Re: Re: Re: Re: VMs: Further investigatio of folio f1r

["Jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Knox,  
======= At 2004-04-06, 22:06:00 you wrote: =======

>I am not keen on assigning authorship to a historical person without >evidence. 
We cannot know a small percentage of the people who could >have created the 
manuscript even if we should know the time and the >general location. 

---Agreed.

>We do not know who, if anyone else, the author hoped would learn to >read it. 

--- Exactly. Well, we do not even need to agree on anything, but we should be able 
to set up some agreed-on strategy to be able  to go on. I am not trying to 
establish here the reasons somebody had for writing the VM (that we will 
probably never know), but his  intentions as far as the concealment is 
concerned. 

---So there may be intended or non-intended concealment, but since we still cannot 
read it now after at least 400 years, we may very well assume that the 
concealment was intended and using Occam's razor, we should hit first the 
simplest explanations only - provided that we really want to solve it :-).  Even 
if author did not intend to conceal anything, it would have been apparent to him 
that it was concealed to other persons :-).  For the very same reason I am 
assuming it was written either: 
1) for somebody else to read it, or
 2) to fool somebody (as a hoax),  or
 3) not to be read by anybody else, for whatever reason 
(in which case we should honor his wish and not to crack it at all :-).

>I believe we can pretty well rule out sophistication but let's not rule out 
complexity on a conditional observation. 

---I am not ruling out anything, I am just setting starting point. Based on  
probabilities, we can  then set priorities for the attack. Now if it is case 1), 
then the reader should be able to read it either: 
a) by using secret, but simple procedures ( that does not mean that the cracking 
would be simple :-),  or  b) by using complex, but not sophisticated procedures, 
c) using sophisticated  procedures only.
 Again, Occam would start with a) and so on, but unless we 
investigate case a) in depth, there is no point to go to b).

Best regards.  Jan  



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