4 ms·

The Codex Seraphinianus: Man and woman copulate, turn into alligator

33 points by silentbicycle 18y ago

pookleblinky 18y ago
Interesting. Liberal arts majors still have nothing better to do with their lives.
- michael_dorfman 18y ago
  Wow. Personally, I can't think of anything better to do.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- rml 18y ago
  Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
- pookleblinky 18y ago
  I meant that in the sense of "spending thousands of dollars and months of one's life to take a course that revels in incomprehensibility and subjectivity, leavened with stereotypical calls to abandon rationality in a manner eerily reminiscent of a random scene from an Ayn Rand book" It's just that, good lord, who of us would choose a course like that over a real class?
  - menloparkbum 18y ago
    I think people are voting you down because they think you're talking about the guy who WROTE the book, not the author of the article. That's what I thought... That said I think everyone who goes to college has a few humanities requirements, liberal arts major or not. A class with this book in it would have been much cooler than most of the classes I took, humanities or otherwise.
  - simonb 17y ago
    If this were reverse engineering of some obscure long out of use protocol it would be heralded as great hacking/fascinating detective work/interesting puzzle.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
joshu 18y ago
I actually bought a copy of the Codex years ago. I found one on Ebay for a few hundred dollars. It is truly an amazing thing -- it's like an encyclopedia from an alternative universe. The pictures are incredibly detailed. It's too bad the fake language probably doesn't code for anything. More pictures here: http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html and http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi/C_serafini.html http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi/C_serafini.html
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  Well, the page numbering system is internally consistent. It's in base 20-something, IIRC. Though all I figured out about the writing system was that it has a second (like upper-case) form used for titles. There's a Rosetta Stone-ish page near the end (http://evertype.com/pics/bookpics/RosettaView.jpg http://evertype.com/pics/bookpics/RosettaView.jpg), which seems almost mocking by the time you get there. (Edit: http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html . It's base 21, more details there.) I had it for a few weeks on university library interloan, once upon a time. Looking at individual scanned pages on the web cannot do justice to immersing yourself in hundreds of pages of this gigantic black silk book.
  - joshu 18y ago
    IIRC the letters in the words repeat way often than one might expect.
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      Maybe they're syllabic (which would be reasonable, given the number of distinct symbols), and the language uses repetition of a syllable as a case marker, or just as a stylistic flourish? Perhaps it's used for emphasizing standalone nouns: Scis-issors-ors (scissors), vehic-icle-ickle (vehicle), o-sho-cean-shan (ocean). Likewise, if you're carving it in a building, why not write 'museum' as MVSEVM? I know it's a conlang, and Serafini is probably just putting us on, but the ancient Mayan script does some pretty remarkable calligraphic somersaults, too.
Hexstream 18y ago
This could be the base of a wacky MMORPG.
asciilifeform 18y ago
I am reminded of the "Encyclopedia Butlerica": http://www.weirdart.com/pages/ency.html http://www.weirdart.com/pages/ency.html
ableal 18y ago
Alligator can be seen here: http://the-crime-in-your-coffee.anagkh.net/?p=664 http://the-crime-in-your-coffee.anagkh.net/?p=664 P.S. If you haven't read any Jorge Luis Borges, I'd advise considering that a bug to be fixed a.s.a.p. ;-)
cdibona 17y ago
It's funny how this story pops up now and then on different sites. It has a 3 year recycle rate, hopping from geek aggregator to geek aggregator. It is a great book though, my wife found ours at a thrift store in palo alto, for somthing like $50. I'd seen it originally in the mid 80s and was kind not obsessed enough to buy it on ebay but looking it up in rare book rooms to try to find a leather bound edition. Great book to have ,though.

33 points by silentbicycle 18y ago

pookleblinky 18y ago

Interesting. Liberal arts majors still have nothing better to do with their lives.

michael_dorfman 18y ago
Wow. Personally, I can't think of anything better to do.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
rml 18y ago
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
pookleblinky 18y ago
I meant that in the sense of "spending thousands of dollars and months of one's life to take a course that revels in incomprehensibility and subjectivity, leavened with stereotypical calls to abandon rationality in a manner eerily reminiscent of a random scene from an Ayn Rand book" It's just that, good lord, who of us would choose a course like that over a real class?
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  I think people are voting you down because they think you're talking about the guy who WROTE the book, not the author of the article. That's what I thought... That said I think everyone who goes to college has a few humanities requirements, liberal arts major or not. A class with this book in it would have been much cooler than most of the classes I took, humanities or otherwise.
- simonb 17y ago
  If this were reverse engineering of some obscure long out of use protocol it would be heralded as great hacking/fascinating detective work/interesting puzzle.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

joshu 18y ago

I actually bought a copy of the Codex years ago. I found one on Ebay for a few hundred dollars. It is truly an amazing thing -- it's like an encyclopedia from an alternative universe. The pictures are incredibly detailed. It's too bad the fake language probably doesn't code for anything. More pictures here: http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html and http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi/C_serafini.html http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi/C_serafini.html

silentbicycle 18y ago
Well, the page numbering system is internally consistent. It's in base 20-something, IIRC. Though all I figured out about the writing system was that it has a second (like upper-case) form used for titles. There's a Rosetta Stone-ish page near the end (http://evertype.com/pics/bookpics/RosettaView.jpg http://evertype.com/pics/bookpics/RosettaView.jpg), which seems almost mocking by the time you get there. (Edit: http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html . It's base 21, more details there.) I had it for a few weeks on university library interloan, once upon a time. Looking at individual scanned pages on the web cannot do justice to immersing yourself in hundreds of pages of this gigantic black silk book.
- joshu 18y ago
  IIRC the letters in the words repeat way often than one might expect.
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    Maybe they're syllabic (which would be reasonable, given the number of distinct symbols), and the language uses repetition of a syllable as a case marker, or just as a stylistic flourish? Perhaps it's used for emphasizing standalone nouns: Scis-issors-ors (scissors), vehic-icle-ickle (vehicle), o-sho-cean-shan (ocean). Likewise, if you're carving it in a building, why not write 'museum' as MVSEVM? I know it's a conlang, and Serafini is probably just putting us on, but the ancient Mayan script does some pretty remarkable calligraphic somersaults, too.

Hexstream 18y ago

This could be the base of a wacky MMORPG.

asciilifeform 18y ago

I am reminded of the "Encyclopedia Butlerica": http://www.weirdart.com/pages/ency.html http://www.weirdart.com/pages/ency.html

ableal 18y ago

Alligator can be seen here: http://the-crime-in-your-coffee.anagkh.net/?p=664 http://the-crime-in-your-coffee.anagkh.net/?p=664 P.S. If you haven't read any Jorge Luis Borges, I'd advise considering that a bug to be fixed a.s.a.p. ;-)

cdibona 17y ago

It's funny how this story pops up now and then on different sites. It has a 3 year recycle rate, hopping from geek aggregator to geek aggregator. It is a great book though, my wife found ours at a thrift store in palo alto, for somthing like $50. I'd seen it originally in the mid 80s and was kind not obsessed enough to buy it on ebay but looking it up in rare book rooms to try to find a leather bound edition. Great book to have ,though.