Re: VMs: Mixtures of languages in the VMS

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

3/11/2003 8:59:38 PM, Bruce Grant <bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Regarding recent discussions of the possibility that the VMS is a mix of 
>languages, encrypted:

>It's like fitting a (polynomial) curve to a set of data points - by 
>using  enough powers in the formula you can make the curve fit all the 
>data points exactly, but that doesn't generally produce the best fit - 
>between those particular points the curve can gyrate wildly.


Exactly. That is the rule in technical analysis (predicting the
stock market by only looking at past share prices). You can
always find a formula that will fit past prices even 
to a microdollar, but it is worthless for telling future prices. 


>Given the freedom of seventeen vocabularies and no common gramatical 
>rules, it seems like you could make the VMS say almost anything ... 
>beware, that way lies madness!

That is precisely how Dr Carroll, of Sydney, "deciphered" the
Easter Island script some 110 years ago. The Easter Island
tablets, according to him, were written in a number of
Central and South American languages. You can read the
whole funny story there:

http://www.rongorongo.org/carroll/index.html


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list