Re: VMs: Faces at the roots

[Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wayne,

At 09:58 26/04/2005 -0400, Wayne Durden wrote:
> Before you put me on ignore for the Occam's Razor remark let me say that 
> in the original it was meant as a subtle joke.

Ouch - neither my Occam's razor aside nor the rest of my post was meant as 
a put-down in the way you seem to have taken it. I always say that email is 
a generally unfriendly medium, used by generally friendly people. :-o

> I did not see a previous approach where the same labels were examined in 
> context to the drawing across sections and thought that would be 
> "interesting."  I am open that they may or may not relate to material they 
> are drawn with.  To try to determine this I have looked at identical or 
> similar labels that appear next to drawings of different subject 
> matter.  I have posted a resource that makes it easier for others to do so 
> now.

I'm sure this resource will be helpful to some: though I would generally 
suggest posting spreadsheet-like things as CSV, as this seems to be 
near-universally manipulable.

> If the digraphs represent numbers, virtually the whole text translates to 
> numbers.  Whether they represent characters or words then, the VMS should 
> have yielded to frequency analysis.  (Of course, possibilities abound 
> still, the numbers could encode letters, but the text is instead of salted 
> with null words between real words which would constrain frequency 
> analysis - but bottom line is you have to make some judgmental guesses 
> someone to move forward).

The problem with lots of nulls is that (for example) by removing enough 
letters from a large enough English corpus, you can probably produce 
reasonably meaningful French: and by introducing an additional biliterary 
cipher stage (and a dictionary of your choice), you can probably produce 
reasonably meaningful Chinese.

This makes trying to reason via nulls a hazardous path to tread - one where 
you need solid evidence to make even a small step. Please don't stop trying 
to reach the end of that path on my account - but please do accept the idea 
that as nulls introduce exactly the kind of interpretative room for choice 
which has proved fatal to previous claimed decipherments, you need to have 
solid evidence in order to make genuine progress.

> I would note that many of your own statements when consulted for opinion 
> are general statements in nature, unsupported by example, but instead 
> based upon the weight of the time you have spent making 
> examinations.   Perhaps to some, that kind of summary is improper 
> methodology?  For instance [...]
>
> This is summary style without regard to how you have looked, what you have 
> done, etc.  It tends to discourage further testing that it might be a 
> numeric code, but there is no examples of the method or attacks used to 
> rule in or rule out labels as numeric code...

In my defence, I would say that I have posted everything to do with this 
on-list over the years, so I don't generally feel obliged to reiterate 
everything with every post. Perhaps I should collect some of these threads 
together onto web-pages and link to them in such messages... perhaps we 
should all do that more. :-o

> Your opinion of course is entitled to weight to me because of the time and 
> effort you have put in, but generally I tend to methodology that explains 
> the attacks or approaches, and find these kinds of summary statements 
> unsatisfying.

Well, they are unsatisfying: but producing a precis of a few hundred posts 
is a fairly substantial undertaking, and I thought I did a reasonable job 
all things considered. :-) Though if anyone on-list who has read them all 
thinks I misrepresented anything, I'd be happy to clear that up. :-o

> All groups form cliches and are susceptible to "not invented here" 
> syndromes on occasion.  Of course when a group is constantly barraged with 
> fantastical ideas a certain cynicism might be developed as well which one 
> must always be on guard is not clouding the issue.

Actually, if there's a valid criticism of this group I think it would be 
quite the reverse of this: that we're generally happy to let too large a 
constellation of opinions cloud round us all, even when many of us know 
that there is consistent corpus-wide evidence that would indicate the 
opposite... but it would take too much effort to frame it into an incisive 
argument.

> I felt the reply of Nick improperly cast aspersions on methodology that 
> might discourage others from even exploring the idea that the labels might 
> be a null digraph table.  I felt a "dig," as we might say here 
> Nick,  carried over with the comment and emoticon about nulls/nulloes.  I 
> perhaps misunderstood, but by laying it out here, I hope to clear the air.

You've got interesting ideas, and I'm really not trying to censor you: 
rather, I'm trying to get you to apply your insight and intelligence to the 
VMs in a way which will move you (and us all) forward.

Statistically, the labels are a tiny sample (especially compared to the 
whole VMs), and I would say that they are far more similar to than 
different from the rest of the text (please correct me if you think I'm 
wrong). Therefore, I would say that if you have a good idea about what 
would constitute nulls in Voynichese, the main body of the text is surely 
the place to look for evidence for it - or have I missed your point (again)?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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