VMs: Re: Mixtures of languages in the VMS

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce Grant bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote

> Regarding recent discussions of the possibility that the VMS is a mix of
> languages, encrypted:
>
> While this is certainly possible, it seems to me like a dangerous
> starting point, because it offers so many "degrees of freedom".
>
> 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.
>
> The trick is to find a curve with enough degrees of freedom to describe
> the data well (thoyugh not perfectly), but not too many.
>
> If the VMS were transliterated in some way, and all the resulting words
> were found to be exact matches with words in some group of seventeen
> different languages, that would be less useful (IMHO) that discovering
> that the words merely ressembled the vocabulary of one (or maybe two)
> languages.
>
> 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!
>
> (Just my $.02)
>
> Bruce
>

The language mixtures seem to me to be THE ONLY way to describe a non hoaxed
VMS solution. I have currently two theories. 1) The VMS is a manually
generated hoax. The system used is a predetermined machanical algorithm used
to generate repetative sequences. 2) The VMS was enciphered using multiple
languages as the content was so controversial that the content would have
meant great danger for the author. My first guess was Italian for the
language but this does not fit squarely.

The jury is out on both of these assumptions until I can make further
headway.

Jeff


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