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Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
- Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
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Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
PatrickZ > Yesterday, 11:10 AM
Everyone wants to solve the Voynich Manuscript.
For centuries, countless people have claimed they already had the answer
— from Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, to Bavarian, Turkish, German, and many others. Yet none of these theories have achieved broad scholarly consensus.
So how do you rise above the noise?
How do you distinguish a genuine discovery from the endless stream of speculation, projection, fraud, and self-proclaimed breakthroughs?
That is the real challenge.
Human nature is a mixture of sincere curiosity and ambition. Some seek truth; others seek recognition, attention, or fame — even when they have not earned it.
In a field surrounded by mystery, the burden is not merely to claim a solution, but to demonstrate one with enough clarity, consistency, reproducibility, and evidence to survive scrutiny.
I know this is the right place to ask this question. I have seen genuine discussions here — some driven by ego, others by scientific curiosity and historical interest.
So I ask sincerely:
If someone truly believed they had identified a reproducible decoding framework for the manuscript, how should they present it responsibly while avoiding both sensationalism and premature dismissal?
Any thoughts? -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
oshfdk > Yesterday, 05:20 PM
Hi,
(Yesterday, 11:10 AM)PatrickZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So how do you rise above the noise?
How do you distinguish a genuine discovery from the endless stream of speculation, projection, fraud, and self-proclaimed breakthroughs?
That is the real challenge.
I don't think so. I think the real challenge is finding a solution that actually works. If you have a working reproducible solution and you are ready to share it, do share it and it won't get lost. The problem is not to find the right way of presenting it, the problem is to present something that actually works.
If the solution has any substance at all, there certainly will be some attempts at criticism initially, this is the way to test if the solution works.
Generally, if you publish something and there is no reaction at all, most likely there is nothing to react to.
(Yesterday, 11:10 AM)PatrickZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Everyone wants to solve the Voynich Manuscript.
Everyone!
I think I know more people who haven't even heard about the Voynich Manuscript than those who are willing to spend time on it. -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
Koen G > Yesterday, 05:39 PM
Using the phrase "a reproducible decoding framework" makes it sound like you're about to dump a truck of AI slop on us. -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
Rafal > Yesterday, 06:11 PM
Quote:How do you distinguish a genuine discovery from the endless stream of speculation, projection, fraud, and self-proclaimed breakthroughs?
Quote:I don't think so. I think the real challenge is finding a solution that actually works. If you have a working reproducible solution and you are ready to share it, do share it and it won't get lost. The problem is not to find the right way of presenting it, the problem is to present something that actually works.
It may be so or may be not so at all. If your solution is "unconventional" then it may be rejected by the mainstream people who often tend to be conservative.
It needed years so the solution of LinearB by Michael Ventris or Mayan hieroglyphs by Yuri Knorozov were accepted. -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
JoJo_Jost > Yesterday, 06:25 PM
And most people think they’ll somehow become famous - and they do, for a few days, until the story gets played out in the trade press and, at best, in the daily newspapers. If you’re good at self-promotion, you might even write a book about it, though the print run won’t make any money because it’s simply too small; you might land a few gigs, a few TV-Interviews, maybe even get paid. And then you disappear into oblivion through the back door of the press...
You become that sad figure who tells everyone, “Hey, I was the one who cracked the VMS back then.” The story that no one in your circle of acquaintances wants to hear anymore.
Eventually, you stop doing it... and die just like everyone else.
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RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
oshfdk > Yesterday, 06:29 PM
(Yesterday, 06:11 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It may be so or may be not so at all. If your solution is "unconventional" then it may be rejected by the mainstream people who often tend to be conservative.
It needed years so the solution of LinearB by Michael Ventris or Mayan hieroglyphs by Yuri Knorozov were accepted.
Maybe I misunderstood the question, but I think OP asked about how to draw proper attention to a solution and not get lost in the noise. Whether the solution is eventually accepted or not is a different story.
It can be that the best possible solution to the Voynich Manuscript has a good explanatory power, but not good enough to be accepted as the only right answer. So, in a sense, it may never be universally accepted, but still won't be rejected either. -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 11:30 PM
(Yesterday, 11:10 AM)PatrickZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So I ask sincerely: If someone truly believed they had identified a reproducible decoding framework for the manuscript, how should they present it responsibly while avoiding both sensationalism and premature dismissal?
If you indeed believe that you have found a solution, and have good evidence for it, you should not be too upset about premature dismissal of your announcement. If the solution is indeed correct, it will be eventually recognized as such. If it is wrong, you will be glad that no one paid attention to it.
Some VMS "researchers" apparently do not really believe their proposals, because they do not expect to actually solve the riddle. For them, it is enough that their solution is original and sounds plausible enough to provide the benefits of a true discovery -- media interviews, tube views, book sales, whatever. They of course care about prompt acceptance by "the masses": is the whole point of the game.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
tavie > Today, 12:15 AM
I won't ask 'who', since this could potentially be a libellous claim, and we'd have to lock the topic. But to the best of my memory, I can't think of any solver who I have ever thought might be knowingly scamming people like that. Some have acted in unpleasant ways and got themselves banned but I cannot recall ever having reason to doubt they sincerely held (and still hold) the belief that they are the one to pull the sword from the stone. -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
Jorge_Stolfi > 11 hours ago
(Today, 12:15 AM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I won't ask 'who', since this could potentially be a libellous claim, and we'd have to lock the topic. But to the best of my memory, I can't think of any solver who I have ever thought might be knowingly scamming people like that.
I can think of a few of them... And you may know one or two, if you think more over it...
Quote:Some have acted in unpleasant ways and got themselves banned but I cannot recall ever having reason to doubt they sincerely held (and still hold) the belief that they are the one to pull the sword from the stone.
They may have been honest at first. Like the guys who invented cold fusion, the chloroquine cure, homeopathy, biorhythm, the mile-deep spiral staircases under the Great Pyramid, the Stonehenge quarry, the Theranos blood analyzer... But when their inventions were debunked, they could not give up the fame and fortunes that they had achieved thanks to it. They embraced the fraud, and kept pushing their discoveries all the same...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Imagine waking up tomorrow with the solution to the Voynich Manuscript.
ReneZ > 7 hours ago
(Today, 12:15 AM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But to the best of my memory, I can't think of any solver who I have ever thought might be knowingly scamming people like that.
I think that I do, but it is just a suspicion, so I let it rest. Can only recommend that to everyone.
(Yesterday, 11:30 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the solution is indeed correct, it will be eventually recognized as such.
That is also my point of view.
However, the OP includes nothing that suggests that we have the real solution here.
I have been contacted by several people using LLM's to find Voynich solutions, who are already aware that these are not welcome here, and find this either wrong, unfair, or a scandalous use of censorship.
This OP post reads to me like someone in that group, who is trying to understand what to do next.
Or perhaps trying to get an exception (?)