VMs: RE: GC's first reply

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff wrote:

> Any information or guidance that you can offer would be greatly
> appreciated.
> After all, you and everyone else on this list have put in all the
> effort. I
> am the newbie.

That's a sticky wicket, that one.  If I offer you my view of proper
guidance, someone else will whole-heartedly disagree.  Much of what we know
about the VMS is still in an area of uncertainty, but we're chipping away at
the edges all the time, mostly through diligent (and ofttimes fortuitous)
research.  Just a few years ago the only thing available was the poor
copyflo, but that is changing, and with new imagery coming available,
perceptions have also changed.  Every new and detailed color image that
emerges alters our perception to some degree.  For instance, two years ago I
would not have been able to formulate the observation that "the hair is
blond to brunette on average".  This detailed information simply wasn't
available until recently.

We are presently in the stage of amassing so much information, both
historical and physical, that no one has been able to catalogue this
information at one location.  Fortunately we have some very serious people
on this list that make it a point to visit findings and make note of them.
I've been a really lousy bookkeeper when it comes to my efforts, but I'm
trying to change that.  To our benefit, the very existence of the VMS List
gives us something modern enterprise lacks, which is a longevity of thought
known as "institutional memory".  When the faces keep changing in modern
corporations, no one remembers what their previous counterpart said or did,
so they keep making the same mistakes.  With this list, even though many
faces change, the record of our footprints are still available for others to
follow via the archives.  When a newbie offers up an idea, the rest of us
sit back and say "been there, done that", and simply point them to the
archives.

The best advice I could give you is to retain an open mind until you've gone
through the archives.  You're eventually going to come down on one side of
the fence or the other - either you're in the "language" camp or the
"crypto-crackpot" camp, (a label I've come to wear as a badge of honor).
Straddling the fence between the two sides is placing yourself directly in
the line of fire, but this position too has a certain "courageousness"
attached to it.  (The "hoax" theory is the easy way of drawing fire from
either side, since few of us who have studied the nuances of this manuscript
believe for a second that this manuscript was created for the purpose of
perpetrating a hoax.)

There are other positions relating to it's development.  "Single author"
(and therefore an original), "ignorant scribe" (someone who copied something
they didn't understand, so they introduced error into the copy), "multiple
scribes" (to explain the different "hands" (statistical differences
acknowledged in sections of the VMS - an argument which I and others have
refuted on several occasions based on the physical evidence), and a few
arguments in between that try to encompass the rest.

Ultimately you're going to choose a side that best fits your experience.
Linguists tend to join the language camp, because the statistical properties
of the VMS are similar to language.  Crypto-crackpots are generally loners
without a cohesive structure, but do have a complicated ritual through which
they establish common ground and pecking order, not unlike, but again not
related to, the mating ritual of hexadecimal freaks such as yourself.  I
really shouldn't be revealing any secrets here, but with the possibility of
a new recruit, well... It's just a step to the left, and then a jump to the
right - rub your bum with crisco, and suck it in real tight - but it's the
slide rule thrust - that really drives you insane - let's pour on more
crisco - and do it again!  (Oh yes, and the secret password this month is -
"Honorificabilitudinitatibus".

I hope this answers some questions for you, and brings some new ones to
mind.  If at anytime I can be of any less help or assistance, don't hesitate
to ignore me.  God knows I certainly do!

GC


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