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Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
- Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
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RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
Koen G > 21-09-2023, 08:06 PM
(21-09-2023, 05:52 PM)merrimacga Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I hesitated to add to this discussion. Is it possible that part of the reason we're not seeing more research and more discoveries on the VM is that the research is being done deliberately away from the public forums?
This might also be the case, though by definition we don't quite know if there is actually an increase in secret research
One thing that is for sure is that the blogosphere reader used to be a much more lively affair. Now there are rare posts from people like Marco and myself, and perhaps the hope that Nick Pelling might find his Voynich spark again. Personally I used to write blogposts much more frequently, but those posts were also of lower quality. I mean, it is fairly easy to write speculative stuff, but in combination with real life obligations, actual research is a time consuming hobby.
One thing to keep in mind is that the community of really active and public Voynich researchers is always relatively small, so the decrease or increase of activity by a few individuals can already have an effect on appearances.
I am kind of still hoping something like the Malta conference will be held every other year or so. This would be an excellent way to continue the production and sharing of quality research. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
R. Sale > 22-09-2023, 04:37 AM
As an additional aspect regarding the VMs illustrations, much of the "low-hanging fruit" has already been picked - to the extent that *any* such fruits ever existed. Such items from the VMs cosmos and the VMs mermaid to Sagittarius' hat, the cosmic spindle and a number of other topics have essentially been well examined and seem to have adequate, working explanations. Further progress, therefore, seems to be more difficult and to move more slowly.
The advantage is that many of these prior discoveries have been shown to be mutually compatible within the VMs C-14 dates and this provides a prospective basis for the evaluation of further investigations. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
ReneZ > 22-09-2023, 03:39 PM
(21-09-2023, 05:52 PM)merrimacga Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I hesitated to add to this discussion. Is it possible that part of the reason we're not seeing more research and more discoveries on the VM is that the research is being done deliberately away from the public forums?
I have no doubt that the vast majority of work and research related to the Voynich MS is done outside of the public forums. I am also quite sure that this has been the case for many, many years, and it has just been gradually increasing since the 1990's, when the Voynich mailing list was the single representative of Voynich MS research.
The list of memorable publications coming 'out of nowhere' is very long. Much longer than any results coming from active forum participants.
More generally on this topic, I am not so sure that there is any slow-down. It has always been slow, and valuable new insights have always been incidental. It is becoming more and more difficult to fully grasp all the available results and statistics, and to build onto them, and possibly there is significant progress, but it is not fully recognised. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
R. Sale > 22-09-2023, 06:28 PM
If you want to see how things *really* have changed, take a look at this old description of the VMs cosmos.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
And compare this with the discussions and interpretations that have been developed subsequent to the 2014 discovery of the connection with the cosmic illustrations found in BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334. The old discussion knows nothing of Oresme, de Metz, or the texts' production provenance, nothing of Shirakatsi's wheel, or the nebuly line and its 43 undulations.
It's not Newbold's cosmos (Andromeda) anymore. However, if these discoveries by various investigators are combined, they reveal a level of relevant, medieval information unseen in the old description.
First, there is the recognition of what is being presented, as seen and potentially known from the medieval perspective, not as things that are unrecognized -and therefore nonexistent - from the modern perspective.
Second, there is the question of why things were presented this way. There is an incongruous combination in the VMs cosmos. There are dual orientations in VMs White Aries. There are dual personalities in the VMs mermaid. There is a certain degree of subtle sophistication in the duality, ambiguity and trickery involved in these illustrations and there is more to be revealed. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
Torsten > 22-09-2023, 11:24 PM
In my eyes the research method is at least as important as the research results. Starting point for my research was the idea that it is necessary to find a way to limit the amount of text to look at. My idea was to check only words occurring exactly 7 or 8 times in the VMS (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 13). This approach allowed a detailed examination for all the selected word instances. At the same time, there is no reason to believe that these words behave differently from any others, since they represent a representative sample.
The first pattern I was able to spot is the following one: One word that exists only 8 times in the VMS is the word 'dsheey' (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and one word with seven occurrences is the word 'dalam' (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). The word 'dsheey' exists in seven out of eight instances at the start of a line and the word 'dalam' exists in six out of seven cases at the end of a line. This way it was possible to find characteristic patterns in the Voynich text and in the end to reconstruct the text generation method behind the Voynich text (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
Mark Knowles > 22-09-2023, 11:55 PM
(22-09-2023, 11:24 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At the same time, there is no reason to believe that these words behave differently from any others, since they represent a representative sample.
I question this statement. How are they a representative sample of the whole text? Surely by the process of selection of any kind you introduce a bias.
I want to agree with you, but your research method seems very problematic. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
Torsten > 23-09-2023, 04:04 AM
(22-09-2023, 11:55 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(22-09-2023, 11:24 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At the same time, there is no reason to believe that these words behave differently from any others, since they represent a representative sample.
I question this statement. How are they a representative sample of the whole text? Surely by the process of selection of any kind you introduce a bias.
I want to agree with you, but your research method seems very problematic.
I said that they form a representative subset for the word types and not that they are representative for the text.
Since I checked all the words occurring 7 and 8 times in the Takahashi transcription there was simply no degree of freedom on my side to introduce any bias in selecting specific words. Per definition the words occurring 7 and 8 times are overrepresented in this sample. But this is known and if you believe that words occurring 7 and 8 times in the Voynich text behave differently you can repeat the sampling method by choosing different numbers. Keep in mind that the sampling method was only used to search for patterns. In the end I checked the patterns found against the complete set of words. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
Mark Knowles > 23-09-2023, 06:00 AM
(23-09-2023, 04:04 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(22-09-2023, 11:55 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(22-09-2023, 11:24 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At the same time, there is no reason to believe that these words behave differently from any others, since they represent a representative sample.
I question this statement. How are they a representative sample of the whole text? Surely by the process of selection of any kind you introduce a bias.
I want to agree with you, but your research method seems very problematic.
I said that they form a representative subset for the word types and not that they are representative for the text.
Since I checked all the words occurring 7 and 8 times in the Takahashi transcription there was simply no degree of freedom on my side to introduce any bias in selecting specific words. Per definition the words occurring 7 and 8 times are overrepresented in this sample. But this is known and if you believe that words occurring 7 and 8 times in the Voynich text behave differently you can repeat the sampling method by choosing different numbers. Keep in mind that the sampling method was only used to search for patterns. In the end I checked the patterns found against the complete set of words.
I question whether "they form a representative subset for the word types". By selecting only those occurring 7 and 8 times you introduce some bias. I believe that words occurring 7 and 8 times in the Voynich text behave differently from words occurring at some other frequencies. I would be curious as to what your results say for words that occur 1 time in the Voynich text. -
RE: Ideas for Moving Voynich Research Forward
ReneZ > 23-09-2023, 07:02 AM
(22-09-2023, 11:24 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The word 'dsheey' exists in seven out of eight instances at the start of a line and the word 'dalam' exists in six out of seven cases at the end of a line.
Even though these are still relatively small numbers for reliable statistics, these two observations are undoubtledly significant, and they are an excellent example of what I wrote before:
(22-09-2023, 03:39 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is becoming more and more difficult to fully grasp all the available results and statistics, and to build onto them,
If I ever knew this feature, then I had certainly forgotten about it, until Patrick Feaster showed one of his slides at the Malta conference, related to Quire 20.
There is a highly significant thing at work there, and we don't know the explanation yet.
I see opportunities for progress exactly where there are odd statistics that lack an explanation.
(This is all about progress related to understanding the text, of course. There has never been a lack of progress in other areas).