VMs: VMS: The MS408 Project (long)

["mmand" <mmand@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

When Michael Ventris cracked Linear B in the 50's, he was
faced with much criticism from some scholars. A few years
later, however, almost everyone had accepted his solution as
valid. The reason is simple: anyone could apply his logic to
any Linear B inscription and arrive at the same results.
There could be some doubts about some spelling here or
there, but there was no question that it all made sense, in
and coherent way.

The reason that all past translations of the VMS failed to
achieve acceptance is exactly the opposite: there were so
many "free variables" in the methods that it was almost
impossible for two different people to arrive at the same
translation, even if they followed precisely each step of
the method. (Newbold died a few years after announcing his
solution, but imagine this: if he was alive 20 years after
translating a particular folio, and someone asked him to
translate the same folio again, it is possible that he would
arrive at a completely different result!).

Now on to the MS408 project. After the first announcement of
the MS408 project, but before they revealed their solution,
there was a brief moment of time when I thought maybe this
time it was for real. (Although a brief comment on their
site stating that it was necessary a "higher level of
perception" or something similar to fully understand the VMS
arouse some suspicion). I have not bought the CD, but when
the method was revealed and the sample pages were presented
the suspicion materialized. This time the free variables are
not in the form of almost invisible ink markings or
unbelievable large anagrams, but in assigning whole
concepts/words to single symbols (for example, EVA y is
associated with "perfection", and EVA o with "destination").
This leaves room for the translator to fill in the blanks
with auxiliary grammatical objects and arrive at English (or
German) sentences. For example, the single VMS word
"oarousy" is translated as the following sentence (this is
part of the free sample of folio 5r available at their site
for download):

"Destination is the beginning of rising from the first level
of which the destination is the human who is connected with
his or her roots, who is still rising the roots in order to
reach perfection".

Another problem is that there is only a limited set of
symbols in the VMS, therefore only a limited set of concepts
to talk about. A 230-page book centered on 25 or so
concepts/words can be very boring, even if you elaborate on
the free grammatical glue to join them together. Since I did
not buy their complete solution, I do not know if this is
the case, but I suspect that in order to avoid this problem
the solution may change the meaning of a symbol in the
different parts of the VMS. But if this is the case, of
course, additional free variables are added, adding to the
subjectivity of the solution.

In my sincere will to analyze the MS408 solution in an
unbiased way, I read the forums available on their site.
There I found an interesting comment by one of the authors
when talking about previous numeric/logical analysis on the
VMS: "But there is something I know as a programmer: if your
input data are wrong, you can develop the most intelligent
software of the world, your results will also be wrong.".
True, but another interesting and equally valid rule is: if
one's algorithm is flawed, no matter how sharp the input is,
the output is also flawed.

I would like to finish with a comment on the approach chosen
by the MS408 project to release their solution. As have been
said before, true scientific progress is better achieved on
an open forum basis, where ideas can be presented,
explained, validated, or refuted. I will not buy the
official CD with the solution, I and believe many that read
this forum will not either. Unfortunately, I will not be
able to participate in discussions with the authors about
their logic. In fact, I suspect it is not the author's
intent to participate in such dicussions, but only in
explaining the meaning of their interpretations. (If this is
not the case, Dirk and Ursula, please correct me).

Regards,
Marcio.
****************************************
O grande portal dos mineiros
http://www.uai.com.br
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