character counts for herbal section

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce,

My immediate sense is that there is some
duplication in character form that does not
initially show up in smaller sections of text.
The G/picnic table combination has two styles, one
with a full looped G and one with no leading loop.
My sense is that these are the same character.
When an N occurs at the end of a word, it has a
tail, but when one occurs in the middle of a word
without a tail, is it a different character or
still an N?  Why do they both show up only on
pages where the terminal N shows up, and is this
always true?  An M sometimes has connectivity
between its parts, but when it doesn't I have been
calling it a separate character.  I feel this is
wrong, but it is easier to make a global change
later than to have to go back and check the entire
book to add a character.  I currently use 36
characters for encoding as a precaution, and I
think I could probably dump about 10 or so through
analysis.

I think it's interesting that new characters are
only introduced on the "nocturnal time-piece".  I
read an earlier posting where someone thought
these might be actually related to zodiac signs,
(I'd say more probably certain stars in a zodiac
sign).  I don't remember who sent the post, but I
think it was a pretty good call, and in line with
my own observations as to the meaning of this
diagram.

As I said earlier, it is very necessary to
evaluate these patterns and determine the actual
unit of character.  Only then will you be able to
produce meaningful numbers and begin to understand
the hidden patterns within the text.
Unfortunately I don't believe this discussion can
take place in a text-only medium like this list,
and I've pretty much taken to PDF files to handle
my script fonts, where a picture is worth more
than 1,000 words.

I have the herbal section just about verified, and
I will chart out the character usage in a table
and add it to this section in a PDF file sometime
this week.  The embedded Voynich-GC font takes up
about 100k, so I'll post the file somewhere on the
net where it can be accessed by interested
parties.

I think there's a way of statistically determining
what a character unit is, what is a valid unique
as opposed to a simple variant.  (I've been
striving to eliminate variants for some time, but
hindered by the poor quality of the copyflo.
Fortunately this last year or so has made
available approximately half of the VMS in image
format, which allows much more reliable
verification.)  We already know by the "key
sequence" strings that the characters involved are
individual units, and IF I'm correct about the
nocturnal time-piece, we might even have some
initial position assignments for some of these
units of text.

(Again I am sorry I don't remember who sent the
message, but my system automatically archives and
I usually don't take the trouble to open archives
and search them.)  Anyhow, someone posted an
example of a message board that accepts font
values.  I purchased a lifetime license for a
DISCUSWARE message board because it allows these
fonts and also allows encoding for complicated
tables, etc., but I never actually found a use for
the system on the internet.  I have no copies
currently running, and I'm allowed to have one
copy running under the license, so if anyone is
interested and has a fairly large website that
accepts CGI Scripting, I'd consider allowing this
system to be installed on their site under my paid
license for Voynich use.  The board can be divided
into sections, topics, etc., with settings for
each section, like public, private list only, read
but not post, you name it.  (As well as lockout
for the kiddies and immoderate posters such as
myself).  Various individuals can be assigned
passwords to modify and change only certain
sections... well, it has a lot of features, and
they're being updated all the time.  There are
color selections, font selections, bolds and
italics, tables and bulleted list selections, and
even emoticons, and a variety of presentation
"skins".  You can preview this at
http://www.discusware.com/discus/index.php.  One
of my favorite simpler "skins" is viewable at
http://www.zodiackiller.com/messageboard/messages/
board-topics.html.  The free version is always
available, but the license grants certain add-ins
and updates not available in the free-ware
software, to include spell-checkers and a variety
of content filters.

This is a very good middle ground for those who
are frustrated with the UNIX-Vision of monospaced,
mono-typed text adhered to by those who go
ballistic every time you forget and leave your
e-mail set to HTML.  It's time these people
actually went out and bought themselves a decent
operating system, one that accepts HTML encoding.
we're already into 3rd generation XML, for Bill
Gate's sake, with an entire language of front-end
extensions!  Is 9 year old BASIC HTML too much to
ask from a Messaging Site in the year 2002?  (I
haven't made any friends, but it sure felt good
saying that...  What good is the greatest aid to
communication in human history if it's stuck in
1980 Wang-Word-Processor Mode?)  [those I've
offended by openly advocating progress please
accept my apologies and go back to playing with
your Wang.]

And to that person who warned of being careful
what you read on the Internet, poo-pooing internet
research in general - you're not looking in the
right places, my friend.  EEBO has facsimiles of
25,000 books published before  1700, and Gallica
has another 75,000.  Add up all the other
libraries that have digitized collections
available and the only ones that are left out in
the cold are the die-hards like Yale, who still
consider our common human history fully
copyrightable.  Searching the Internet is not
something you should casually do with commercially
driven search engines I agree, but it can be a
very rewarding experience for the eager
researcher.

I've a keen interest in the final determination of
the character unit, and since I seem to be the
only one entirely geared to this purpose, I will
willingly make my transcription and alphabet
available.  All I have is presently in Microsoft
Access Database format, with multiple encoding,
including character, word, line and paragraph
information per folio.  Since this format is
universally translatable across platforms and
accessible from any programming language, it is a
good starting place.  I've tried to take all
necessary coding elements into account, but if
there's something missing it is something that can
usually be handled by a simple modifying routine
if necessary, and everything can be copied to a
file in any format that suits your particular
preferences.  We can even do TAR/GZ compression
for those who still live in the bronze age, but
the old CP/M translator won't run on Windows, so
there's no help for stone age dwellers.

I realize that I hold the extreme minority view
that this manuscript is solvable by reasonable and
traditional pursuit.  How I love to be reminded
that the "greatest" cryptologist in history tried
and failed, as if discovering the key to an
astrological cipher was that great and
insurmountable a mental feat.  Our imaginations
make this far more baffling that it should be.

Meanwhile, performing entropy calculations on pen
strokes certainly keeps the mind occupied, but
unless the entire 10,000 characters of the Chinese
language can be reduced to 23 or 24 distinct
character forms, this popular activity is of
little useful interest.  Dissecting the VMS into
an overly-extended "pronounceable" stroke alphabet
has given the linguists a medium for testing their
theories, and has provided a rather unique
analysis of the characters themselves.  (I have
admitted to use of the EVA Font to test
transcription, with mixed results.)  In two years
away from this project very little has been done
to define the actual character unit, and I shudder
every time I receive an e-mail from a newby
mentioning "dain daiin".  Both patterns are three
characters, not four or five, (8an and 8am).  Why
make life so difficult?

The standard argument is that we have no idea what
the language is or what constitutes a character.
On a scale of dung to crap I give that argument a
BS+.  You have hundreds of characters throughout
the manuscript standing all by themselves,
screaming "look at me, I'm a unit"!  You have
sequence after sequence, pattern after pattern,
and you still can't make up your mind?
Identifying units has nothing to do with language,
and it's pretty obvious that the standard
characteristics of language have been
systematically rendered unintelligible in the
first place.  Is a systematic masking a bad thing,
or a good thing?  I focus on the "systematic" as a
good thing, meaning there is some method or system
behind this to be discovered.  If you choose to
focus on the "unintelligible" as a bad thing, the
"system" has achieved it purpose and you're off
tallying pen strokes.

It is said that the VMS "CAN'T" be this or "CAN'T"
be that in the cipher realm.  It's true the modern
mind seeks chaos out of order, but that's mostly a
sign of our times, which lack structure and order.
Orderly Catholic teachings and systems were
redundant, and astrological systems under this
holistic scheme were highly redundant and easily
reduced to tabular form long before the
introduction of complicated logarithmic tables.
One can focus on what is different, or focus on
what fits the whole, and from each viewpoint draw
different conclusions on the same observation.

I'm not here to argue with those of different
minds this time around, as I believe we're both
entrenched enough that this is pointless.
Education and knowledge are personal experiences,
as exemplified by the fact that two people with
the same course of education and experience can
differ so much in philosophy and interpretation of
common evidence and current events.

This is not a competition with anyone in any
sense.  This is about pizza, and nothing else.
Pizza is the embodiment of the world, the mappa
mundi of culinary cuisine.  It is the sphere
terrestrial, planetary and celestial all hand-spun
into one, the vision of one Catholic system, one
body composed of a trinity of Huge slices.  It
incorporates animal, vegetable, mineral and
celestial, slowly cooked on the largest of the
Philosopher's Stones, hot and dry, yet moist and
aromatic, warm and cool to the taste in the same
instant.  The end is not the final solution to the
VMS, oh no.  This is only the means by which
Nervana is obtained.  I strive only for the Pizza.

GC