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It had meaning to its creator, but not to others. That's kind of what madness is, a break from consensus reality, and why some art can veer into the uncomforta

It had meaning to its creator, but not to others. That's kind of what madness is, a break from consensus reality, and why some art can veer into the uncomfortable territory between the two.

ALittleLight 5y ago
It's a program, it will compile and run. Some people can "understand" it, not in the sense that its creator did, but in the sense that a wikipedia article can be written about it and its purpose, and we understand why he wrote in a broad sense (schizophrenia). It's possible the Voynich Manuscript is the ramblings of an insane person but I don't think that is particularly likely. If my guess is right, and the statistical properties of the characters in the book indicate that it is part of a language or language-like system somehow, then we would have no more reason to suspect it was authored by a crazy person than any other random book.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  The fact that the program runs is no more meaningful than the fact that the ink forms distinct lines and figures on the page. In both cases it just means the author started out knowing how to use some tool contemporary to them. It doesn't prove or disprove either meaningfulness or nonsense. And the TempleOS example specifically illustrates that we're not talking a out a binary state.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    The fact that the program runs, and is an operating system, proves it has meaning. It's not a random collection of scribbles or incoherent scrawls. The computer can run it. We can interact with the program, understand it, and evaluate it. None of that is true with meaningless scribbles on a page. In my view the TempleOS example is an example of sense versus non-sense. This is the difference between someone explaining that they have to take out their own teeth because they think the CIA hid radios in there and someone just making incoherent sound. The former is crazy, sure, but it's crazy made out of words that convey intent. If a schizophrenic told you they needed to remove their teeth to silence the radios in them you'd have a good guess about what the schizophrenic person was about to do. Again, not true for the person making incoherent noises.
    - Brian_K_White 5y ago
      And the crazy scribbles include recognizable human beings. So what? And, again, not binary.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        The "so what" is that I don't expect incoherent gibberish to have similar statistical properties to actual language. If the book is written in a language (or constructed language or cipher) then we have no more reason to expect its author was mad than we have to suspect any random author of any text we can't read is mad. And maybe coherence isn't binary (not that I ever wrote it was) but TempleOS is clearly an example of something that is coherent though done by mentally ill person for an irrational purpose.

It had meaning to its creator, but not to others. That's kind of what madness is, a break from consensus reality, and why some art can veer into the uncomfortable territory between the two.

ALittleLight 5y ago

It's a program, it will compile and run. Some people can "understand" it, not in the sense that its creator did, but in the sense that a wikipedia article can be written about it and its purpose, and we understand why he wrote in a broad sense (schizophrenia). It's possible the Voynich Manuscript is the ramblings of an insane person but I don't think that is particularly likely. If my guess is right, and the statistical properties of the characters in the book indicate that it is part of a language or language-like system somehow, then we would have no more reason to suspect it was authored by a crazy person than any other random book.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
The fact that the program runs is no more meaningful than the fact that the ink forms distinct lines and figures on the page. In both cases it just means the author started out knowing how to use some tool contemporary to them. It doesn't prove or disprove either meaningfulness or nonsense. And the TempleOS example specifically illustrates that we're not talking a out a binary state.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  The fact that the program runs, and is an operating system, proves it has meaning. It's not a random collection of scribbles or incoherent scrawls. The computer can run it. We can interact with the program, understand it, and evaluate it. None of that is true with meaningless scribbles on a page. In my view the TempleOS example is an example of sense versus non-sense. This is the difference between someone explaining that they have to take out their own teeth because they think the CIA hid radios in there and someone just making incoherent sound. The former is crazy, sure, but it's crazy made out of words that convey intent. If a schizophrenic told you they needed to remove their teeth to silence the radios in them you'd have a good guess about what the schizophrenic person was about to do. Again, not true for the person making incoherent noises.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    And the crazy scribbles include recognizable human beings. So what? And, again, not binary.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      The "so what" is that I don't expect incoherent gibberish to have similar statistical properties to actual language. If the book is written in a language (or constructed language or cipher) then we have no more reason to expect its author was mad than we have to suspect any random author of any text we can't read is mad. And maybe coherence isn't binary (not that I ever wrote it was) but TempleOS is clearly an example of something that is coherent though done by mentally ill person for an irrational purpose.