Voynich Manuscript Partially Decoded

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
Hello there,

Finally some progress with this thing.
Original language Hebrew, encoded as alphagrams.

Part of the opening statement translates as:
"She made recommendations to the priest..."

Just one of the many links:
https://www.sciencealert.com/ai-may-have-finally-decoded-the-bizarre-mysterious-voynich-manuscript

What i would like to know is why anyone would go through the trouble to encode something like this; why not just write it in their natural language. From the opening statement it sounds like a recipe book or choices for food to be served or perhaps tips on farming, but it's a guess at this point. Also why the plants dont look like real plants is strange.
 
Last edited:

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
Maybe it's a joke.

Some researchers have argued that the VMS may be an elaborate hoax created to only appear as a meaningful text.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
Maybe it's a joke.

Some researchers have argued that the VMS may be an elaborate hoax created to only appear as a meaningful text.
Hi,

Well this research is very recent and they think they are finally onto something. Maybe just trying to make headlines? We wont know until they do more. They are using AI where they taught the program many different languages before setting it loose on the VM. Hopefully we see some results as it would be so cool to see this thing finally translated. So many people have tried and failed, none of them using AI until now.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
Hi,

Well this research is very recent and they think they are finally onto something. Maybe just trying to make headlines? We wont know until they do more. They are using AI where they taught the program many different languages before setting it loose on the VM. Hopefully we see some results as it would be so cool to see this thing finally translated. So many people have tried and failed, none of them using AI until now.
I looked at that report but I'm not very impressed with the decoding so far beyond what we already know about the text from the illustrations. With enough ciphertext and no known clear text examples it's possible to decode it to just about anything. AI is just pattern matching here, machines like humans can see patterns were none actually exist.

http://www.voynich.nu/illustr.html
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
I looked at that report but I'm not very impressed with the decoding so far beyond what we already know about the text from the illustrations. With enough ciphertext and no known clear text examples it's possible to decode it to just about anything. AI is just pattern matching here, machines like humans can see patterns were none actually exist.

http://www.voynich.nu/illustr.html
Well you'll just have to wait like the rest of us to see if anything more comes out of it.

Maybe it's text from another planet brought down by ancient aliens.
That would explain the weird plants though :)
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
Well you'll just have to wait like the rest of us to see if anything more comes out of it.

Maybe it's text from another planet brought down by ancient aliens.
That would explain the weird plants though :)
I would give aliens an even chance with the odds that this 'decoding' is correct. As usual the worst part about the paper is the media interpretation.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
I would give aliens an even chance with the odds that this 'decoding' is correct. As usual the worst part about the paper is the media interpretation.
Hi,

Ha ha, yeah. I just wanted to give the "ancient alien theorists" a fair stake in the list of possibilities.

You mean you think the media is trying to make this new analysis look better than it really is? Wouldnt be the first time they blew something up or down, depending on their own agenda which of course is more economically and politically based these days than it ever used to be in the past. Is there even such a thing as a balanced news network anymore?

In the end, at least for now, i dont see any argument being perfect yet because with something this badly understood it can go either way. It depends more on future study than on pure intuition (which then leads to personal opinion). All we can say at this point i think is that at least somebody is doing something that might lead to a solution some day. If nobody did anything then it would be clear that it would never get solved, so at least we have that one hope left.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
Hello again, and i have to gawk :)

They used friggin Google Translate ????? What the h*ll. How old are these guys, 12 or something?
Now this has become a big waste of time.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
I don't know. Space-faring aliens that haven't figured out a printing press?

But yeah, I get the point.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16959454/voynich-manuscript-mystery-ai-decoded-debunked
Space-faring aliens like the Aliens that landed on earth and sent their spaceships to the sun on Battlestar Galactica.

Nick Pelling, a Voynich expert who’s written extensively on the subject, is more blunt. When asked by The Verge what chance he thinks the paper’s conclusions are correct, he says: “So close to 0% as makes no practical difference.”
Sound about right.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
I pulled up the original manuscript. It looks like a botany book "page 31" looks like a pot plant, regardless of the language.

https://archive.org/stream/TheVoynichManuscript/Voynich_Manuscript#page/n29/mode/2up

kv
Hi,

Yeah interesting.

Someone went through a lot of trouble to make that work of whatever it is. I have to wonder if the whole point was to use it as a storage and possibly secret medium for an illegal or rare chemical mixed in with the ink, or maybe the entire ink itself. That way it could be passed to the receiver with no one aware of the true contents.
I might also wonder if it is just an interesting work of art because of the strange plants.
It would be really interesting if it was written by a dying alien that wanted to tell us about his/her/it's home planet.
 
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