Re: The Hoax Theory (was: VMs: Codex Seraphinianus...?)

[Gordon Rugg <g.rugg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

I've argued previously that if someone can describe a hoaxing mechanism
which produces the distinctive characteristics of Voynichese using
techniques available in 1586 or before, then Occam's razor makes a hoax
the default explanation.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that - the hoaxing mechanism
would need to reproduce both the qualitative and the quantitative features
of Voynichese. The latter are likely to be more difficult to reproduce,
since they are likely to depend on the specific setup of the hoaxing
mechanism, rather than the underlying concept of the mechanism.

My attempts to reproduce a hoax have shown that some of the allegedly
complex features of the VMS are actually quite easy to hoax, but others
aren't... Would anyone be interested in a digest of this, if I post it on
my Website?

Best wishes,

Gordon

Rene Zandbergen wrote:

> --- Seth Morabito <sethm@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > I've been a proponent of the theory that the
> > VMs is a hoax for some time.
>
>  [...]
>
> > All this points to "Hoax" to me, a 16th century
> > hoax.  The seller manufactures a manuscript,
> > manages to obtain an audience with Rudolph
> > II, convinces him that the manuscript is an
> > undecipherable herbal and astronomical manuscript
> > written by Roger Bacon, and walks away with a
> > purse full of money.
>
> Yes, that is a perfectly simple and even credible
> scenario to me. The problem is that we should be
> able to reconstruct how the text was composed,
> and we're not.
>
> That is a problem of about the same magnitude as
> having an uncrackable 15th century code.
>
> Having an unintelligible 15th century language
> seems a far more acceptable problem to me, in the
> sense that it is a far more acceptable type of
> 'incompetence' on the side of the VMs community,so
> I wonder what Occam's razor would have to say about
> that.
> The balance in favour of the 'unknown language'
> is however countered (IMHO) by the fact that this
> is the only known text that uses it.
>
> That brings us to the possibility that this is
> an invented language.
> You come up with the same suggestion (as others
> must also have in the past), and it is a valid
> option, IMHO.
>
> Cheers, Rene
>
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