Uncle Dale Posted September 21, 2010 Share Posted September 21, 2010 The silence (from my LDS friends) has become deafening in the other thread I recently started here -- so, I'll go back to a point Ahab made, that I found interesting:...If the Book of Mormon came to us as we (LDS) believe it did, the final result is mainly the work of one man who wrote in his own vernacular as he received inspiration from God, along with some minor input from the few men who wrote as scribes for Joseph.Perhaps so -- but, if so, then we can use the instance of the Book's reproducing Isaiah and Malachi texts as a starting point.In those cases, it might be argued that Joseph Smith purposefully avoided translating the Nephite characters in front of him on the plates, and resorted to copying KJV English for his dictation.This would prove his lack of interest in preserving "Nephite" in the text he was dictating.Or --- it could be equally argued that Smith was faithful to his source material, and that his very minor changes to Isaiah and Malachi demonstrate how careful he was, not to interject much of his own verbiage.So, which possibility seems more reasonable to us modern readers -- 1. The BoM has internal structure, and we can learn something about the vocabulary and expressions of Nephi, Jacob, Mosiah, Zeniff, Helaman, General Moroni, Mormon, Ether and Moroni the son of Mormon, by carefully examining the texts.or2. Because Joseph Smith so altered the Nephite language, in his production of the Book of Mormon, it is useless for us to try and examine its internal structure. It is impossible, for example, to derive a "word-print" for Moroni, because we do not have his actual words and expressions to consult.Your thoughts????UD Link to comment
LifeOnaPlate Posted September 21, 2010 Share Posted September 21, 2010 I think it's a bit of both, personally. If we're really dealing with a translation of course we're going to have to question the degree of translator influence. At the same time, we can look for structural, thematic patterns, styles of address, etc. within the text to see if we find different perspectives. Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon is a good start. Brant Gardner's article on "Mormon's Editorial Method and Meta-Message" is really good as well, freer and shorter. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 21, 2010 Author Share Posted September 21, 2010 I think it's a bit of both, personally. If we're really dealing with a translation of course we're going to have to question the degree of translator influence. At the same time, we can look for structural, thematic patterns, styles of address, etc. within the text to see if we find different perspectives. Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon is a good start. Brant Gardner's article on "Mormon's Editorial Method and Meta-Message" is really good as well, freer and shorter.Thanks for the links.Being of the older generation, I'm more inclined to resort to Reynolds (and that new kid, Sperry) when I think about such stuff.I keep forgetting about Brant and associates.UD... Link to comment
44Foxtrot Posted September 21, 2010 Share Posted September 21, 2010 UD,Just because folks were not commenting on your companion thread does not mean they are not interested or were not reading it.I, for one, am fascinated by these PCA analysis. I went back and listened to the Craig Criddle presentation again just to be sure I understood how your PCA analyses might help confirm or refute his work on BoM, D&C and PoGP authorship attribution.Having done some data mining and having worked in the past with statisticians and epidemiologists, I am pretty comfortable as to where the weight of evidence stands. However, I am with you that new data are always of interest, even if they are derivative or meta data.Please carry on. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 21, 2010 Author Share Posted September 21, 2010 ...Please carry on.Right now, I'm trying to get a handle upon what folks say about Ether. More exactly, which parts of Ether are by Moroni -- which parts are paraphrases -- and which parts are from the Prophet Ether himself.If I have to contend with the idea that the entirety is in the words of Joseph Smith, perhaps it's a lost cause.At any rate, I have a pca chart of Ether-Moroni and am pondering how best to develop that data -- regardless of whether "Moroni" was a Nephite, or a modern; a single writer, or an amalgam of writers.It's giving me headaches. I didn't learn any of this stuff in Book of Mormon class!UD. Link to comment
Ahab Posted September 21, 2010 Share Posted September 21, 2010 If I have to contend with the idea that the entirety is in the words of Joseph Smith, perhaps it's a lost cause.That's a negative slant toward something that could be seen in a positive light, instead.Fact is, the entirety of the Book of Mormon is in the words of Joseph Smith, with some minor input from a few of his scribes.Go ahead and think you're reading the words of Ether or Nephi, or Moroni, or Mormon (etc) when you're reading the Book of Mormon, though, and don't worry about being totally wrong about that, because you actually are, even though all of their words are coming through to you through the words and language of Joseph Smith, and the words and language of his own scribes, as well. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 22, 2010 Author Share Posted September 22, 2010 ...Go ahead and think you're reading the words of Ether or Nephi, or Moroni, or Mormon (etc) when you're reading the Book of Mormon...That is my "default" position -- I suppose, from habit.But I'm still worried that it will be impossible to "word-print" Moroni, and thus search for his BoM contributions by computerized analysis.For one thing, the first few Moroni chapters are so short as to be practically useless in computerized word-printing. They might chart out anywhere on a map of all the texts, since their shortness of text will inevitably give unreliable readings in a pca chart, etc.However, having one foot in the door, I might at least share the chart I worked up.Some of the Ether chapters cluster together in a tight little knot at the bottom of the chart -- others are spread out something more like the Moroni chapter plots (but without discernible overlap, other than at Moroni 5 -- and maybe at Moroni 4).What (if anything) are we to conclude from seeing such results?UD. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 22, 2010 Author Share Posted September 22, 2010 ...What (if anything) are we to conclude from seeing such results?...Well, for one thing, it seems that in this instance, at least, the Book of Mormon is NOT homogeneous. Both Ether and Moroni's chapters are spread out over a large portion of the chart -- which is not what we might expect of a fairly uniform text, presenting the words of a single author.But there is something in the Ether/Moroni pca chart excerpt which brings a measure of satisfaction to my own mind -- and it has to do with a longstanding disagreement I've had with Matt Jockers.You see, his authorship attribution for some of the Ether chapters differs from mine, and that has been a thorn in my side for some time now. To illustrate, let me superimpose the Ether-Moroni plots atop the old Mosiah-Alma excerpt I've spoken of previously.Here:We now have identified the BoM chapter plots for Mosiah, Alma, Ether and Moroni -- and in this messy chart we have all of that brought together at last.What has me pleased, is that several of the Ether chapters fall smack dab in the middle of the "Spalding cluster" inside of the Book of Mormon, which I've been talking about for a couple of days now.Most significantly, we see Ether 1, 9, 14 and 15 falling in the midst of all the reddish "Spalding attributed chapters" Jockers identified for Alma and Mosiah. But there is more. see also Ether 6, 10 and 11 ---> which the pca chart clusters in with all the Spalding attributed texts.I predicted this years ago, and disagreed with Jockers' alternative attributions. See my graphic here:http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtE2.gifI say "Spalding; " he says "Rigdon and Pratt." I say eether -- he says iither -- "let's call the whole thing off."If we can take the depictions in the pc1/pc2 chart of Jockers' own data seriously, those three chapters fall in with the BoM's Spalding cluster, and share textual elements with Spalding, more so than with Pratt or Rigdon's writings.So thank you, Bruce -- for giving me ammunition to use against Matt. Score: Mormon defenders = 1Feuding Spalding advocates = 0Ain't pca charts fun?UD Link to comment
Glenn101 Posted September 22, 2010 Share Posted September 22, 2010 That's a negative slant toward something that could be seen in a positive light, instead.Fact is, the entirety of the Book of Mormon is in the words of Joseph Smith, with some minor input from a few of his scribes.Go ahead and think you're reading the words of Ether or Nephi, or Moroni, or Mormon (etc) when you're reading the Book of Mormon, though, and don't worry about being totally wrong about that, because you actually are, even though all of their words are coming through to you through the words and language of Joseph Smith, and the words and language of his own scribes, as well.It is not a given that the Book of Mormon is in the words of Joseph Smith. None of the previous word print studies have come to that conclusion. And the description of the translation process also does not support that conclusion.And to answer Dale's question, the Book of Mormon is hardly homogenous. Even books by the same author will often not be found homogenous because there are so many places where quotes and passages from other sources are included. To be able to test for any such uniformity, one would have to carefully analyse all of the texts porported to be by any one author and remove any portions that are claimed by the text to be from another source, then work with the remaining text. That should be fun.glenn Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 22, 2010 Author Share Posted September 22, 2010 ...To be able to test for any such uniformity, one would have to carefully analyse all of the texts porported to be by any one author and remove any portions that are claimed by the text to be from another source, then work with the remaining text....You know the old argument, over whether certain academic disciplinesare "an art" or "a science?"I'm beginning to think of Book of Mormon studies in that light. Trying to comprehend the structure of the text is neither an art nor a science; it takes both methodologies, in order to appreciate what we have here.Of course a large number of people will say that the scientific appreciation of the text is a useless waste of time, and that what we really should concentrate upon is the message of the book -- not its "nuts and bolts."For us Spalding-Rigdon enthusiasts, the "nuts and bolts" of the text matter very much. But we non-LDS should not be put into the position of leading the way in scientific studies -- that should be a Mormon task, set upon with vigor by Mormon scholars.I feel embarrassed here -- like trying to sell ice to the Eskimos -- when the Eskimos are telling me they really don't want my ice.Oh well...UD. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 22, 2010 Author Share Posted September 22, 2010 ...I feel embarrassed here...While I'm not saying that Bruce's pca chart is a perfect guide to our finding "Manuscript Found," its "Book of Mormon cloud" of plot points can rather neatly be separated into two "islands,"with all the stuff I'm really interested in falling conveniently on the "South Island" -- somewhere past "Christchurch."Much of the stuff we critics have been saying was added into Spalding's original writings, falls closer to "Auckland," up on "North Island" (a.k.a. small plates archipelago). http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/BS/SGPlot1.pngOr, to plagiarize Walt Disney and Robert L. Stevenson...UD. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 23, 2010 Author Share Posted September 23, 2010 While I'm not saying that Bruce's pca chart is a perfect guide...I finally have a large graphic of the ENTIRE "Book of Mormon cloud" in that pca chart -- with all chapters labeled.That is, if anybody is interested in seeing it...UD Link to comment
Gervin Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 I finally have a large graphic of the ENTIRE "Book of Mormon cloud" in that pca chart -- with all chapters labeled.That is, if anybody is interested in seeing it...UDyou have to ask?Anyone with a passing interest in the Book of Mormon beginnings would likely be interested in information that affirms or refutes their theories of origin. I'm interested .... maybe why me, too. Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 23, 2010 Author Share Posted September 23, 2010 you have to ask?...OK -- as soon as I get back from the beach...UD Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 23, 2010 Author Share Posted September 23, 2010 OK -- as soon as I get back from the beach...UDI'm back --Here's the labeled chart:Larger version here:http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/BS/Whole1a.gifOriginal chart, here:http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/BS/Whole1a.xlsTabular data, here:http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/BS/Whole1a.txtCan somebody send a copy or link to Bruce, please?UD Link to comment
Glenn101 Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 While I'm not saying that Bruce's pca chart is a perfect guide to our finding "Manuscript Found," its "Book of Mormon cloud" of plot points can rather neatly be separated into two "islands,"with all the stuff I'm really interested in falling conveniently on the "South Island" -- somewhere past "Christchurch."Much of the stuff we critics have been saying was added into Spalding's original writings, falls closer to "Auckland," up on "North Island" (a.k.a. small plates archipelago). http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/BS/SGPlot1.pngUD.Dale, Do you know what the statistical significance is of those plots? I do not and would be hoping that someone qualified would pop in to help us out.Glenn Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 24, 2010 Author Share Posted September 24, 2010 Dale, Do you know what the statistical significance is of those plots? I do not and would be hoping that someone qualified would pop in to help us out.GlennPCA charting was never meant to separate out the writings of identified authors from a jumble of submitted texts -- that is not the function of principal component analysis, in which we are mostly looking for "deviations from the mean."Thus, as "statistical significance," the internal structure of Bruce's "Book of Mormon cloud" of chapter plots means very little. What is striking about his chart, is that it shows a great separation between Book of Mormon chapters and 19th century texts.However, once we get inside the "BoM cloud" and look at distributions represented there, we do see clearly that Matt Jockers has identified SOMETHING with his NSC classification. The clusters of the BoM chapters he attributes to Spalding do not occur in Bruce's chart due to the NSC classification methodology, however. They occur there for some other reason.For example, the dots for Alma 48-49-50-51-52-53 cluster very tightly together in Bruce's chart. I predicted this years ago, without resorting to NSC analysis -- purely on the basis of shared vocabulary with Spalding and shared phraseology with Spalding. My early predictions had absolutely nothing at all to do with the current pro and con controversy over NSC use.If Bruce hopes to salvage his anti-S/R theory argument, using such pca charts, his best bet is to concede that Jockers has indeed stumbled on to some textual patterns in the Book of Mormon -- but that the red dots clustering on the chart (see below) arise from some other phenomenon than the hand of Solomon Spalding.UD. Link to comment
Bruce Schaalje Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Dale,Continuing the Disney theme, all I seem to see are images of Mickey Mouse in your Link to comment
4truth Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Hi Bruce:The original PCA plot shows that the 19th century candidates are completely separate stylometrically from the Book of Mormon chapters. I can see the separate "clouds" on the chart, but how did the plots get where they are? What criteria was used to produce the results? From discussions with Dale I learned that the plots represent "distance from the mean" but what is "the mean"? An average or composite of something... all the writing samples put together? or all BOM chapters combined? or something else?Thanks, Roger Link to comment
Bruce Schaalje Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Hi Bruce:I can see the separate "clouds" on the chart, but how did the plots get where they are? What criteria was used to produce the results? From discussions with Dale I learned that the plots represent "distance from the mean" but what is "the mean"? An average or composite of something... all the writing samples put together? or all BOM chapters combined? or something else?Thanks, RogerRoger,Each of the texts has a number of measurements (say relative frequencies of 110 specific words) associated with it. Geometrically these values give the position of each text in 110-dimensional space (just like 175 W 2300 S give the 2-dimensional address of someone in Salt Lake City). Since we can Link to comment
4truth Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Bruce:Thanks for explaining! Does this help?Sort of. --but only because most of it goes over my head. There are an infinite number of such projections, but Link to comment
Uncle Dale Posted September 25, 2010 Author Share Posted September 25, 2010 ...I'll dig it out and paste in your data...OK -- that worked out fairly well.Here's the results:Of course, by removing the x-axis and replacing it with a value scale, we rid ourselves of all those pesky 19th century authors and (I guess) we are now comparing nothing to something, or something to nothing.At least it works out that way for my purposes. As I said previously, I wish to see rigorously derived definitive data, on what parts of the BoM most resemble the known writings of Solomon Spalding -- quantified, tabulated and presented visually.About the only thing I can discern of interest in this new chart, is that it produces a cluster of Alma 48-53, with distances between the plots roughly similar to the same cluster, exhibited inside the "BoM cloud" by the pca/pc2 blow-up I posted earlier.The identification of these several Alma chapters as items of interest in 19th century authorship studies pre-dates Jockers' work by a few decades. I'm happy to see that they keep popping up, as an observable group, in the results of many different sorts of examinations.So -- has the dust settled on all of this, -- so that I can get back to contemplating seashells on the backyard beach?UD Link to comment
Chris Smith Posted September 26, 2010 Share Posted September 26, 2010 Bruce,I appreciate your work on this new chart. It appears to me to demonstrate that even the seemingly "non-contextual" word vectors you retained remain quite genre-biased. Would you agree? My argument has been that word-frequency-based authorship attribution of cross-genre texts is doomed almost from the outset by the fact that "non-contextual words" turn out to be mostly mythical beasts. Your chart would seem to confirm that.You mentioned that you have detected patterns in the data after "correcting" for the genre differences. I am curious how this correction was accomplished.You might also be interested in my response to Dale's ruminations, here.Peace,-Chris Link to comment
Bruce Schaalje Posted September 26, 2010 Share Posted September 26, 2010 What is "the first principle component"? Is it some sort of question or questions you ask the computer? Is it the plot points of one of those 110 dimensions? Something else?It Link to comment
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