Re: VMs: could it not be a hoax (I would like it not to be it)

[Gordon Rugg <g.rugg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think the important question is _whether_ the VMS could have been hoaxed, not who
might have hoaxed it. There are good arguments for a late fifteenth century Italian
hoaxer; for Kelley; and for Voynich himself.

I don't think that physical examination of the VMS is likely to help much with this
question.If the vellum or ink were shown to date from significantly after 1586, then
that would eliminate a lot of possible explanations, and would strongly suggest a
modern hoax. However, this doesn't appear likely - there's a lot of evidence
suggesting that the VMS dates from 1470-1586, and no solid evidence (as far as I
know) suggesting a later date. A date of 1470-1586 is consistent with all the main
theories about what the VMS might be, so it doesn't help us a lot.

We can more or less rule out the possibility that the VMS is a non-encoded exotic
language whose words correspond to Voynichese word breaks, since no natural language
shows the more exotic features of Voynichese. We can also rule out the usual ciphers
used up till 1586 - the crypto people have already (I presume!) checked for all of
those, and found none.

That still leaves a variety of possibilities, including the following:
1: a natural language whose syllables correspond to Voynichese "words" (e.g. the
Chinese hypothesis)
2: an encoded form of a natural language not widely spoken in Europe 1470-1586, and
therefore not yet investigated by cryptographers
3: an unusual cypher (or an ordinary cypher concealed in a lot of gibberish)
4: a hoax

What I think we ought to be asking is whether we can exclude any of those
possibilities. I think that (1) and (2) don't fit well with a variety of evidence,
and that some well-chosen research questions would probably eliminate them. For
instance, as Nick Pelling and others have pointed out, there isn't much
schematisation in the botanical section - you don't find the sort of regular phrases
and words that you see repeatedly in a normal herbal of this period. A bit of
content analysis on ordinary herbals would give a set of figures which could then be
compared with the VMS. There are presumably other questions which could narrow down
the cryptographic possibilities - any takers on that?

Best wishes,

Gordon

Mart Vabar wrote:

> On Mon, 19 May 2003, Gordon Rugg wrote:
>
> > key question is what type of evidence would either disprove the hoax
> > hypothesis, or show that it is the most reasonable explanation for the
> > VMS.
> > Best wishes,
> > Gordon
>
> *       Do we have any modern physical examination of VMS in Yale?
> *       V. an people around him traded actively with antiquities, when the
> Komintern bluff was subscribed (for british elections), this
> group executed it.
> *       Whence all there money?
> *       Once more: (probably with help of provocations) V. - like many people
> of this era - was expelled to Siberia. Every jail - probably in the past more
> than today - is an university of crime. I suppose, he with some frends began to
> counterfeit documents to help persecuted people. But then, the Parkinson's Law
> was not yet published (and the old Chinamen, telling the same without humor,
> unknown for most) - so they decided to fight against "system", not against the
> crimes it committed. To fight even with help of crimes. But sorry, I lost the
> thread...
> *       Well, this is not "hard evidence" - if somebody in Yale looks at VMS and
> says: not only paper is old, but the WRITING is old, then we could be happy...
> *       Alas, such things probably dont arise from nothing and - do we have
> anything of similar in medieval or antique world?
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
> unsubscribe vms-list

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list