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Re: VMs: Re: VMs, RuggWatch

Hi everyone,

At 23:12 22/07/2004 +1000, Jacques Guy wrote: 
No, the difference can only be in the intent. A hoax is
fantasy deliberately and knowingly presented as truth.
Therefore, in order to be a hoax, a text has to convey
meaning. Glossolalia, grapholalia if you prefer, is
something else again: it is meaningless.

I like the WordNet definition of 'hoax' as "deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage" - note that this is neutral on whether the means employed to execute the hoax should appear meaningful or not. For VMs hoax theory proponents, the VMs is therefore not a hoax - it is the residue of a hoax (ie, of an act of hoaxing).

Back to Rugg. The gist of his argument is that
using a Cardan grid you can generate text with the
same properties as the Voynich. Therefore, the
Voynich is a hoax. That does not follow at all.

You can (it's true, I swear!) teach a chicken to win at tic-tac-toe, but that does not mean that a chicken invented the game. :-)

Using an English dictionary and an English
grammar, you can produce stuff with the same
properties as English. Therefore, anything
written in English is a hoax? Humbug.

Errmmm.... we're straying perilously close to John Searle's famous Chinese Room Argument here:-
http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/chineser.htm

All the same, I completely agree with your overall assessment. :-)

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


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