Live data from Hacker News

Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

medievalists.net

51–60 of 108 posts

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#51
I'm not sure why we only consider that this manuscript is either a hoax or a forgotten language. Why can't it be an expression of whimsical fantasy?

When I was 12, as an introvert kid with too much imagination, I started inventing my own language. I would make up words, sometimes based off various other languages, sometime simply based on how they sounded.

It had a couple of different writing systems, one was a slightly modified version of Greek alphabet, another, more complex, was made of dots and small squiggles that were fast to write (I was fascinated with the Arabic writing system at the time and took inspiration from it even though it didn't look anything like that).

I would write pages of nonsense in that writing system, just to see how it would flow or change over time, just to find patterns, just to have fun.

I even invented my own calendar, using the 88 day revolution of Mercury around the Sun as the year.

When I look at the Voynich Manuscript, all I see is the product of a fertile imagination that went a lot farther than my early teenage attempts at building a coherent world for myself.

I believe that these unconvincing attempts at finding meaning elsewhere -or degrading the object by calling it a hoax- are distracting us from the real beauty of this work of love and imagination.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#52
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantity is a quality of it's own. I think getting large number of people to try something is a good way to move forward. Sure it is not efficient, but fairly reliable.

You mean like a large number of people with no qualification and experience went looking for the Boston bombing suspect? I'll leave it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22214511

I would argue that this is more of a mob lynching, rather than constructive combined effort.

To look for models that work, look no further than open source. Projects with high amount of interest quite often do better.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#53
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it's hard for me to consider another one of these attempts worth reading Then your commentary on the subject is utterly worthless.

How many papers on perpetual motion machines have you wanted to read in the last year? Does that make any commentary that you might make on the subject utterly worthless?

Perpetual motion machines are known to be metaphysically impossible. Decoding this is not.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#54
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it's hard for me to consider another one of these attempts worth reading Then your commentary on the subject is utterly worthless.

How many papers on perpetual motion machines have you wanted to read in the last year? Does that make any commentary that you might make on the subject utterly worthless?

To dismiss a paper on perpetual motion machines you just need to know the implications of the first or second law of thermodynamics, about which there is, for all intents and purposes, unanimous consensus.

To dismiss attempted translations of the Voynich manuscript, you'd need to read the attempted translation because there is no consensus whatsoever about the manufascript, except for the fact that it is untranslated.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#55
post #51

I'm not sure why we only consider that this manuscript is either a hoax or a forgotten language. Why can't it be an expression of whimsical fantasy? When I was 12, as an introvert kid with too much imagination, I started inventing my own language. I would make up words, sometimes based off various other languages, sometime simply based on how they sounded. It had a couple of different writing systems, one was a sligh…

Perhaps not unlike the Codex Seraphinianus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#56
post #29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am puzzled by your comment. Do you mean to imply that the Voynich manuscript is "obviously" a joke ? Do you mean to imply that, in your view, the invention of a new alphabet to write an hitherto unwritten language, which would then have failed to gain widespread acceptance, is a less realistic explanation than your own theory ? Would you please care to explain it in greater details, then ?

I think the implication is that a likely explanation of the situation is that if the alphabet is a mish mash of other languages it is also possibly just a made up conglomeration that was used to make up the manuscript. Basically the xkcd comic would apply, just that the people (or person) that wrote it had a fairly broad linguistic ability. But I'm just assuming.

Kinda.

Probability one - it's a joke/hoax/fun. Hence it's unique and no one has any idea about it in current day. The small group of people who created it had a laugh and are long dead.

Probability two, it's a bizarre exciting new language we know absolutely nothing about in anything else. It's freely available on the internet for everyone to see, incredibly popular and know around the world and looked at by many experts in many fields for years. And now someone has decoded it! (In a paper yet to pass peer review?)

I'd go with one myself and I think the reason people chose two is because they don't really get how much people in the past and in other cultures are just like us, they like funny, silly and fun things too.

Choosing two doesn't really make sense and I'm just putting my opinion out there why people do.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#57
post #51

I'm not sure why we only consider that this manuscript is either a hoax or a forgotten language. Why can't it be an expression of whimsical fantasy? When I was 12, as an introvert kid with too much imagination, I started inventing my own language. I would make up words, sometimes based off various other languages, sometime simply based on how they sounded. It had a couple of different writing systems, one was a sligh…

Unlike late 20th century, Writing in the 15th century was rare and a costly endeavor. It is possible that it is an expression of whimsical fantasy. But it would be highly unlikely for this reason.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#58
post #51

I'm not sure why we only consider that this manuscript is either a hoax or a forgotten language. Why can't it be an expression of whimsical fantasy? When I was 12, as an introvert kid with too much imagination, I started inventing my own language. I would make up words, sometimes based off various other languages, sometime simply based on how they sounded. It had a couple of different writing systems, one was a sligh…

Perhaps not unlike the Codex Seraphinianus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus

Exactly.

Imagine if that was written a few centuries ago and was recently discovered without being able to know who wrote it or be able to replace it within its context. I'm pretty sure all sorts of people would speculate wildly about its hidden meaning.

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#59
post #57
post #51

I'm not sure why we only consider that this manuscript is either a hoax or a forgotten language. Why can't it be an expression of whimsical fantasy? When I was 12, as an introvert kid with too much imagination, I started inventing my own language. I would make up words, sometimes based off various other languages, sometime simply based on how they sounded. It had a couple of different writing systems, one was a sligh…

Unlike late 20th century, Writing in the 15th century was rare and a costly endeavor. It is possible that it is an expression of whimsical fantasy. But it would be highly unlikely for this reason.

Well, it certainly point toward a rich patron in any case, someone who could afford all this manual labour.

But what is more likely? That this is a forgotten language of which only a single mystifying example exists (ignoring the completely unlikely plants being described in the manuscript), or that it is a work of fantasy that has merits of its own?

Re: Voynich Manuscript partially decoded, text is not a hoax, scholar finds

#60

Here's a PDF for anyone who wants to take a stab :-) http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/pdfgen/exportPDF.php?bibid=2...

Someone should build a web plataform to allow to decode it using crowdsourcing ..

Something like _Voynich Genius_ ?

http://rapgenius.com

Post reply on HN