Your opinion on the Voynich Manuscript (help a book club)

a reply to: Hawke


All you outline is a fantasy you provide no evidence, there is no suggestion the manuscript was ever in Turkey and colours in Venetian glass were caused by specific impurities of minerals contained within the silicon itself, not organic pigments, so there goes your theory such as it wan't...

Personally i consider the conclusions of Professor Bax who attempted an analysis as more convincing;

It is of course not possible on the evidence discussed in this paper to offer any definitive view as to the
authorship or provenance of the Voynich manuscript. However, given that it appears to encode a
meaningful language, and to constitute, in essence, a treatise concerning the natural world, perhaps to be
communicated to a particular culture

stephenbax

There may not have been any cipher involved or necessary if it was written in a language known only to a select few and one that was quite unlike any other language, for lack of any other candidate i might as well suggest elvish, as that at least was the faction involved in the creation.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Have you tried to decode one string of the 'fantasy' using the 'madman decryption key' above? Try finding a contact or email to any member of the new generation 'M. Triftano Sforza' family? Then let's discuss that truth is cooler than 'fantasy'...

Maybe i am another madman related to the author with the soul purpose of deceiving you? Or maybe a shape-shifting, time-travelling, seventh gen Annunaki? The key is proof i would consider... Prove me wrong, and i will admit i am.

I promised to get what pages i translated soon - that was last night.

Peace mate )

__

a reply to: Hawke

Of course not, all he does is try to identify a few words through context, that would be inadequate to reconstruct an entire language, as there is no evidence of encryption and unknown language seems the most likely explanation my own approach would be to make further enquiries and find one who can teach the language.

First, Cryptography experts have spent decades attempting to decode this, coming from many backgrounds and countries, so the single substitution method is completely out unless you are willing to defend the position that hundreds of analysts, a fair bit of whom likely know Italian and all of whom studied basic cryptography(substitution ciphers are cryptography 101) totally missed that while a random person (whose PhD is impossible to verify in itself, go ahead, look for it, can't even find her dissertation or anything saying where she got it, only source is her adding the three letters to the end of her name) stumbled upon the golden solution.

And Second, experts in any field that are stymied in their efforts to prove that expertise and do their job tend to get frustrated just like everyone else. It is within the realm of possibility that this was a hoax, but as others have stated, this would have been a hoax years and years in the making during a time which one could die from an infected fingernail. Only a fairly well off (financially and scholastically speaking) person could perform such a feat, but with the aforementioned short life span and current financial stability possessed of a person capable of this, the main question is why bother?

Any huckster looking for a quick buck would not devote the energy and time necessary to create this. People have pointed out the poor ink quality and such, but bear in mind, one, ink was not cheap and two, it, like other things can and does degrade over time. This was not a very well preserved piece until fairly recently so degradation is inevitable. So the likelihood of this being an actual hoax is slim, whereas the likelihood of cryptographers being frustrated enough to dismiss it entirely as such because they can't figure it out is a good possibility.

Nick Pelling of Cipher Mysteries on Stephen Bax's theory: www.ciphermysteries.com...

Thoughts?

originally posted by: Jekka
First, Cryptography experts have spent decades attempting to decode this, coming from many backgrounds and countries, so the single substitution method is completely out unless you are willing to defend the position that hundreds of analysts, a fair bit of whom likely know Italian and all of whom studied basic cryptography(substitution ciphers are cryptography 101) totally missed that while a random person (whose PhD is impossible to verify in itself, go ahead, look for it, can't even find her dissertation or anything saying where she got it, only source is her adding the three letters to the end of her name) stumbled upon the golden solution.

And Second, experts in any field that are stymied in their efforts to prove that expertise and do their job tend to get frustrated just like everyone else. It is within the realm of possibility that this was a hoax, but as others have stated, this would have been a hoax years and years in the making during a time which one could die from an infected fingernail. Only a fairly well off (financially and scholastically speaking) person could perform such a feat, but with the aforementioned short life span and current financial stability possessed of a person capable of this, the main question is why bother?

Any huckster looking for a quick buck would not devote the energy and time necessary to create this. People have pointed out the poor ink quality and such, but bear in mind, one, ink was not cheap and two, it, like other things can and does degrade over time. This was not a very well preserved piece until fairly recently so degradation is inevitable. So the likelihood of this being an actual hoax is slim, whereas the likelihood of cryptographers being frustrated enough to dismiss it entirely as such because they can't figure it out is a good possibility.

The whole ink thing bugs me.

It would be like 100 years from now people debating why someone would write something important with a Bic Pen, and not a Sharpie.

Sorry future people, all I had was a cheap Bic Pen.

I am finding the Caterina Sforza story fascinating. With as little research as I have done since last night.

"The Tiger of Forlì", who had "frightened all of Romagna", died on 28 May 1509.



I was just googling around her name and Voynich Manuscript and found this video. While the page where I found it only references her name indirectly, I'm a visual guy and the tiger paws in following video made me think of her, and the females depicted in the manuscript resemble every image I can find on her, or maybe just the popular hair style at the time?

Just a video. Just saying how I felt, that's all. Ruldolph II was born after The Tiger's death after all.



tw

a reply to: Hawke

Think of the implications beyond colouring glass. A civilization recipe. A well guarded Secret indeed!

As I said, a catalyst, this book brought me, us places, we never imagined, it makes you thunk.

And for us all, if you have cracked some of this, this is the place to think.

Sorry for hogging up the page. This is the first time in a while I have gotten excited about researching and participating in an ATS thread in a long time. I have been studying alchemy and spagyrics for several years now and I have focused elsewhere.

So here we are, back at the topic that launched all of that to begin with. Funny thing is I haven't even gotten into the VMS since then.

Thank you all for some inspiration! Hawke and Bybyots especially, Kantzveldt, I see you too. I learned something's for sure. I look forward to your post and hope the members of the book club are still around.

Who knows? Maybe she took part or authored the VMS or not. Just having some fun. A friend told me I should start writing again about my experiences and I started again the day I first posted here.

That being said, I offer one more thing on the Sforza's, whom I never heard of before this thread.



Visconti-Sforza tarot deck

a reply to: timewalker

Wow thanks, that was the best thing I have watched of that sort all year. It really hit the spot on so many levels. I really loved the little part about Caterina's correspondance with "Cortezze", her partner-in-crime for her Experimenti. I'm imagining him as a sort of "Renfield" from Dracula, lurking about the countryside harvesting things at night.

I'm still getting myself together around all this stuff as my mind has exploded, and that hasn't happened for a while so there's the mess.

BRB

P.S. Holy crap. Can you believe it was just posted last February?

originally posted by: timewalker
a reply to: Hawke
Think of the implications beyond colouring glass. A civilization recipe.
A well guarded Secret indeed! As I said, a catalyst, this book brought me, us places, we never imagined, it makes you thunk.
And for us all, if you have cracked some of this, this is the place to think.

Wish everyone used that least understood organ up there like you. Critical thinking and problem solving is the only skill that gives us a differential advantage. And as far as i am concerned, you can hog whatever real estate you like, if the remaining square inches turn out to crawl with aliens and hoaxes )

i have made no 'claims' and if you flip a few posts back, you will see i only "offered what i think is the case, or what i think MIGHT be the case... in reference to the pages i have decoded" - and suddenly... incoming attacks by goblins, aliens, cryptographers wtf? The thread started as 'your OPINION on the Voynich manuscript - for a book club..."

The issue we have to get out of the way here is that the 'Sforza' code is not a complex-level-four-crypto-u-boat-world-war-two-style encryption system and it was very eloquently GIVEN to me. I didn't break anything. It is SIMPLE SUBSTITUTION. i have no super powers in cryptography but my best guess is, when you complicate things the simple answer will most probably elude you. No matter how 'tough' or 'experienced' you are, or how much Phd's are up your... pocket - the key is simple substitution! with a few characters that substitute into 'double occurrences' and the toughest substitution of them all - the 4∅ (four zero) occurrence. That is the hardest rock of the bunch - however you can even manage without it...

Let's say we at ATS here are going to make a manuscript for those who survive the 'supposedly' extinction level event asteroid hit next September: Let's say the letter 'A' is going to be an old-English style 'ſ'' (s that looked liked an f with no horizontal dash), B will become a double 'ππ' (the Greek pie), C will look like the Cyrillic 'Ж' (Zhe) and so on... only they used creativity to come up with alphanumeric characters that LOOKED like a language, but were mixed or completely invented (like the 4∅ character). Think of it more like 4th grade children passing a secret language for notes in class, before they get kicked out of course )

One letter does not necessarily represent ONE letter when encrypted. could be two (twin occurrence) and sometimes a twin occurrence with a third letter after - one letter in Venetian could look like (ππψ) in the manuscript! You see where all the so-called 'cryptography experts' fail to think out of the box? The 4∅ (four zero) letter, well even recent-age Sforza family members lost track of what that was.

Back then, this family 'code' and NOT cryptography-system, was only second nature. Like a second language! Again i was GIVEN the key by a very old family member in Venice. I did manage to decrypt what i think is 90 folios of the manuscript, not all in sequence, and these are what i previously shared what they are here: The glass manufacture, artwork, coloring, cities, gardens etc. The rest could very well be related to alchemy or philosophy of the Renaissance even - but i doubt anything to do with aliens or gargoyles ) I also said i would offer my help should anyone want to finish off what i started - HOWEVER, i sense what could become a huge problem here, and maybe one should just 'keep the magical mystery rolling' (like in the case of Emelia Earhart? who wants to know she died of old age a prisoner on an island, suffering and alone, maybe betrayed by her own feminist countrymen?) - i was also advised to 'shut the # up' by 'anonymous' only two nights ago. So there you have it - That is my opinion on the Voynich manual )

It's been great exchanging thoughts on this thread with a lot of you, Cheers )

[EDIT]
timewalker: Thanks for that link - wonderful!
Kantzveldt: I never said the manuscript was in Turkey, nor did ever REACH the intended hands of the Ottomans. That's how it became a mystery in it's own right. If it HAD indeed reached the Ottomans, would we be pooling thoughts on understanding it now?

a reply to: Hawke

Well Crap.

This thread found us. Not the other way around.

What do I lay claim to pixels or like you...Self satisfaction? Or helping Ever?

I got a bit enthusiastic. Share!

Come on man. What do we got to lose? Pixels?

Signed, Anonymous

[This message will self-destruct in 5 minutes]

a reply to: Hawke

Yes.

The Book of Secrets

Not so far out these days. My Choctaw Great Grandmother gave me this one. Moore's.

Not so Secret, but if your culture was being crushed. It makes since.

I would probably grab this book in a tissy.


Moore's Universal Assitant

a reply to: Hawke

A search on Caterina Sforza's 'Experimenti' Journal, which she jotted down notes haphazardly - but sometimes properly scripted pages for sending to Medicis (whether as gifts or as exchange of some form) - clearly shows the illustrations were of the same style, color mixes, tints etc. Even way neater than the Voynich manuscript. This leaves no doubt that the Voynich manuscript was a messy copy of the more elaborate work of herself. Of course, deeper digs need to be conducted:

Back in 2003, this whole matrix of Caterina was missing from the bigger picture. Unfortunately the master journal (a bunch of quick notes, drawings, and formulas do not show up on the net. However, the ITALIAN Wikipedia page on Caterina Sforza [it.wikipedia.org...] holds a host of extra information on her and her work - easily translated in the Chrome browser, or 'translate page' through Google Translate in any other browser... A bit of info on the it.Wikipedia page mentions that the original journal/notebook were recently at display in Firenze (Florence). The page also portrays an extended family tree of the Sforzas )

I am not certain of the origins of these vellum folios, however i am certain they were made within the same century - they definitely show the same style of botanical illustration that is 'poorly' reproduced in the Voynich manuscript: They do not all show the same language...


"Experimenti" (1490-1500) a foundational text in the history of pharmacology
(Caterina Sforza's Notebook/Journal where she inked her experimental findings)

Note the difference in effort made here to represent information and script/describe when compared to the Voynich manuscript, proving that the Voynich manuscript was intended not to educate and inform but was rapidly cloned in haste for a more sinister purpose? Even the inks, colors, brushes and vellum seems of much lower quality when compared to normal book preparation in the 15th century.



In this last folio here there are clear Arabic AND Turkic notes and annotations, which indicate that there was a kind of exchange between the Venetians and Ottomans/Arabs in botanical/alchemical findings (a barter of a sort?)

Many thanks to timewalker and Bybyots for pooling in further hints on the mystery )
_____