Re: VMs: Re: VMs, RuggWatch

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

	Welcome back, Jacques!  I knew you would enjoy what 
your favorite publication just put out. ;-)  I also 
look forward to your comments on the Beinecke sids.

	It's worth looking at the hard copy version of the 
Scientific American article.  It's somewhat different 
from the online article.  There isn't the synthetic 
fake VMs page, thank goodness.

Jacques Guy wrote:

> Its author, Luigi Serafini, swears that it is not glossolalia.
> Then again, we have to distinguish between hoax and fantasy.
> What is "War of the Worlds"? Hoax or fantasy? Or, for that
> matter, what is "A Midsummer Night's Dream"?
>
> No, the difference can only be in the intent. A hoax is
> fantasy deliberately and knowingly presented as truth.

	In the case you presented, it's a matter of context as 
well as intent.  If "War of the Worlds" is published as 
a novel, it is obviously fantasy; if it is broadcast as 
a news announcement, it is obviously a hoax.  It is not 
clear what Serafini was doing - and he obviously didn't 
want it to be.

> Therefore, in order to be a hoax, a text has to convey 
> meaning. 

	It should appear to have meaning but it need not in 
fact.  Rugg is quite right there.

> Glossolalia, grapholalia if you prefer, is 
> something else again: it is meaningless.

	Most likely so, except in being the expression of an 
ecstatic state of consciousness.  Babs told me the term 
is glossigraphia.

> 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.
> 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.

	Quite so.  An extraterrestrial might use Rugg's method 
to conclude that an English text is a hoax.   Might he 
then sell it to his leader for some rare element on his 
home planet?  :-)

Dennis


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