Re: VMs: [LONG] Voynich & semiotics (early notes)

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Gabriele Ferri <gabriele.ferri@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> ...  [I'm using "interpretation" following
> Peirce and Eco --> "a link that is established or
> activated in the reader's mind, such as the word 
> _dog_ is linked to _mammal_";
> anyone with a few knoledge in philosophy of
> language could bash me for this poor and quick
> explaination ....

I never liked the dog -> mammal link :-/. Yesterday
evening I saw a movie with exactly the same
example. It is a scientific association, not
an every-day one.
When I was much younger, I was scared of 
big dogs which were loud and had lots of big 
teeth. Just like one could be scared of a shark.
Whether they would generate off-spring by laying
eggs or bearing live descendants was of just 
about zero interest to me. 

This is no comment about your explanation,
obviously.

> c) the vms is written in an artificial language or
> some kind of
> transcription of a non-european language using ad
> hoc charaters and syntax.

IMHO these are two very different things.

> It's possible that, if hypotesis C is true, the vms
> is the only specimen of a new code [I'm using
> "code" as .....

Concepts exist easily and comfortably in one's
mind but are usually difficult to express in single
words. It is a good idea to be on the safe side. 
My personal experience is that most people tend
to immediately map concepts onto very restricted
examples. 
The VMs is in any case unique in many respects,
but that does not mean that it is the only
document which is (unique in many respects).

> d) the vms is a fake. Glossolalia with no meaning.

I know that you mean the latter. This is not
exactly the same as being a fake, because that
associates (for me, correctly or not) with an
intention to mislead. 

> If the vms had originally NO meaning (assuming
> that it's possible to have no meaning
> whatsoever, which has been long long debate between
> semiologist, linguists
> and philosophers of language), 

The VMs as an object has a meaning. It is a book
which cannot be read, and looks like a compendium
of knowledge. In its own time, it could have looked
like a compendium of very advanced, secret
knowledge.

I know that you're thinking of the meaning of 
the text contained in the VMs, but, keeping in
mind the meaning of the object, this may have been
only secondary.

> I think that hypotesis A B C and D are a good and
> comprehensive
> generalization of the possible approaches at the
> decoding of the vms. I'll
> start my work analysing these hypotesis from a
> semiotic point of view.
> Do you think I've missed something? 

In the past, several examples of binary 
trees have been proposed, which would lead to
different interpretations of the MS, or its
possible origin / significance.
Each binary decision would be an answer to a
question like:

- did the author(s) write an original MS or did
  he/she/they copy from an existing one?
- could the author actually read the text?
- if so, could anyone else?
- is there a meaning
- can the meaning still be recovered (not really
  a binary question)

This is neither complete nor structured.

Cheers, Rene 


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