RE: VMs: Can one "prove" a hoax?

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2/20/03 6:50:47 PM, "Don Latham" <djl@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 
> >I think that even a decyphered or decoded MS cannot
> be proven a hoax without
> >a study of the contents in context of the purported
> purpose of the MS (am I
> >saying this right, historians?). In other words,
> the rules for a valid
> >cipher may be satisfied, and the MS may yet be a
> hoax.
> 
> 
> In other words, it could be shown to be a hoax if
> its
> distributional properties were incompatible with a
> cipher,
> or a language. 
> 
> But they are.
> 
> So, it can be shown to be a hoax only once we have
> deciphered it.

Or, the original premise was wrong.

In fact, I am pretty sure that people have different
things in mind when they think of the meaning of
hoax.
Consider the following:
Mr. X takes the diary of his young daughter, and
converts it using a clever scheme into a text that 
looks quite magical, especially since he designs an 
elegant alphabet to write it all up.
Then he adds drawings of plants, stars and nymphs
and sells it to emperor R. pretending it is a
book of deep learning.

Obviously, this is a hoax.
However, for me it is something that we could 
decipher and the plaintext could be more or less
meaningful.

That's the bit I care about :-)

Cheers, Rene

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