Re: VMs: KELLYWatch

[william edmondson <w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chris, Jean-Yves....

But one has to think of the motive.

Alchemy, apart from anything else, surely promised (in a general sense) 
transmutation of elements, and gold was an attractive outcome.

So - had Kelly provided an alchemical text in English he would have had 
to have been able to deliver more than just the text.  However, by 
providing a cyphered text he could keep the promise of more lucrative 
deliverables (gold) alive whilst not actually being able to deliver.  
He should not have promised that he understood the text (he'd be back 
in the same place as if the text had been in English).  In fact, the 
document offers verisimilitude but need have no content; that is good 
enough for hoaxing.

That is surely why K would have done it.  And we know he could have 
done it (intellectually - cf the Enochian tables and the puzzle(s) he 
set Dee.....).

So - deciphering the text presents a problem if it is meaningless.  :-)

But further.  If it is (meaningless and) generated by rules of some 
sort.... then we cannot recover those rules unambiguously (it is known 
from linguistic theory that the output of a rule system is insufficient 
to specify the rule system).

So we may be really stuck.

William


On 23 Jul 2004, at 14:48, cgross@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: jean-yves artero jyartero@xxxxxxxx
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:38:33 +0200 (CEST)
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: VMs: KELLYWatch
>
>
> I know that the above is not quite satisfactory but here I (sincerely) 
> am
> at the moment.
> FWIW.
>
> I understand what you mean. I didn't mean to go so far afield (or 
> beyond my
> competence); my main point was just to agree that if Kelly wanted to 
> write
> a bogus
> alchemical MS, he had enough knowledge to go the easier route and do 
> so in
> English. :-)
>
> Chris Gross
>
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Dr William Edmondson
School of Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston B15 2TT
UK

Voice: +44-121-414-4763
email: w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxx

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