Re: VMs: new here

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Laura,

At 13:51 16/07/2004 +0100, Laura Aylward wrote:
> My name is Laura Aylward, I have recently carried out research on the
> manuscript with Gordon Rugg. Whilst doing the work I have been silently
> watching the list and thought it was about time I introduced myself. I will
> also take it upon myself, and hope Gordon won't mind me doing so, to point 
> you
> some results of our work at..
> http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/cs/staff/g.rugg/voynich/emergent3a.pdf

One persistent criticism of Gordon's work is that it is based on an 
idealised conception of Voynichese, which fails to correspond with what we 
actually observe.

For example, you have probably read (during your recent lurking) that the 
VMs only matches Currier's A & B dialects (or languages) somewhat 
imperfectly - that there is a spectrum between the two, ie it's not a 
binary choice. Yet again, the VMs manages to make monkeys of our attempts 
to pigeonhole its properties neatly - some pages are indisputably A or B, 
while others are a kind of mixture. IIRC, GC claims that paragraphs are 
normally A or B (but that some pages do contain both), while others assert 
that intermediate languages/dialects are present. So, I would say that any 
attempt to reconcile Gordon's grille/table analysis with the VMs would also 
need to evaluate the degree to which these theories are supported by the 
evidence.

I therefore find all the assertions made by Gordon about the compatibility 
of the grille/table hypothesis with Currier language/dialect evidence 
somewhat wishful thinking at best, and even disingenuous at worst. For 
example (page 10):-

        As expected, different tables produced different outputs. 
Interestingly, though,
        different "dialects" were produced by tables with different 
amounts of structure, even
        when the tables used the same syllables in the same proportions. 
For instance, in one
        batch of outputs, the word 'qoky' appeared in text generated from 
the low structure
        table, yet in no other text using the same syllables in the same 
proportions, but using
        different degrees of structure.

        This has clear similarities with the "dialects" of Voynichese.

No, this doesn't. AIUI, Currier's observations of languages were based more 
on the apparent structure of words and specific letter patterns than on 
occurrence/non-occurrence of single words. The behaviour of Currier's 
languages forms the single most testing element of the VMs' stats AFA the 
grille/table hypothesis goes - really, you would need a very much more 
detailed understanding and exposition of that in your work in order for the 
claim of compatibility to be supported. Bear in mind that this is the one 
thing which might obviously falsify this work... worth examining carefully.

My own criticism of Gordon's work is simply that, by requiring that grilles 
are moved in a random way (what does the paper mean by "semi-random", 
anyway? Pseudo-random?), he is trying to perform sleight-of-hand with the 
information - to move it out of the text and into the random-number 
generator. But surely the whole point about grilles in the first place was 
to explain how randomness could be reconciled with the kind of highly 
structured letter arrangements we see in the VMs?

BTW, given Gordon's interest in information theory, an interesting exercise 
for you might be to calculate how much "choice" (and hence negentropy) is 
being exercised in the "semi-random" grille moving stage - and hence how 
much information is being introduced there. That would give you a specific 
figure to compare with the various calculated entropy values - if there is 
a significant mismatch between the two (as I suspect), then you would have 
been a good scientist (in the best Popperian sense) and perhaps falsified 
your theory. :-)

Things to think about, at any rate. :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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