22 replies to this topic

[Uncle Dale]

Uncertain, on 20 September 2010 - 02:18 PM, said:

Uncle Dale,

Interesting, I suppose you are looking at chapters written by Moroni because they presumably would be free from Mormons editing?

That would be one logical starting point for close examination of the text.
Moroni's "voice" is ostensibly present in the book of his name -- and then
again in parts of Ether. If Moroni was a single person (one distinct writer),
then we should be able to produce a discrete "word-print" for him, and then
compare its pattern across the entire Book of Mormon. If we've assumed all
of the above correctly, then that "voice" should only appear in the last
two BoM books. If it appears elsewhere -- or if a "foreign voice" occurs
where we expect to hear Moroni -- then that would be troublesome.

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Along those same lines what about Nephi's writings? There are if I recall more Nephi chapters than Moroni chapters they have a tendency to be longer and they should also be free of any editing by Mormon.

Yes -- but I am uncertain of Nephi's source material. In many
places the text purports to be "pure Nephi," but in some places
(such as in Jacob) we evidently do not have "pure Nephi." So
I'm less eager to wade into Nephi's texts than Moroni's.

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With regards to the pca scatter plots you have displayed they are in my view somewhat cluttered many different data points are being plotted and it can make it difficult to view particular partitions of the data. It would be nice to plot as controls known authors say Cowdery, Ridgon and Spaulding along with chapters written by one or two selected authors from the BOM say Moroni and Nephi. This in my view will make visual comparisons easier as compared to plotting all BOM chapters at once.

Yes, I understand what you are saying. But keep in mind the fact
that pca charts are not purposely designed to separate out individual
authors from a mixture of texts. Where the charting performs that task,
it is a by-product of the software program's primary function -- of
displaying deviations from the mean of the totality of texts/authors.

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If Cowdery, Ridgon and Spaulding show a tendency to form tight clouds while Moroni and Nephi do not. This then would be evidence that for example the Nephi chapters were not all written by the same author(s) contrary to the BOM claims.

Again, this may be something important --- but pca charts can only
provide us with some hints of what to investigate by other means.
They are "looking through a glass darkly" -- by which it is easier
to discern wide separations of plots, than it is to discern the
content and origins of clustered plots.

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If on the other hand the Nephi/Moroni chapters do form tight individual clusters similar to that seen with the control authors this would be evidence two separate authors were responsible for the Moroni/Nephi chapters which would support the BOM claims.

Best,
Uncertain

I think you've got some interesting ideas going here --
but it will take other researchers, using other means,
to better address those issues.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...

UD

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle Dale, on 20 September 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

...

I'll reserve any additional "overlays" for eventual posting at my
web-site.
...

Come to think of it, there is one more that might be of interest:



Here we see the Mosiah-Alma component of the "Book of Mormon cloud"
of pca plot points -- stretched out across the right side of the chart.

The Oberlin manuscript Spalding chapters cluster together in the
lower left of this excerpt from the pc1/pc2 chart.

When we move on to inspecting the pc3/pc4, etc., charts, we see
these two reddish clusters (Oberlin Spalding and attributed BoM
Spalding) begin to overlap and merge together into one constellation.

Probably THAT happens because, in those other pca charts, we are
reducing the quantity/strength of textual elements that make the
texts DIFFER from the mean value.

Elementary -- my Dear Watson...

UD

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle Dale, on 20 September 2010 - 02:36 PM, said:

...
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...
...

I've been playing around with the idea of some 3-D "map"
sequences, derived from the pca charts of the Jockers' data.

In that set of graphics, the Oberlin Spalding MS's chapters'
plot points on the "map" start out in close proximity to the
Book of Mormon chapters attributed to Spalding (in pc4/pc6),
and then --- frame-by-frame --- move farther away from those
BoM plot points on the "map," until, in the last frame of
that set of sequences, we have a view of what is essentially
Bruce Schaalje's previously posted pre-pub chart.

That works as a great clarification of what the Oberlin chapters
are, in relationship to the Book of Mormon. Those Oberlin Spalding
chapters are a "cluster" that group together on the pca charts
because they share many textual elements -- common factors in a
wide range of data depicted in the pca charts.

The Spalding-attributed chapters INSIDE of the Book of Mormon "cloud"
in the pca charts, also share many textual elements, and so they
form a cluster there as well. This is most clearly demonstrated in
the pc1/pc2 chart of Jockers' data, that Bruce brought to our
attention some time back.

But pc1/pc2 is merely the "end of the line" in a progressive sequence
of chartings, which serve to separate the initial close proximity of
the Oberlin Spalding chapters and the BoM Spalding-attributed chapters
in pc5/pc6, etc.

Unfortunately the stages of that separation, illustrated across an
overlapping sequence of pca charts, is not uniform and uni-directional.

The results, when animated, look more like a swarm of bees in motion,
eventually coming apart into two stable configurations, widely separated,
at the end of the animation.

I may have to simplify the depiction and present it as a series of
Powerpoint slides, in order to show that the Oberlin Spalding chapters
and the Spalding-attributed BoM chapters truly do share many significant
textual elements. Enough of them to indicate shared authorship.

Anybody interested?

Can I attach Bruce Schaalje's name to the title of my planned
Powerpoint animation; or would that be unprofessional and mean-spirited?

UD