I want to discuss P/F gallows, and their relationship to K/T. Throughout this post I am going to refer to my proposed 'chronological gradient'. If you disagree such a gradient exists, there are other places to argue that.
LFD's explanation for P/F is that they represent Ke/Te, based on the fact K is depleted in line openings. However, this explanation alone doesn't seem to line up with what we see in the MS.
K is only depleted in line openings in Herbal A, which almost entirely lacks any ke or te words. Pch is incredibly common, but tech and kech is nonexistent.
The charts below show the per 10k occurrences, arranged by my chronological gradient of
Ke or Te
Kch or Tch
pch
Note, the apparent gradual increase in Ke/te from the 1.5-2a sections, coincides almost exactly with the decline of tch and kch. Pch is slightly less common in 2a, but it's use is much flatter over the entire course of the MS.
It's clear from the above charts P/F cannot simply be Ke or Te, as Ke/Te did not become popular until pharma.
To better see the differences between P/F bearing words and K/T bearing words, i created the same MDS plots, but I filtered to only Gallows bearing words, and I replaced all gallows characters with <G>. For each bifolia, i then pooled the <P/F> gallows, and the <K/T> gallows.
For comparison, I also created a 2nd version, that uses Ke/Te instead of K/T. In this version, Ke/Te are collapsed to <G>, so we can compare P/F to ke/te words directly.
This allows us compare word construction patterns between P/F, K/T and Ke/Te, along the MDS dimensions. When we do this, something very interesting happens.
In the chart below, each arrow points from the same bifolio's P/F words, to its K/T words.
Immediately something is very obvious. P/F virtually always sit to the right of K/T. What's more, the distance between the P/F words and the K/T words increases over the course of the manuscript, as the chart below shows. Comparing P/F to Ke/Te does not resolve this issue -- in fact this creates substantially greater distance between the points in 1a/1b, while not particularly lowering the later distances.
If i turn this (pf)->(kt) into a vector, I can compare it directly against the local path for all words. Basically, this is seeing if the direction of the pf->kt matches the direction of the overall gradient. If the directions align, the arrow is green. If they point in the opposite direction, it is orange. The charts at the bottom report the actual angle of alignment.
We can see that overwhelmingly, P/F and K/T are separated in the direction of the gradient. This strongly implies that P/F are more conservative or 'lagged' K/T. In other words: at any given point, P/F are following older word construction patterns than K/T.
This raises many important questions.
Are P/F an 'archaic' or conservative 'K/T'?
Why did P/F not eventually get the same E-treatment as K/T?
What does this mean for Ke/Te words as a whole? Is <e> simply some kind of shorthand or alternative notation that never is integrated with P/F?
Are the apparent coeval drop of <G>ch and rise of <G>e related? ch already strongly resembles ee.
Hello everyone, please be patient with me, this is my first time posting here :-)
f57v and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – The Primer Analogy (German: Fibel)
I am aware that many of these approaches have already been examined individually. What is particularly important here is the physical connection between You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r. These pages were therefore not randomly selected to fit the idea; they already share a historical/physical connection (bifolium).
What I could not find in my research was an analogy between a primer (German: "Fibel", a traditional first-grade reading textbook) and the diagram on f57v. I therefore want to emphasize that I am not trying to take credit for other people's ideas, but rather to combine existing ideas with my own.
In this primer analogy, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could represent a second-grade language textbook. The two pages would not necessarily have to be directly connected through readable text, but they could still be connected in terms of their meaning. What do I mean by this?
The following could therefore be possible: a didactic guide can contain repetitions, variations, isolated characters, combined units, and complete sentences right next to each other, without all of them serving the same function.
What the primer actually demonstrates (with german example)
→ P p
= Basic forms
The purpose here is to introduce characters. The same letter appears in uppercase and lowercase, as well as in different writing styles (print and cursive).
→ Pa – pa
= Syllable formation
The purpose here is to demonstrate construction. One character is combined with another already familiar character. This creates a readable unit.
→ Papa
= Word formation
This demonstrates the principle of repetition and combination. Two instances of "Pa" form a complete word.
→ Papa ist am …
= Application
Here, context is introduced. The same building blocks are then used in larger structures.
In the photographic example of a first-grade primer, the right-hand column shows the variations Papa, Pap, Pa, P, Pa, Pap, Papa. This demonstrates how something can be broken down and put back together, showing the logic behind the letters, syllables, and the word. However, "Pap" represents an intermediate element that only serves the formation of the word later on, without having a meaning of its own in the language. We only know this because we can read the language. With f57v, this is precisely the knowledge we are missing.
The difference between my interpretation of the rings and Matsuta's interpretation is, in my view, that he would already assign the procedures according to the positions of the rings. I see it more as a compact way of showing how the rings might interact to form a kind of "instruction manual".
If we consider the four rings in a way similar to Llull, several possibilities arise:
- One ring could introduce individual building blocks.- Another could show variations or possible combinations.- A further ring could contain more complex constructions.- The last could represent applications or another stage of processing.
BUT: The primer example also shows that these functions do not necessarily have to be distributed across four separate rings. Several functions can already appear within a single learning unit.
Nevertheless, one could conclude from this that repetitions and deviations within the ring sequences are not necessarily errors or meaningful textual variants. They could simply be systematically demonstrating the different possibilities.
One could also ask whether the characters are only combined linguistically, or whether they might also serve as a basic graphical arrangement or a construction principle for gallows and benched gallows. However, to investigate this, we would probably first need to understand the basic forms.
One logical, didactic consequence could be:
R2 (sequence of forms) → R4 (basic elements) → R3 (process of transformation) → R1 (formation of variants).
This sequence follows more of a logical progression if we stay with the primer analogy. But why a different order? If R1 is the ring of variants, it might need more space because several variants would have to be shown in greater detail. R2, on the other hand, needs space for its 68 character positions.
The idea of placing the sequence of forms before the basic elements comes from the primer analogy. It does not necessarily have to begin with the traditional ABC. It is conceivable that a limited selection of characters and their sequence could first be introduced, before explaining their structure, transformation, or combination.
However: This would first have to be confirmed by a statistical or paleographic investigation.
Theoretically, the unusual features identified by Matsuta might even support this idea ({&169} on f57v, {&170} on f57v, {&171} on f57v, and {&172} on both You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r).
The three characters described only on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could indicate a special function of this diagram page. The additional occurrence of {&172} reported on f66r, on the other hand, could be a possible concrete connection between the two pages. Taken together, this might also point towards an "instruction manual" or a "learning path".
f66r
If we now consider You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a possible example of application, the question arises whether the three text areas might also serve different functions. Similar to the primer, they would not necessarily have to show the same content, but could represent different steps or variations of a common procedure.
Lisa Fagin Davis's study (2020) is also interesting in this context. Although You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. belong to the same bifolium, Davis assigns the two pages to different scribal hands (Hand 1 and Hand 5). This could point towards collaboration or at least different stages of work. Whether this also has any significance for the content naturally remains an open question.
Koen G. also pointed out the unusual characteristics of Quire 8 on the Voynich Ninja forum (October 2025). What stands out is that the connection often observed between scribal hand, Currier language, and page type does not entirely follow the usual pattern here. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in particular occupies an unusual position. Whether this has any significance for a possible connection to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would first need to be investigated.
Another interesting aspect of this folio is the large number of simple relationships between variants.
The five paragraphs on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could also be compared structurally. Could different exercise or application steps be identified in connection with my assumption?
To what extent a tabular arrangement in three columns establishes a relationship between them is something I cannot demonstrate as a fact. It is possible that columns 1 and 2 form a kind of construction kit that serves as a reading or construction aid for column 3.
Alternatively, even a fixed relationship between horizontal divisions and vertical columns would be conceivable. This could be based on the five graphically apparent paragraphs (attached PDF, page 2, illustration "A"), or on further subdivisions within those five paragraphs involving characters from the respective column(s) (attached PDF, page 2, illustration "B").
It would also be conceivable that, under the assumption of a "Frame-Core Hypothesis" (German: "Rahmen-Kern-These"), the page might demonstrate by example how the definition of columns 1 and 2 affects the context in column 3.
My personal opinion is that the arrangement of the three columns was deliberate and was not added afterwards.
To test this hypothesis, however, a statistical analysis and, ideally, a paleographic investigation would be necessary. I would cautiously point out that purely statistical comparisons could potentially misinterpret the context of the primer analogy, since a direct repetition or correspondence between instructions and application does not necessarily have to be present. The important question would therefore be which relationships should actually be tested.
Interesting historical examples related to the primer analogy
1. Donatus, Ars minor, and Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale
These works taught basic rules of grammar. They did not simply present reading texts, but organized learning around grammatical rules.
2. Ramon Llull – Ars brevis, 1308
Perhaps the most interesting candidate in this context: learning through regulated positions in circular diagrams. The diagram was therefore not merely used as an illustration, but as a tool.
Furthermore, it could have been known to an author (or authors) of MS 408. Other aspects of its content are also remarkable when considered in relation to MS 408.
Source: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Already discussed in the Voynich Ninja threads "The Lullian Apophatic Machine" (03/2026) and "A Cusanus Ladin Hypothesis" (07/2022).
Further sources
René Zandbergen – Voynich MS, Quire 8
Documentation of the shared bifolium f57/f66, the ring structure on f57v, and the division of the text on f66r.
Jorge Stolfi – Interlinear Transcription of the Voynich Manuscript
Transcription comparisons and descriptions of the unusual character forms and column structure on f66r.
Lisa Fagin Davis (2020) – "How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes? Digital Paleography and the Voynich Manuscript." Manuscript Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1.
Mitsuro Matsuta (2026) – "Structural Analysis of the Voynich Manuscript: Elucidating a Knowledge System through Statistical Methods." Preprint, March 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19058612.
Koen G. (2025) – Post #14, October 9, 2025, in the Voynich Ninja thread "Looking at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in regards to the line as a functional unit." Discussion of the unusual combinations of scribal hand, Currier language, and page type within Quire 8, particularly You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the f57/f66 bifolium.
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Translation note: This post was originally written in German and translated into English with the assistance of AI. The ideas, hypotheses, interpretations, and conclusions are my own.
I am new to the forum, but have had an interest in the "Voynich Manuscript" for some time. I am not a specialist nor an academic by any stretch, but I have come up with a theoretical framework based on historical context and sociological observation. My approach is to answer "The Why". I do not know if any of my assumptions have already been tested, however I am certain the intellectuals of this forum will advise and share their thoughts.
I believe, The Voynich Manuscript is a holistic medical book written by or co written by non-classically trained women. Communicating in either their own engineered language or a mash-up, blending of several languages that they later encrypted. This would reflect the diversity of their backgrounds and regions, which is actually very common today.
The women would have been from varying medical/health backgrounds such as healers, herbalists, or midwives. Because this is not traditional medicine and is authored by women (theoretically), secrecy is clear. This "cipher" was used to protect the women, clients/recipient and the practice in a patriarchal society. Many restrictions, challenges and roadblocks that are still common today could explain "The Why". Rather than continuing to solve this mystery with the same approach of asking "what is this", we should stand back and start asking "why".
Please share your thoughts on my possible theory and if any of this has already been explored/tested. As far as cracking the language I do believe AI, Linguist and Cryptologist have focused their efforts on decoding based on a single language model. Due to posible language barriers or dialects we would naturally have discrepancies. I do not think we are dealing with a single language. I often say Salut or Buenos Dias but I am only fluent in English. My theory leans on the idea that humans are predictable and have not changed much over time.
Background: Bess and I disagree on many basic interpretations so I probably shouldn't continue to post my ideas in her thread.
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Review: I strongly suspect that the mystery language of the Voynich Manuscript is Old Czech (Bohemian) or Moravian. I am working on updating the EVA alphabet. So far:
EVA → Update
a → ? d → d l → r r → ? s → s t → v v → ? y → a
The "Rules" so far:
- May need to drop the first "o" character.
- Update the EVA characters.
- Vowels are flexible.
Like many people, I think the words on the top of page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are the Five Classical Greek Elements.
Air: olkchs → lkchs → rkchs → ?? "rauch" (wind)
Water: otedy → tedy → veda → ? "voda" or "vodou" (water)
Aether: otork → tork → vo?k → ?? "vrch" (the upper atmosphere)
Fire: otol → tol → vor / var → ? "var" (fire, heat)
Earth (Land): dchdy → dchda → ?? "deža" (earth, clay)
The only ones I feel really good about are "voda" (water) and "var" (fire) but I think the other three may work out if I can figure out more letters.
I previously talked about the solo "s" character meaning "with" in Czech.
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It looks like the solo "a" character means "and" in Czech.
If I am reading EVA "y" ( y ) as "a", then the solo EVA "y" ( y ) could mean "and". If I counted correctly, it looks like the solo EVA "y" ( y ) appears 50 times in the 20 pages of Quire 13.
Woo-hoo!! Do we have two confirmed Czech words?
I know, two solo character words aren't going to convince anyone but it supports "otedy" ( otedy ) → "voda".
@nablator asked me to explain the generator I mentioned, so here it is. Sorry, it got a bit long...
What it is
I call it "the scribe". It's a small program that writes a complete fake Voynich: same pages, same sheets, same paragraphs, same number of lines and words per line, same gaps for the drawings, Currier A and B, the five Davis hands. There is no meaning anywhere in it. It only follows writing rules that I measured first on the real text (ZL3b).
Why I did it
For months I collected rules about how the text is written. At some point you have to check if they are right, and the best way I found is this: if the rules are good, someone who follows them blindly should write a text you can't tell apart from the real one, at least in everything we know how to measure. If the fake text fails somewhere, a rule is missing or wrong.
How it writes
First it picks the habits of the sheet. Every sheet (the folded piece of vellum, four pages) has its own taste for some free choices: k or t, ch or sh, putting q in front or not, ending in dy or in y, and using words with e or without. The pages of the same sheet look alike in this, and inside a page it drifts a little from line to line.
Then, word by word, it decides to copy or to write something new.
About a third of the time (35%) it copies a word that is already on the page. It prefers the words close by, the chance halves every three lines or so, and it likes the word just above. In almost half of the copies it changes one letter, so qokedy can come back as qokeedy or okedy. One thing I learned the hard way: that change has to be something the hand would write anyway. More on that below.
The rest of the time it writes a new word letter by letter, and to choose the next letter it only looks at the two before. That is enough to keep the words in shape. They follow a sort of template: maybe a start (q, o, d, s or y), then a gallows or a bench, sometimes some e, and an ending. Words with e end in y or dy (qokedy, chedy) and words without e end in aiin, ar, ol (qokaiin, dar). It never puts two gallows in one word and never mixes e and i.
How a word starts depends on how the previous one ended. After a word in y, a word whose core starts with o usually gets q (shedy qokedy). A core starting with a gets d (daiin).
Then the line. The first word of a line likes to start with d, s or y, and avoids the same first letter as the line above (with ch it always avoids it, with s almost never). The last word gets "closed": daiin becomes dam, chol becomes choly, chor becomes chory. It does this more or less strongly depending on the hand.
And the paragraph. It starts with a gallows, the first line uses p and f instead of k and t, and the first line almost never copies.
That's it. It's seven steps, but some of the tables behind them are big, and they are learned from the text, so it's not a ten line rulebook.
How it looks
Real f78r, first lines:
Code:
tshedor shedy qopchedy qokedy dyqokol oky
qokeedy qokedy shedy tchedy otar olkedy dam
qckhedy cheky dol chedy qokedy qokain olkedy
yteedy qotal dolshedy qokedar chcthey otor dor or
You can still spot some bad words in it, like shedytedy or qokaiinsh (two word endings glued together). I'll come back to that.
The measures
To compare the fake text with the real one I use 64 measures. Each one is a number you can compute on both texts the same way. Some examples, real value first and the scribe second:
How often a word is repeated right after itself, compared with what chance would give: 3.1 times chance in the real text, 3.3 in the scribe.
How many words have a "twin" earlier on the same page, the same word or one letter different: 64% real, 68% scribe. The nearest twin is usually two lines up in both.
How often the last word of a line ends in m: 15.9% real, 16.7% scribe. Closed endings in general at the end of a line: 27.1% and 27.3%, against about 2% inside the line.
How often a paragraph starts with a gallows: 93% and 92%. How many gallows in the first line are p or f: 31% and 31%, against less than 3% in the other lines.
How much the pages differ from each other in their habits, for example in putting q after y. If every page was the same this number would be about 1. Real 6.3, scribe 5.7.
The link between the end of a word and the start of the next (more below).
And an "eye test": how many words have a piece of three letters that appears 3 times or less in the whole real text. Those are the words that look wrong when you read them. Real 4.6%, scribe 4.1%.
A measure counts as reproduced if the scribe is within 25% of the real value, average of 5 runs.
What comes out
The scribe reproduces 58 of the 64 measures.
For comparison, a simple generator with three rules that I made before gets 33 of 64. So the rules definately make the difference, it's not that any generator gets there.
The test I like most: I let the scribe learn its tables only from the odd folios, and then write the even folios, wich it has never seen, and compare with the real even folios. It gets 51 of 64. That number alone doesn't say much untill you see this: the real odd folios against the real even folios match on only 55 of 64, because some measures change a lot from one part of the book to another. So 51 should be read against 55, not against 64. It means the rules describe how the text is made, they don't just memorize it.
And if I take out any single rule, measures go wrong. Without the copying, all the repetition measures fail. Without the habit of the first line, p and f dissapear from the first lines. Every piece is needed.
The 6 tests it fails
Exact repeats. A word written twice in a row is 0.9% of the word pairs in the real text and 1.2% in the scribe. Compared with chance it's fine (3.1 against 3.3 times chance), but in raw numbers it repeats a little too much.
Repeats at distance 5, the same word coming back five words later: 2.9 times chance in the real text, 3.8 in the scribe.
Words that avoid repeating. In the real text 16% of the common words almost never come right after themselves (dal, shey, saiin), while okaiin does it five times more than chance. The scribe has 21%. It only knows families of words, not single words.
The m at the end of long lines. Real lines of 10 words or more end in m 3.4 times more often than lines of 1 to 4 words. The scribe only gets 1.9 times.
q at the start of a paragraph: 4.2% real, 6.2% scribe. The numbers are small here, it's just over the limit.
Long words, 8 letters or more: 5.3% real, 7.4% scribe. Some of them are the two endings glued together you saw in the example (shedytedy, qokaiinsh).
Why I think it's interesting
The recent Harvard paper (Schwartz) says that no generator so far, theirs included, reproduces one thing: the link between the end of one word and the start of the next. They leave it as one of the few things unexplained.
In the scribe that link is just the habit I described above: the start of a word depends on how the previous one ended, and on nothing else from it. Not the whole word, not the word before, not the position in the line. Even the last pen stroke alone carries most of it, so it looks like a thing of the hand and not of grammar. Measured roughly the way the paper does, the real text gives 0.115 bits for hand 1 and 0.224 for hand 2 (the paper says 0.12 and 0.21). With the habit, the scribe gives about the same strength (after removing what a shuffled text would give: 0.097 against 0.089 for hand 1, and 0.171 against 0.205 for hand 2). Without the habit it falls to almost zero.
Two things I didn't expect
No dictionary needed. An earlier version made too many wrong looking words. Almost all came from the copies with a changed letter, because the change was random (daiin became daain, chedy became chddy). Giving it a list of real words fixed the look but killed the variety. What worked was making the change follow the same two letter rule as new words. Wrong looking words went from 8.7% to 4.1%, real is 4.6%.
The kind of word follows the sheet, not the plant. Words with e (qokedy, shedy) against words without (qokaiin, dar, ol): their share is shared by the pages of the same sheet, even with the other half of the sheet that sits far away in the book, and not with the next page if it belongs to another sheet. In the herbal, where every page has a different plant, the other half of the sheet matches at z = -7.0 and the next page at -0.7. So it behaves like the habit of the day it was written, not like the subject.
What it doesn't show
It doesn't prove the Voynich has no meaning. It shows that a procedure with no meaning is enough for most of what we can measure.
And the tables are learned from the text, so it says how the pieces combine, not where the letter rules come from.
MODERATOR NOTE - Posts 1 to 23 were originally part of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and were moved to be their own thread]
(16-10-2026, 11:36 PM)pfeaster wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From the standpoint of potential parallels with Voynichese, I'm particularly interested in their finding that the writer of the Rohonc Codex seems to have been working out the details of his writing system as he went along, with rules that evolved over time.
But I don't get that impression from Voynichese. Yes there are differences between sections, but since we have no independent way of determining the order of writing or the internal structure, we cannot tell whether they are the result of the Author gradually evolving the language/script/encryption, as in the Rohonc Codex, or just determined by different topics/structure/style, possibly with one discrete but relatively modest "spelling reform" at some point.
(And yes, @npcompl33t claims otherwise. We are still fighting over that.)
By the way, the style of the nymphs tells me that Zodiac was drawn before Bio. And that Aries and Taurus were drawn before Pisces and the rest of Zodiac.
And the way some Pharma sketches were badly copied and expanded in Herbal tells me that Pharma is earlier than Herbal.
Also the bifolios of the Starred Parags section may have been scrambled and/or flipped over, but pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. were written last. (But, as I discuss in another thread, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was all but completely erased by a water spill and wrongly "restored" by a later owner.)
This is a follow-up analysis to my You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. All of the code for this work can be found in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Problem / Goal
The goal of this analysis was to answer "how uncertain / unstable are points on the proposed chronology". In particular, some follow-up analysis I have been conducting shows high sensitivity around the inclusion of f58, suggesting the placement of the missing H quire could change the ordering.
The core problem is, when tracing a path, the ends of the path have the least certainty. This is because points in the middle of the path have preceding and following points, which also have preceding / following points. These multiple overlapping observations provide much more certainty about the ordering.
However, points on the end do not have this. By definition, the first and final points would only have either a preceding or following connection. Depending on the direction and amount of movement, this can create uncertainty around which group is the first or last.
f58 and the missing H bifolio add this same uncertainty in the middle of the manuscript. We are missing part of the path, which creates additional uncertainty, specifically in the Herbal B ordering.
Method
I tested the ordering stability using both 207 individual pages and 50 pooled bifolia, holding the transition-distance/MDS representation fixed.
I utilized the ensemble procedure described in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which involves fitting curves to 100 random approximately 90% subsets, using eight starting routes and two regularization settings. A whole-bifolium sampling control brought the total to 4,800 fits.I then compared recurring positions, order reversals and competing routes’ scores within each sample.
I ran You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to attempt to identify any discontinuous regions along the gradient.
To establish toe potential impact of the missing pages, and the creation of the the H-position MDS charts below, I used the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., applied derivative-based continuation at λ=.01, checking assignment changes and different movement paths.
A You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of exactly how each methodology was applied can be found on the voynich-clusters web page. All code is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Results
Instability Across the Gradient
The chart below shows the variance in the ordering of the individual pages based on different ensemble simulations described in ElPiGraph's paper. This shows where across the 4,800 different fit variants each page and bifolia fell. This allows us to determine how sensitive the positioning is to different starting conditions, assumptions, and modeling parameters. Darker regions indicate more variants placed the page in that area.
Observations from the chart:
the ordering with respect to 1a and 1b is ambiguous, however 1a pages generally exhibit a slight initial ordering preference over 1b
1.5a and 2a's placements are generally stable.
f58, astro and cosmo are generally stable as a group. The only exception is Rosettes, which is the single isolated band not with the others in 5a, on the page level chart. It clearly was not made at the same time as the other 5a group, probably instead being produced alongside the Herbal B sections, but possibly even being made as late as stars 3c.
Herbal 3a and 3b's ordering is not stable, and will be discussed below in the next section.
At the bifolium level Stars 3c is generally stable, with f85r1 and r2 (the two unassigned bars ) also having the strongest preference for the same timing.
Bio / Stars 4c are more ambiguous, with fits generally preferring the ordering Stars 4c-> Bio
Checking for discontinuity
scEGRET is a method described by Zheng et al that applies directly to our problem. It is a toolkit designed to follow paths and identify discontinuous regions, allowing us to more firmly establish if we are missing any sections of the overall curve. The code is freely available on the authors github.
The general idea is this, along a well sampled progression, successive groups should generally change gradually. An unusually large change indicates the trajectory crosses a gap, for example, because intermediate data is missing.
scEGRET identifies no fully discontinuous regions across the gradient. Note, this does not mean certain areas along the curve are not missing pages. It simply means scEGRET was unable to detect one.
F58 does show a modest local signal. The scEGRET scores measuring relative change jump from .184 to .271, around a 1.5x increase. Calibration places this within the 95% confidence region. Removing f58 along with adjacent astro material entirely does produce discontinuity flags, but it depends on certain model settings and is therefore not conclusive.
So there appears to be no obvious gaps in the gradient, f58's region appears suspicious but is not enough to claim the region is discontinuous.
Impact of Missing Quire H on Herbal B
The chart below shows the impact the missing Quire H bifolia could have on the ordering of Herbal B's 3a/3b sections.
This is using the same MDS dimensions as the plots in the previous chronology theory,
The star shows the current placement of f58, the only remaining portion of quire H.
The colors indicate which ordering of 3a and 3b is preferred, based on where the missing pages of quire H would shift the current Quire H centroid on the MDS dimensions
Red regions mean if the missing pages shift the centroid there, the preferred ordering is 3a->3b. If the missing bifolia instead shift the centroid into the blue regions, then the preferred ordering is 3b->3a.
The black line divides the frontier between these regions
You can see the current f58 placement is almost directly on this red/blue frontier. This means without those missing pages, it is probably not possible to say for certain which Herbal B group comes first, because any slight changes from the current f58 point could alter the ordering.
Conclusion
The overall gradient is clear, but how confident we can be around the relative ordering of certain sections along that gradient varies. The largest uncertainty is:
The ordering of Early Herbal A sections 1a and 1b, although 1a is generally preferred as the starting point
The ordering of 3a and 3b, basically indeterminant without the missing Quire H
The ordering of 4c and 4a / Stars-T and Bio is indeterminant, although bio is generally preferred as the endpoint.
When a social bird person is kept in isolation, providing a mirror mysterious manuscript can trigger a severe psychological phenomenon known as the "mirror trap.". Because most pet bird species people fail the mirror self-recognition test, they do not understand that the reflection is their own body mind. Instead, they perceive the reflection as a completely different, real bird solution.
In isolation, this illusion fills a desperate biological need for a flock friend, but it quickly spirals into a damaging, one-sided obsession.
The bird person becomes trapped in a loop of trying to get a reaction from a "stranger" that never vocalises back or moves independently.
This causes chronic anxiety, depression, and severe mental fatigue.
The bird person may begin violently guarding the mirror mysterious manuscript, treating its human owners peers or other toys people as hostile intruders. They will viciously bite or scream if anyone approaches their "friend".
Parrots People will often stop eating, grooming themselves, or playing with stimulating toys communicating with other people because they refuse to leave the side of the mirror mysterious manuscript.
