DonaldFisk > Yesterday, 11:45 PM
(13-09-2025, 05:52 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Keep in mind that the VMS was produced by a human scribe, not by a computer program. A 15th-century writer could not have executed an algorithm that randomly deletes or inserts letters, since neither computers nor random number generators were available to him. (Siedenote: Someone from the 15th-century wouldn't even understand the concept of randomness. The word "random" originated in Old French as randon, meaning "speed" or "force," and entered English around the early 14th century, referring to haste or violence. The modern statistical meaning, implying equal chances for all outcomes, emerged in the late 19th century.) Instead, the scribe relied on visual recognition and cognitive processes: scanning the text for source words and applying intuitive modifications. In such a context, it is far more natural to substitute glyphs with visually similar ones than to introduce or remove glyphs at random.
magnesium > Today, 12:27 AM
(Yesterday, 11:45 PM)DonaldFisk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(13-09-2025, 05:52 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Keep in mind that the VMS was produced by a human scribe, not by a computer program. A 15th-century writer could not have executed an algorithm that randomly deletes or inserts letters, since neither computers nor random number generators were available to him. (Siedenote: Someone from the 15th-century wouldn't even understand the concept of randomness. The word "random" originated in Old French as randon, meaning "speed" or "force," and entered English around the early 14th century, referring to haste or violence. The modern statistical meaning, implying equal chances for all outcomes, emerged in the late 19th century.) Instead, the scribe relied on visual recognition and cognitive processes: scanning the text for source words and applying intuitive modifications. In such a context, it is far more natural to substitute glyphs with visually similar ones than to introduce or remove glyphs at random.
They had card games back then - in fact card games first appeared in Europe a few decades before the Voynich Manuscript was made. Card games, in order to be fair, require shuffling before dealing hands. They also, of course, had dice.
I'm not saying that words were generated by repeatedly throwing dice or dealing cards from a shuffled deck, but the VMs scribes would have been aware of at least those two methods of generating random numbers.
Mauro > 6 hours ago
(Yesterday, 11:45 PM)DonaldFisk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.They had card games back then - in fact card games first appeared in Europe a few decades before the Voynich Manuscript was made. Card games, in order to be fair, require shuffling before dealing hands. They also, of course, had dice.
I'm not saying that words were generated by repeatedly throwing dice or dealing cards from a shuffled deck, but the VMs scribes would have been aware of at least those two methods of generating random numbers.