From: Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: VMs: An end to Updates and Summaries
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:49:12 +0100
Hi everyone,
At 00:49 27/08/2005 -0600, GC wrote:
I've always said "stay close to the text", and I've meant that with all my
heart. In the present discussion about "touching up", etc., I say "stay
close to the Voynich". The conclusions that are drawn from only two (to
my knowledge) places where it is apparent there has been an extra stroke
or two added, are far from the heart of the Voynich, and lead to
conclusions such as the "copyist" theory, a second or third artist, etc.
That the Voynich was a conspiratorial effort is highly unlikely in my
view, and when considering such hypotheses one needs to weigh the simplest
against the most complex, choosing the simplest whenever nothing better
can be proven.
Given the smorgasbord of plausible hypotheses we have, why do we need to
choose at all? Surely the scientific method is all about testing
hypotheses, not assuming them?
Once again, I tend to focus on what should be the most important. It
doesn't matter if a 3 year-old colored the images .... did the same person
write the text from beginning to end? My conclusion is that the same hand
was involved in the text, from beginning to end. Even considering that a
large period of time elapsed between point a and point b, the text in all
sections has readily identifiable elements common to a single hand.
Evidence against my own conclusion is desirable, as we are then talking
about what actually matters - the nature of the intelligence behind the
written word.
Right now, ISTM that we are only partway through a good process - that of
"delayering" the text itself (as opposed to the paint / quire numeration
etc), to get at this "intelligence" behind the scenes. Dana Scott's three
scribes is a good start in this respect - but the question I'm trying to
resolve is whether scribe 3 was contemporaneous with scribes 1 & 2, or from
much later. I don't think the evidence we have so far is convincing enough
for a strong assertion either way... yet. But with luck we're perhaps now
starting to ask the right questions. :-)
Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
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