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Thread: Voynich manuscript solved?
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2019-05-15, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Voynich manuscript solved?
According to a paper at the university of Bristol. It will still take time to decode the entire thing, however.
Respectfully,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2019-05-15, 04:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-15, 05:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
No, someone hasn’t cracked the code of the mysterious Voynich manuscript, according to the Ars Technica article I learned about this particular story from.
But hey, I suppose time will tell.
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2019-05-16, 12:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-16, 02:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-16, 02:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I think the clue is found in the statement of "solved it in 2 weeks in May". S'right.
I read on from the Ars article linked on a blog which had some fairly profoundly "debunking" things to say. Basically, if you take a small segment, apply lots of wishful thinking then yea, sure you've solved it. That the resulting text makes no sesne and doesn't seem to fit the context in which it's presented is, apparently, secondary.Last edited by snowblizz; 2019-05-16 at 02:58 AM.
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2019-05-16, 04:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I feel very convinced by the interpretation that it's an authentic 15th century fake alchemy book. If I recall correctly, the furthest it has been traced back was when it was sold to the King of Bohemia, known as a famous patron of the sciences, by an English alchemist, also known as a famous con man.
We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2019-05-16, 05:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
People are still genuinely trying to 'solve' that? I had the impression that the consensus was that it was some kind of fake, be that a hoax to make money or just nonesense for the lulz.
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2019-05-16, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
It is not solved until a complete translation is made. Partial translations do not solve it.
Claiming it is a fake or hoax carries as much weight as claiming it is solved. If it is not completely translated, then any claims are lies.How do you keep a fool busy? Turn upside down for answer.
˙ɹǝʍsuɐ ɹoɟ uʍop ǝpısdn uɹnʇ ¿ʎsnq ןooɟ ɐ dǝǝʞ noʎ op ʍoɥ
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2019-05-16, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
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2019-05-16, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Technically, theories are not lies. They can be misplaced confidence, though.
I'm reasonably confident that the Voynich is a hoax, and there's enough evidence supporting that theory for me. Given the near-impossibility of proving a negative, I'm not sure how to prove something that old is a hoax. We're not going to find a 15th century diary discussing how the fake encryption was done.If you like my thoughts, you'll love my writing. Visit me at www.mishahandman.com.
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2019-05-16, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I've seen some claims that there are patterns in the symbols that look very similar to patterns you would find in written language. They are apparently not jumbled together at random. Such patterns are quite difficult to understand, which in turn makes them difficult to fake. But you would get these patterns easily if you start with a real text and then encode it. If that's the case, then it should be possible to decode.
But you could still construct grammaticaly correct sentences with random verbs, nouns, and adjectives. This could perhaps make it more difficult to recognize that you're on the right path to cracking the code.
But that's assuming that such patterns where actually found, and that such claims are not an urban myth.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2019-05-16, 10:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I don't think that's actually possible, though. The entire point of a code or cipher is to hide the original text so well that you can't decrypt it without knowing the key, after all, so there's not really a distinction between gibberish and a really, really good cipher.
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2019-05-17, 05:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Actually there is. The very very important point that a cipher is *meant to be opened*. Hence it's got a key and lock. And you can pick that lock. Gibberish is a solid cube with no key, no locks and nothing that can be done.
An humans do not do very good ciphers, that's the fundamental weakness in them, humans need to unlock them in almost all cases.
And if you look at the text it's not totally random, it even has stuff that's kinda of like latin. That's the main reason people are so fascinated. It seems like it should be possible to interpret.
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2019-05-17, 06:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Everything can be interpreted - our brains are geared for finding patterns even if there are none. Even if there are some linguistic hints of regularity and structure, it could still be an elaborate Lorem Ipsum - all the structure and still no messege behind it.
As for why anyone would go to such lengths to create a nonsensical document, it could simply be a fake ancient alchemical text sold to someone for a solid price.In a war it doesn't matter who's right, only who's left.
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2019-05-17, 06:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
The point I was making is that you can't distinguish between gibberish and a cipher that you haven't got the ability to decrypt. A good cipher *should* have an output that looks like gibberish, because if it has patterns in it that might give the bad guy an opening to crack the code--e.g. a simple letter substitution cipher can't get away from the fact the most common letter in English is E, so whatever is the most common letter in the ciphertext is most likely going to also be E.
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2019-05-17, 11:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Modern cryptography is very much better than old stuff. Even WW2 Enigma was much better than what went before.
IMHO the odds are this is just gibberish, ciphers weren't that good back in those days.The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2019-05-17, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Here is a relatively shallow, lightweight information-theoretic analysis of the manuscript. Based on the entropies of the text, compared to real languages:
1: It could be that the text is meaningless, i.e. there is no plain text language, and the anomalously low entropy is the result of whatever process was used to generate the strings of characters
2: If there is a plaintext that was encoded using a simple substitution, then this plaintext must have the same anomalously low entropy values. This then excludes most of the typical languages that might be assumed for a European MS of the 15th Century. In fact, no candidate plaintext language could yet be identified. Hawaiian, the one identified by Bennett, does not match for other reasons (as will become apparent in later pages). Some languages like Hebrew, the various Arabic languages, Persian, Armenian etc. have not yet been tested quantitatively, to my best knowledge.
3: If there is a plaintext in one of the known languages used in European MSs of the 15th Century, then this text must have been modified by some process changing the statistics quite drastically. This change is indeed so drastic that it is no longer possible to identify the plaintext language from the Voynich MS text, and any attempts of this nature will be invalid.
Last edited by gomipile; 2019-05-17 at 04:38 PM.
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2019-05-17, 09:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-18, 03:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I'm in favour of the ancient hoax theory, mainly for three reasons:
1) It is known to have been in the possession of a guy who had a career of selling fake alchemy
2) The emperor paid almost four pounds (not as the currency, as the weight) of gold for it.
3) So many cryptologists went over it and it seems to contain almost no information that even hints at it being some sort of actual code. At this point I'm pretty confident in accepting it's gibberish.Resident Vancian Apologist
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2019-05-18, 05:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
As opposed to all that real alchemy respectable alchemists have gone about selling.
This one seems strange to me. What does the price the thing was bought for matter in verifying if it's a legitimate thing or not? People were crushing up bones for Chinese medicine for years before we found out they were in fact some of the oldest known records of a once thought mythical Chinese Dynasty? The price paid or even the value other people attribute doesn't really say wheter it's real or not.
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2019-05-18, 06:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
And the controversy continues.
Sorry, It Looks Like a Researcher Didn’t Just Crack the Voynich Manuscript After AllHow do you keep a fool busy? Turn upside down for answer.
˙ɹǝʍsuɐ ɹoɟ uʍop ǝpısdn uɹnʇ ¿ʎsnq ןooɟ ɐ dǝǝʞ noʎ op ʍoɥ
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2019-05-18, 07:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-18, 10:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
I write a horror blog in my spare time.
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2019-05-18, 11:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Yeah. No one's going to write an entire book of nonsense if it's not going to pay well. A real alchemy book at least has uses.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2019-05-18, 04:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
Meh. Cryptology advanced by leaps and bounds from the middle ages, not to mention the astronomical difference between the computational powers at our disposal right now and back then. I don't believe there can be any middle ages code that couldn't be cracked by a professor and a few grad students within a couple weeks.
I personally think that the patterns that people find in it allude to how the original guy (the con man or whatnot) couldn't have written a perfectly random string on account of being a human.Last edited by Cespenar; 2019-05-18 at 04:15 PM.
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2019-05-18, 07:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Voynich manuscript solved?
All of you are wrong. Cueball's solved it.
A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along, oh
To a handsome man and baton (Bygone, bygone)
A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn (Bygone, bygone)
Columnated ruins domino
My avatar was made by a very lovely chap by the name of smutmulch. That was very cool of them.
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2019-05-19, 07:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: solved?
Sure, both are fair points but we're not talking about the fraudster. The Emperor paid a price for it. Or didn't. There's no proof that 600 ducats were given over for the book. We're just told that it was.
Dr. Raphael, a tutor in the Bohemian language to Ferdinand III, then King of Bohemia, told me the said book belonged to the Emperor Rudolph and that he presented to the bearer who brought him the book 600 ducats. He believed the author was Roger Bacon, the Englishman. On this point I suspend judgement; it is your place to define for us what view we should take thereon, to whose favor and kindness I unreservedly commit myself and remainLast edited by Razade; 2019-05-19 at 07:38 AM.