[Cryptography] The Voynich Manuscript as a product of a mental health disorder Crypto
The Voynich Manuscript has attracted interest almost entirely from cryptographically-inclined people (alongside historians) who are by nature inclined to try and interpret it as some form of cipher or code, because they want to see a cipher or code there. I recently tried a different approach, I showed it to a psychologist and asked "which type of mental health disorder could the creator of this work have?". The first response was that it was created by a functional schizophrenic, a disorder that developed over time where they were seen as deeply spiritual by others (perhaps in a monastery) and their work was encouraged. Less likely would be a paranoid schizophrenic who sees themselves as a witch and writes in a secret language so that no-one else can persecute them for it. Another possibility is someone with serious bipolar disorder who, during a period of severe euphoria, thinks they're in direct touch with God and writes down visions from God, with God giving them a new language to record in the manuscript. So that's another option for the book, and an explanation for why attempts to decipher it have failed: There is no decipherment, since it came from the mind of someone whose thought processes don't match ours. Peter. _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 09:37:07AM +0000, Peter Gutmann wrote: > The Voynich Manuscript has attracted interest almost entirely from > cryptographically-inclined people (alongside historians) who are by nature > inclined to try and interpret it as some form of cipher or code, because they > want to see a cipher or code there. I recently tried a different approach, I > showed it to a psychologist and asked "which type of mental health disorder > could the creator of this work have?". > > The first response was that it was created by a functional > schizophrenic, a disorder that developed over time where they were > seen as deeply spiritual by others (perhaps in a monastery) and > their work was encouraged. Less likely would be a paranoid > schizophrenic who sees themselves as a witch and writes in a secret > language so that no-one else can persecute them for it. Another > possibility is someone with serious bipolar disorder who, during a > period of severe euphoria, thinks they're in direct touch with God > and writes down visions from God, with God giving them a new > language to record in the manuscript. [...] This is very interesting hypothesis, but I would like to see (or, I wonder it there is) some kind of statistics: how often those kinds of diseases result in producing a manual written in cryptic / undecipherable language? -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com ** _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Tomasz Rola <rtomek@ceti.pl> writes: >This is very interesting hypothesis, but I would like to see (or, I wonder it >there is) some kind of statistics: how often those kinds of diseases result in >producing a manual written in cryptic / undecipherable language? This is art, not science, you don't get a repeatable experiment. Look at the later works of Louis Wain, a classic example of this used in psych texts... here's one story on it: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/creatology/how-a-mental-disorder-opened-up-an-invisible-world-of-colour-and-pattern/ Here's a direct link showing the progression: https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/0/4579/12141236/Progression_Louis_Wain_IllustrationChronicles_1500.jpg (note that these aren't a direct progression from start to finish, he often had several works in progress at a time so some may be contemporaneous). Wain ended up in a (at the time) lunatic asylum, in earlier years if they were lucky they would have been seen as highly spiritual and ended up in a secluded religious life, which is where something like the Voynich could have been produced. Peter. _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
In article <20190121214938.GB24508@tau1.ceti.pl> you write: >This is very interesting hypothesis, but I would like to see (or, I >wonder it there is) some kind of statistics: how often those kinds of >diseases result in producing a manual written in cryptic / >undecipherable language? A reasonable question, but the answer only has to be "more than never." As far as we know, there is nothing else like this manuscript, so whatever confluence of factors produced it has to be possible, but need not be, indeed should not be, likely. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly PS: if you think of it as a written version of ecstatic religious speaking in tongues, that happens all the time. _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Ray Dillinger <bear@sonic.net> writes: >Last I heard about it, some folks had shown that its written content is >consistent with a method of producing a stream of gibberish (the content-free >part of a stream cipher message) shaped into a fairly language-consistent >form using a Cardan Grille Given that the Cardan Grille postdates the Voynich by 100-150 years, I think this may be another case of people trying to see something where there isn't anything... Peter. _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
________________________________ From: cryptography <cryptography-bounces+gerard.cheshire=bristol.ac.uk@metzdowd.com> on behalf of Ben McGinnes <ben@adversary.org> Sent: 12 February 2019 03:25 To: cryptography@metzdowd.com Subject: Re: [Cryptography] The Voynich Manuscript as a product of a mental health disorder On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 09:37:07AM +0000, Peter Gutmann wrote: > The Voynich Manuscript has attracted interest almost entirely from > cryptographically-inclined people (alongside historians) who are by nature > inclined to try and interpret it as some form of cipher or code, because they > want to see a cipher or code there. I recently tried a different approach, I > showed it to a psychologist and asked "which type of mental health disorder > could the creator of this work have?". > > The first response was that it was created by a functional schizophrenic, a > disorder that developed over time where they were seen as deeply spiritual by > others (perhaps in a monastery) and their work was encouraged. That's a very sound theory and now my second favourite. Though it is more likely to be correct than my favourite theory, I still just thoroughly enjoy this one: https://xkcd.com/593/ Regards, Ben ______________________________________________________________________________________ Hi Ben/Peter, I've already told Cryptography list - the Voynich manuscript was written by a Dominican nun in perfectly ordinary language and she was entirely sound of mind. The writing system was solved in May 2017 and a paper will be formally published in 2019. In the meantime, three draft papers are available to freely download from the preprint linguistics website LingBuzz: The first paper explains the writing system and language: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003737 The second paper translates the pictorial map from the manuscript: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003808<http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003808>; The third paper focuses on volcanological details from the map: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/004381 I don't know where such an idea as schizophrenia might come from - most odd, and ironic too. The book is merely a memoire and a compendium of Medieval medical advice. I'm familiar with such fantastical nonsense as aliens, black magic, communist propaganda, conspiracy, hoaxing, practical joking, alchemy and the rest - but schizophrenia? Plain daft! Regards, Dr. G. E. Cheshire, University of Bristol. https://bristol.academia.edu/GerardCheshire _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
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