Re: VMs: Re: NSU review of Rugg (2003)...

[Gordon Rugg <g.rugg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Nick,

I think a closer analogy would be if someone denied that a computer could write
poetry, and then someone produced a program which could write something that was
generally agreed to constitute a poem.

That wouldn't prove whether a particular poem was or wasn't written by a
computer, but it would show that computer-generated poetry was possible.

I believe that my work shows that it's possible to produce something as complex
as Voynichese using a table and grille. The VMS could contain ciphertext, but I
haven't found any evidence that it does; the VMS could also contain nothing but
meaningless gibberish. With Occam's razor, the simplest explanation now appears
to be that the VMS is a hoax containing meaningless gibberish. That doesn't rule
out the possibility that there's a ciphertext in there, and I'd be delighted if
someone found one.

Best wishes,

Gordon

Nick Pelling wrote:

> Hi Jeff,
>
> At 18:41 17/12/2003 +0000, Jeff wrote:
> >Gordon is merely using a method along similar lines as mine, although with
> >the intent of proving a hoax rather than finding a decipherment.
>
> While it's true that the VMs-like *output* of both your approaches are
> similar, aren't your *methodologies* (ie your approaches to the problem)
> different in almost every other respect?
>
> Also: isn't there a (big picture) flaw in both approaches? Aren't they
> equivalent to trying to prove English is a hoax by examining computer poetry?
>
> Or, in logical terms, isn't the implication arrow pointing in the wrong
> direction? That is, if I can write a program that can generate nonsense
> that could pass for Voynichese (and which I can make a better fit by
> increasing the complexity of my model), could that ever mean that all
> Voynichese is nonsense?
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
> unsubscribe vms-list

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