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• RE: On purpose

  Mark Knowles > 03-08-2020, 12:09 AM

  (02-08-2020, 11:57 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (02-08-2020, 02:31 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  What you have said surely just reinforces my point.
  

  
  
  Well, being a musician, I know this. But what I've been trying to say for several posts is that intellectual curiosity and craft are not the same.
  
  Reading books (intellectual curiosity) is not the same as writing books.
  
  There is WORK involved in getting to the finish line or to the part that is pleasurable. In other words, there is, in a sense, a cost-benefit balance in what is pleasurable. How much pain and repetition and annoyance is a person willing to endure to get to the part that is pleasurable? This varies greatly from person-to-person and considering that most of the world consists of viewers rather than doers, consumers rather than creators, I would say that most people don't feel it's worth the trouble. Intellectual curiosity is more common than learning the skills to tackle a big project.

  
  I understand that intellectual curiosity and craft are not the same thing, that's obvious, but my point is that the first can be, as sometimes it is, the motivation for the second; I am sure Copernicus would agree.
  
  Basically, I don't disagree with what you have written and it doesn't contradict my assertion.
  
  My assertion is that intellectual pleasure could have been the primary motivation for writing the Voynich. Of course, writing the manuscript was very difficult, but many people do very difficult things for pleasure. And if you are someone of means and intelligence choosing to write such a manuscript seems to me perfectly understandable.

• RE: On purpose

  DONJCH > 03-08-2020, 01:48 AM

  Helmut already made a similar point but some put the start of the Renaissance in the 14thC and regard it as an extension of the middle ages. This according to that unarguable source, Wikipedia!

• RE: On purpose

  -JKP- > 03-08-2020, 01:59 AM

  The Renaissance didn't reach every part of Europe at the same time.
  
  I have to admit, I don't think in terms of Renaissance very often in connection with the VMS. The printing press, better optics, and other technologies were strong influences on the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. When you have books available to a larger percentage of the populace, and you have a telescope or microscope so you can SEE what is going on, it promotes a different kind of thinking than exists when you are looking backward to classical philosophies to understand the universe.
  
  Fashion always changes, young people don't want to dress like their grandparents, and technology changes it as well. Fashion changed quite a bit in the late 15th century and this was partly due to improved engineering: better sewing systems, better weaving frames, as well as better materials from countries that were farther away (which is partly because of better ships, better overland vehicles, and better navigation systems). The VMS fashion is consistent with the early 15th century. The VMS is handwritten, not printed. The pigments look like they are hand-mixed (and not very well in the case of the blues), not mechanically ground. Maybe it is as late as the mid-15th century, but nothing about it "feels" like mid-16th century or later.

• RE: On purpose

  ReneZ > 03-08-2020, 08:03 AM

  (02-08-2020, 06:54 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unquestionable that the Voynich was written during the Italian Renaissance.

  
  It was also written during the Ming Dynasty.

• RE: On purpose

  Helmut Winkler > 03-08-2020, 08:59 AM

  (02-08-2020, 08:34 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So the pendulum swings. Are we no longer allowed to think of the advent of print as revolutionary?

  
  You are allowed to think whatever you like, but the production  of books was soaring since the second half of the 14th c.,
  not Humanist or Renaissance books, but bibles, encyclopedias, entertainment, the things Gutenberg and bis successors
  printed, it was a leap in technology  like  the mass production of cars or computers in the 20th c

• RE: On purpose

  ReneZ > 03-08-2020, 11:06 AM

  (30-07-2020, 07:38 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A few quotes from Newton:
  
  "I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
  
  [font=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]“Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.”[/font]
  
  [font=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif][font=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]“Whence arises all that order and beauty we see in the world.”[/font][/font]
  
  [font=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif][font=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Those do not sound like the words of someone motivated solely by fame or money.[/font][/font]

  
  This shows that Newton had some literary capability and could be philosophical in the modern sense of the word.
  
  To understand the mentality of scientific progress in his times, it is worth reading about the problems of plagiarism, and the steps people took to be able to defend oneself, when accused of it. There are good books and articles, but a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  may suffice for the present purpose.
  
  These were not people doing things just as "an entertaining pastime".
  
  They might have felt good about what they achieved.

• RE: On purpose

  Mark Knowles > 03-08-2020, 05:43 PM

  (03-08-2020, 08:03 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (02-08-2020, 06:54 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unquestionable that the Voynich was written during the Italian Renaissance.

  
  It was also written during the Ming Dynasty.

  
  And if there was any suggestion that the manuscript might have Chinese origins or significant Chinese influences that would be very relevant.

• RE: On purpose

  ReneZ > 04-08-2020, 06:09 AM

  (03-08-2020, 05:43 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (03-08-2020, 08:03 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (02-08-2020, 06:54 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unquestionable that the Voynich was written during the Italian Renaissance.

  
  It was also written during the Ming Dynasty.

  
  And if there was any suggestion that the manuscript might have Chinese origins or significant Chinese influences that would be very relevant.

  
  There have been several such suggestions, but that still does not make it relevant.
  We also have a very clear statement from an art historian that the Voynich MS shows no sign of the Italian Renaissance.
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