VMs: Re: Moot points, getting long

[elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Zitat von GC <gc-@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> ...
> The long-term discussion of EVA vs/ whatever has usually only one
> participant, myself, and being the only active participant on the opposing
> side, I'm not willing to allow the "mootness" of the point, thank you.  If
> you don't like it don't listen, but don't call it moot without good reason -
> no offense intended again.  Censorship is your only option, since I'm not
> about to back off.  If your censorship includes all my posts, you'd be the
> one suffering, not me.  Do you mind if I quote you here for a moment?

I did never mean to censor anyone or anything -- first of all, I'm not the 
listmaster, secondly even if I was, I'd be very careful suggesting anything 
like that.

I was merely trying to make a suggestion -- that the transcription issue means 
barking up the wrong tree, for the reasons I gave. You may accept this for 
yourself, or refuse it, and please go on with your research and postings as 
deems you appropriate. And I will even read your mails, at least the better 
part of it.

Was my choice of the word "moot" too strong? If so, please forgive me, since 
I'm not a native speaker. I meant to say "of peripheral importance to the issue 
at hand."

> 
> ...
> You've actually nailed the argument here more than you know.  Those that
> require _concepts_ in order to move forward are nothing more than
> _engineers_ who wait for science itself to create a workable _concept_.  I
> may be an engineer in real-life, so I do understand the limitations of that
> position, and in my Voynich alter-ego I don't make those mistakes.  Here
> it's pure science.

IMHO, the cracking of the VM (pretty much as any other code) will require two 
steps: First, the discovery of the method, the algorithm -- what I referred to 
as the "concept". Secondly, the "number-crunching" part to find the actual 
parameters of the algorithm. (Ie "It's a substitution cipher" would be the 
method, the parameter would be the actual substitution table.)

It is my conviction that the concept of the VM will be discernible by a look at 
the more obvious, well-known features, and will not depend on the exact 
varieties of plumes.

I never said nor meant that this idea for the concept will come out of the 
blue. Actually, it's going to require someone creative, smart and dedicated 
(probably on this list) to come up with the idea.

Your distinction between an "engineering" and a "scientific" approach I feel in 
this case partly esoteric, partly inappropriate.

> 
> There's only one concept of importance in the Voynich, the concept that
> matches the actual construction.  EVA doesn't even come close to claiming
> that this was part of the effort.  EVA claimed to be a transcription capable
> of being "spoken".  Now that's really useful and analytic, isn't it?  And
> with such a grand purpose in mind, this makes all other efforts moot,
> doesn't it?

Honestly, I think EVA is a reasonably good compromise -- for this very reason. 
Not for being pronouncable, but for being unbiased towards any concept. It 
wants to be a tool to find the encryption concept, and as such should not make 
any assumptions about the concept in the first place. (Of course, some of that 
is arguable -- hark my words, "reasonably good compromise.")

Yet this misses the point of my previous mail, namely that the exact 
transcription system will not be crucial for the decryption of the VM, at least 
in stage one as described above.

> 
> All I can say is, if this subject is of no interest to you, you're ignoring
> the most prominent feature of the Voynich, and the most potentially
> rewarding. ...
> I'll go a step further, if you don't mind.  If you're not examining the text
> and asking your own questions, you're a spectator, a tourist.  You're just
> looking for thrills and not trying to solve.  "Tell me I'm wrong".

I am indeed interested in the text, as previous mails of mine might show. 
Actually, I think that the images and their labels provide far from enough 
information to faciliate solving the VM -- solving will have to be done through 
the "bulk" text.

And nowhere did I say that examination of the text was unimportant. My argument 
was that the exact transcription scheme didn't matter too much.

Compare this with the case of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Up to the point where you 
recognize the concept -- a mix of iconic representation (the symbol of a bear 
might represent the animal), and sound representation (the same symbol might be 
used for the syllable "bear" in a word like "unbearable") -- the transcription 
is secondary. And you can discover the concept pretty much from 
the "primordial" features of the script. Same will hold for the VM, I presume.

Cheers,

   Elmar


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