case, then attempts to decipher the Voynich Manuscript using purely analog methods - as a medieval language, cipher, herbal, or ordinary text - may simply be a waste of time. Perhaps we are trying to “translate” something that was never meant to be translated.
  
  The illustrations are the most important element. It is there that the true semiotic meaning of the entire manuscript may be hidden. The text would then function more like an interface or a signal telling us that we are dealing with a different system of encoding, while the plants, figures, fluids, diagrams, stars, and the relationships between them would constitute the actual information structure.
  
  And this is where Hildegard becomes particularly interesting. I am obviously not claiming that she knew about a “digital world” in the modern sense. What interests me is the mechanism itself: an invisible form of information or principle of reality is represented through visions, symbols, and images. Hildegard lived in the 12th century, while the Voynich Manuscript was created several centuries later. If my hypothesis is correct, it is therefore conceivable that the Voynich Manuscript was also a kind of message intended not so much for people of its own time, but for a future reader who would eventually possess the appropriate way of interpreting it.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Rafal > 12-08-2026, 11:59 AM

  Quote:For these authors, the naked women could represent the soul of the plant, and the green color, the sap flowing through the plant's vessels.

  
  

  Quote:What I find particularly interesting is the question of the green fluid. Your reference to Hildegard of Bingen’s viriditas opens up a much broader possibility of interpretation than simple plant physiology. For me, this leads to a rather extraordinary association with The Matrix, the film by Lana and Lilly Wachowski.

  
  Let me present my perspective on it, actually a very mundane one.
  
  The water in Voynich Manuscript is green probably because it was so in De Balneis Puteolanis and was copied from it:
  
  
  And why was it green in De Balneis?
  Because it was the style of Petrus de Eboli, the man who made De Balneis. The original of De Balneis is lost but we have another book of him, Liber ad Honorem Augusti where he uses a very limited palette of colours, with lot of green. We can assume the original De Balneis was also made this way which was then reproduced to most copies of it:
  
  
  Matrix, one the other hand, has green letters running because early monitors often had monochrone green display and this is a referrence to it. And they had green display due to technical reasons because they flickered less this way. You can google the detail if you want.
  
  So I would say green colour in both Voynich Manuscript and Matrix are both a bit random events and I wouldn't seek for any deeper, especially spiritual meaning in it.
• Next Oldest Next Newest