Re: VMs: Ryland 228

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 01:16 20/05/2003 -0700, Dana Scott wrote:
> Yes, but who cares whether or not it is a hoax? Is that important?

For me, I think the hoaxing line of enquiry is interesting because it 
treats the VMS not as a semantic entity, but as a generatively syntactic 
entity.

Treating the (apparent) sequence of symbols we see from the point of view 
of its constructional methodology may well yield a parallel set of insights 
not easily accessible from generally semantic paradigms (like "words", 
which may well be suspect here).

FWIW, having been looking at a lot of postmodernist and poststructuralist 
papers recently (it's a long story...), I think that <semantic/syntactic> 
may be a dichotomy in need of radical deconstruction. Discuss! :-)

> If it is
> a hoax is it merely as an empty treasure chest or, if authentic, as a coffer
> full of gold? Is the value of the VMS whether or not it is identified as a
> hoax or has it stood fast the test of time and therefore become more that a
> complex knot to be severed in twain at the stroke of the sword?

Personally, I think that a definitive proof-of-hoax would need to 
demonstrate more than multi-level statistical similarity to the text (and 
an appropriately historically-sound methodology), or else it's merely 
correlation, even if the VMS is actually a hoax (ie, all you'd have proved 
is that you can hoax a hoaxed model of a hoax) - I think a "good" hoax 
model would need to be strong enough to make predictions about the real 
text and its construction that we don't already know (but can confirm).

Just a thought: if the VMS is written using a tricky code system, I infer 
that - because the ideas in the VMS' code don't appear to have entered the 
code/cipher mainstream - either:
(a) Everyone involved died without passing the ideas on,
(b) It's based on an awkward code mechanism that nobody liked much.
(c) It's based on an awkward methodology that nobody really liked much.
(d) It's specific to an awkward plaintext, so was of no real use to anyone 
else.

Within this framework, hoaxing assaults may well help to throw light on (c).

I happen to think it's likely to turn out to be a combination of (b) and 
(c): as a clear example of how this might have worked, polyalphabetic 
ciphers' demonstrably better security didn't lead to their being used much 
in practice - but because the theory was elegant and widely printed (and so 
knowledge of it diffused), people became aware of it.

Given the fertile ground 15th Century Northern Italy was for cipher 
development, I don't think the idea that a different 
extremely-difficult-to-break code should have been invented then (but that 
it didn't spread, perhaps because of the high cost of the printed word) 
should be particularly contentious.

In fact, what seems more troubling to people is the idea that someone 500 
years ago might be cleverer than them. :-)  Personally, I'm happy to tip my 
hat to its creator - but continue the chase. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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