Re: VMs: Number crunching the Fincher window

[Koontz John E <John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, DANA SCOTT wrote:

> In addition, I wonder about the mechanical difficulties of such an approach.
> It strikes me that anything placed on our copy of the VMs while the scribe
> was writing would create a mess (wet ink, blotting, etc.).  At the very
> least I would expect to see some visible evidence of such activity, however
> microscopic it might be.

I don't think that a hypothetical Fincher Window would ever have been in
contact with anything but a hypothetical source sheet or sheets.

If the scheme was used for encoding something then there would also have
to be an original, or at least a mental draft, of the clear text.
However, the generated material might have been essentially random.  We
speak loosely of this as "a hoax," and, of course, it might have been part
of the perpetration of a hoax, as might have been an actual encryption (so
far undeciphered).  However, one could also imagine randomly generated
text being produced in the belief that the results were inspired and
meaningful - a sort of ouijah board.

> If such measures were taken, then I could imagine possibly two
> additional copies of the manuscript, one in the author's language of
> choice, and the other a working draft prior to trasposing to the final
> copy.  Very tedious work, no doubt fraught with potential mistakes,
> making the work of the scribe that more complex.

A standard problem with manual encryption!

> I also wonder about the fact that there are signs that the VMs does not
> appear to have been completed (unlabeled jars/sprigs in the
> pharmaceutical section), which makes me think that our VMs was a
> "working copy" in progress.

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