Re: AW: VMs: Re: word length counts

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Gordon,

> Cutting across these approaches, there's also the theme of reducing the 
> problem
> space by eliminating impossible or highly unlikely explanations. So, for 
> instance,
> I think we can eliminate the "Mongolian nephew" explanation (that the VMS is a
> plaintext of an unidentified language written in a novel alphabet) because 
> of the
> number of unique linguistic features in Voynichese; I think we can also 
> eliminate a
> simple character-by-character substitution cipher on the grounds of the 
> entropy
> values, etc.

Certainly, I'd agree we can probably eliminate some of the more naive 
hypotheses. However, few here seem to hold such simplistic points of view - 
we're all sophisticates now, spin doctors for our biases.

> One of the most intriguing and challenging aspects of VMS research is that 
> so many
> of the features of the manuscript can be interpreted in diametrically opposite
> ways. So, for instance, the lack of precedents for a 15th century coded 
> manuscript
> of this length and apparent complexity can either be taken to mean that the
> manuscript is not what it appears (perhaps it's a coded manuscript from a 
> later
> period, or a hoax), or to mean that the manuscript really is what it 
> appears, and
> is therefore particularly important.

I guess you're describing dialectical logic, wherein every thesis has the 
potential to transform into its antithesis:-

        http://www.geocities.com/uniwb/logic/dia.htm
        "In other words, the first principle of dialectical logic
        says that every thesis is contradictory"

((FWIW, I've also been reading Roy Bhaskar's "Dialectic: the pulse of 
freedom" recently: not the easiest of reads, but what the hey.))

Here, I'd suggest the dialectic we're exploring is "signal-vs-noise", where 
one continuum (perhaps based on redundancy or structure) might look like: 
Language --> Shorthand --> Cryptography --> Structured Hoax --> 
Unstructured Hoax.

But what is the synthesis of this whole continuum? Perhaps it's just, well, 
*communication*? After all, even a hoax is a message ("sucker!"), passed 
between a sender and a receiver. :-)

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


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