Re: VMs: Epibrating Cerebrating

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

jan wrote:

> >  How does one prove a negative?  Can anyone answer that?   That is
> > (maybe) the question with gibberish.
> >    
>
> It is easy: we have to find the true solution of the VM first :-), that is if there is the sensical text. 
>  

   That would certainly do it.  In statistics, one rejects the null 
hypothesis - that there is no correlation between two data sets -
if a test shows the likelihood the difference is due to chance is less 
than the desired level of confidence. 

   However, I meant to ask the general, philosophical question: - how 
does one prove a negative? 
If anyone could discuss this further, I would appreciate it! 

> Right you  are, we cannot fight Gord in  that point (yet),  but we can prove our point by other 
> ways. For instance, simply pressing Gord for  proofs would be accepted by public's sense  of 
> fairness reasonably well.
>  
>
> >   Is it worth our time to get into a controversy over Rugg's thesis?
> > I have been  considering writing a letter to Sci Am, but I wonder about
> > that.  We have quite enough to handle as it is.
> >    
>
> Sci Am is a bad place - they are not going to eat their words and one letter from the reader would 
> not do too much for our case.  And yes, we were attacked, the whole  purpose  of our work was 
> attacked, it is not the question of "wasting" our time only. We are not in isolation, we do need  
> public support and instead, we are losing it. I remember somebody here once suggested we 
> should get some financing for promotion, publication or what not.  Today, we may forget about 
> that already: nobody in sane mind would put money in the project  of digging for gibberish :-). 
>  

   I disagree that a letter to Sci Am would be a bad idea.  It would 
alert people that there is another valid point of view,
if it were well-written and it dramatized our points.  This is a problem 
with Rugg; his idea is very clearly demonstrated and seems plausible. 
That is how publicity works, after all.  Also, as you say, Rugg says his 
idea is only one possibility, but his tone of certainty belies this,
as indeed does the media's treatment of it. 

   I would certainly want to tell the public about the availability of 
the sid's.  I would point to my resources page for the sid's. 

http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/hi-quality-vms-images.html

(I am currently updating this.  I just found out that some of the URL's 
for the sid's have changed, and there seem to be some new ones. 
More later.)

   However, I do think we should avoid a shouting match with Rugg.  
Some reasoned contradiction that is well dramatized would suffice. 

Dennis

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list