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Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

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• Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  R. Sale > 24-11-2024, 08:15 PM

  (24-11-2024, 11:16 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (24-11-2024, 12:54 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unfortunately a fact that providing more details makes any proposal more susceptible to criticism.

  
  In my opinion, it is good that providing more detail makes a theory more susceptible to criticism. A theory should be subject to criticism as much specific criticism as possible. Theories should be challenged at every point and every detail and every argument to see how strong they really are. A theory may on the whole be good, but even then some details may be wrong and need to be correct or challenged. If others don't challenge a theory it is the obligation of the theorist to perform this process of challenge and counter-argument to their own theory.
  
  It is a grueling and painful process having one's theory criticised, but it is precisely necessary to do so.
  
  So I would reiterate that in my opinion:
  
  It is "fortunately" a fact that providing more details makes any proposal more susceptible to criticism.

  
  Failure to provide detail makes any proposal more susceptible to superficial dismissal. Providing details opens more opportunities for investigation into the validity of the proposed interpretation. Providing details starts the discussion and the details will stand of fall according to their merit, if we are good investigators.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 24-11-2024, 08:21 PM

  (24-11-2024, 08:15 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Failure to provide detail makes any proposal more susceptible to superficial dismissal. Providing details opens more opportunities for investigation into the validity of the proposed interpretation. Providing details starts the discussion and the details will stand of fall according to their merit, if we are good investigators.

  
  I completely agree with this point. We should expect as much detail as possible from our theories and theorists. It provides more of a basis for comparing those theories. We shouldn't shy away from this.
  
  The more fully detailed theories the better.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 24-11-2024, 08:27 PM

  I remember a conversation that I had with someone about song writing and he said that it is easy to start writing a song you can come up with a few chords, a few words, a melody, but finishing it is the hard part. And I think the same can apply to a Voynich theory. Finding a theory which might explain 2 or 3 details of page may be easy, but pushing yourself hard to explain every detail is hard that really tests a theory maybe to breaking point.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  R. Sale > 24-11-2024, 09:01 PM

  Where does it say that every detail has to be relevant? I don't see the VMs artistry operating in that manner. The VMs has an inner reality, but it is operating behind a façade. So, if the detail examined is part of the façade, it is not going to make much sense in relation to the underlying motivations. And it is further demonstrable that the VMs artist employed such trickery as a code shift in the cosmos or duality on White Aries.
  
  What seems to work best is when the details can be shown to be grounded in historical reality.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 24-11-2024, 10:02 PM

  (24-11-2024, 09:01 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Where does it say that every detail has to be relevant?

  
  I think every detail has a reason behind it. There was a reason why the author chose to illustrate that detail. They made a conscious decision to illustrate this or that thing in each instance where a detail is large enough not to be an inadvertent mark or smudge.
  
  When you ask if every detail has to be relevant? I think this is a interesting question regarding the mindset of the author. If there are a significant number of irrelevant details it might imply that the author had somewhat scattered thinking where they drew many images for no reason. I tend to doubt the author as someone prone to random doodling, although perhaps we do see evidence of doodling on the very last page f116v.
  
  I am inclined to the view that the author(s) was an intelligent and thoughtful and purposeful person as opposed to a maniac making random drawings. Now, this is a psychological assumption about the author. I think the evidence of the Voynich manuscript as a work in itself supports that assumption.
  
  I think we should look for the relevance in every detail and work on the basis that there is some basis to them. Although, I would agree that there must certainly be some artistic motivation. Though the Voynich is not a work of beauty given it has been called an "ugly duckling", fairly I think, so I don't think artistic consideration figure so high in the authors' motivation. The Voynich to me looks like a scrapy pseudo-scientific notebook not an artistic production, so I think the relevance of the content figures quite importantly. I do except that drawings such as those of the nymphs and people served some kind of artistic purpose.
  
  Clearly, some details are much more important than others which is often reflected in their size. So some details may be necessary details whilst others might be nice additions.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 25-11-2024, 08:59 AM

  (22-11-2024, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[What I'm saying is that accounting for all the details doesn't necessarily make a theory any better. If memory serves, Michelle and Keagan account for quite a number of details for the rosettes page, but they think it's a uterus. I'm sure that if they allowed themselves a bit more leeway and studied more gynecological texts, they could eventually link everything on the page to things that have been written in the Middle Ages about the female reproductive system. If eventually they take in more details than you do, does that make them the winner? There surely have to be other criteria.

  
  I haven't been able to locate a free copy of their theory though I have requested one on ResearchGate. However as far as I am concerned the more detailed they can make their theory the better. The more detailed it is, the more scope for analysis and critique. If they find that they are unable to explain many of the details then it could be a sign that there are problems with the theory.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 25-11-2024, 09:15 AM

  (22-11-2024, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another issue is that the more details one forces into one's theory, the more entrenched this theory becomes.

  That is true. However I think it is not a good argument against having more detailed theories. On that basis one might conclude that the fewer details a theory addresses the better the theory. So the best theory would then always be the null-theory, which is the theory that says nothing. It is a completely unbiased theory. However, a null-theory is also completely useless. The minute you state one detail you make the theory slightly entrenched. So, the moment you create the hypothesis that the page is "Holy Jerusalem" the theory has already become a bit entrenched and prone to confirmation bias. So, I would restate that I don't see this as a good argument for having less detailed theories.
  
  I don't think we should "force" details into our theory. However, I do think we should force our theories to contend with and address details and not ignore them. I think the theorist needs to acknowledge all the details and then suggest the best possible explanations for those details that they see or state that they cannot think of an explanation for a given detail. Pretending that awkward details are not there is no good for a theory.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 25-11-2024, 09:22 AM

  (22-11-2024, 04:58 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So rather than encouraging people to engage in this activity, I'd rather tell them to be wary.

  I think people should always be wary and the more conscious that they are of the possibility of confirmation bias in their theory and the more prepared to be introspective in asking themselves if they are guilty of confirmation bias the better.
  
  However, I think they also need to be prepared to be bold in advancing new theories and following their theory through to their conclusions and implications. There is always the risk of loss of face in sticking one's neck out in advancing a theory, but we need theories and so we need them to be put forward so that they can be analysed.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 25-11-2024, 05:16 PM

  (23-11-2024, 09:47 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, there is clearly a great disagreement among researchers about what makes an argument strong when it comes to interpreting these images.

  Well, I think one important question when it comes to image interpretation is the problem of seeing a similarity between two images or two things when there is no connection.
  Referring to the rosettes folio as I am example I know well. On first viewing we can see drawings of circles. As everyone knows a circle is a very common mathematical shape, so we can associate a myriad of different things with circles. Circles could represent planets for example. But I think we should be most careful when making associations between very common/simple shapes or patterns.
  Nick Pelling associates in his book "The Curse of the Voynich" the "domes" in the central rosette with the "domes" of St. Marks Cathedral in Venice. There is clearly is a similarity there. But I personally tend to put that down to a chance similarity as many other aspects of the drawing that go against that connection it appears to me.
  
  Koen: I was very impressed by the work that you did on the astrological drawings in the centre of each of the zodiac folios as I felt that you had demonstrated enough of a similarity to make a connection very likely. With a lot of illustration comparisons that people make it is much less clear as to whether they are chance coincidental similarities or geninue connections. I personally view the parallels that you find with illustrations in your "Holy Jerusalem" theory much less striking that those zodiac image comparisons, which to the extent that there are visual similarities they seem to me as though they could easily be accounted for by chance similarities.

• RE: Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

  Mark Knowles > 25-11-2024, 05:37 PM

  Koen: I think we also have to be careful making simple numerical comparisons. As examples, your talk about the number 12 in one place and the number 4 in another in your rosettes theory. As with simple mathematical shapes, certain small mathematical numbers can be found is so many different contexts that it is easy to find a parallel. There were 12 disciples and there are 12 months in a year etc. If one finds oneself dealing with less common numbers like 37 or 42 then one might find a parallel, but with numbers like the 6 "domes"/objects in the central rosette as I mentioned before it is hard to determine what the significance of there being 6 of them might be. That is why I don't tend to spend time trying to read much meaning into small numbers; there may be a meaning with them, but it hard to tell.
  
  The problem again with the visual shapes like the "*"s is that they are so simple that they could be anything or nothing and so it is easy to find a false connection.
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