The Cipher Theory

[Xander]

Oh, the irony!

You have insisted, from the very moment I finished my original articulation of my theses, to attempt to redefine what I said into something it was not. You have continued to do so for almost a year and a half now. Your apostate cohorts have adopted your misrepresentations, and now you've been permitted to export them to this board, where, fortunately, they have not been nearly as well received.

It doesn't seem to matter how many times and in how many ways I attempt to disabuse you and your friends of your false notions. You, like a great number of your apostate cohorts, are--above all other things--a skilled propagandist. That is what you do.

At any rate, I have satisfactorily defined on this thread my actual arguments. Those who are sincerely interested in this topic will be able to assess the merits of those arguments. I don't feel any need to add further to what I have already said on this thread. If you and your friends want to keep on debating against a strawman, be my guest.

Will you can't run away from your own documented presentation. I've cited you word for word where you and wade have tried to reinvent your argument because you know your original argument is untenable. Now you want to claim you always agreed that they were translating, after I have shown that there is no way around this fact. Instead of looking at the dozens of examples where you use the word "cipher", why don't you go the easy route and point out the examples where you refer to translation. I can count them on one hand, and in each case you're arguing against it.

Just who exactly do you think you're kidding with this rhetoric? Why are you so worried about how "well received" my arguments are, and how exactly would you know this anyway? You're just doing your usual well-poisoning skit. From my experiences here, and from the messages I've received, I think I'm doing fairly well.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Xander

[Xander]

Please, Kevin, this is getting embarrassing for you and you don't even realize it. Do yourself a favor and go through compassionately reconstructed syllogism and let me know if or where you disagree. If need be, I will then walk you step-by-step through each point and show you where it aligns perfectly with what Will said in his FAIR presentation, just as I have done with the first two points you agreed with. If you keep resisting then I will have no choice but to conclude that you actually know you are wrong but you are incapable of facing up to it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Please wade, don't join Will in his meltdown. Why don't you go through Will's presentation, assuming you have it, and point out the instances where he argued what you claim he argued. Why is this too much to ask? Talk is cheap. Show me the evidence. I've already showed you the evidence contradicting your claim but you and Will keep ignoring it. Again, he's gone public with his presentation in both video and text format, so there is no running from it anymore. The fact that neither of you will actually defend what he originally argued pretty much makes my case.

And no, I'm not wrong. There is no "facing up to it" needed, because I present evidence in a straightforward manner while you play these games, pretending to be the lesson-giver who sends us all on these silly homework assignments that prove nothing. I stopped jumping through your hoops years ago. Just present evidence if you have it and deal with the points I have raised. Thus far I do not see that you have dealt with much of anything I've said that flies in the face of Will's presentation.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Xander

[William Schryver]

Will you can't run away from your own documented presentation.

I've run away from nothing. I continue to quote from my presentation at every juncture.

I've cited you word for word where you and wade have tried to reinvent your argument because you know your original argument is untenable.

You have misrepresented the argument from the beginning. You are famous for misrepresenting people's arguments. That is what a propagandist does. You are a propagandist.

I believe I am fully capable of defining my own argument. I will continue to do so. You, I am certain, will continue to practice the art of propaganda. I'm sure you can count on the same audience that has always found your arguments persuasive. Indeed, I'm rather certain you could copy and paste a dozen pages from Dante's Inferno, concluding with "And so you see, Will is wrong once again!" and your apostate audience would erupt in cheers and toasts all around.

[wenglund]

As an example of the absurdity of this exercise as it relates to the GAEL, I'll do you one better: Here is my cipher key:

Symbol | sound | meaning

A ........| "ay" .......| {insert the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica here}

And here is my coded message to you: "A."

Upon further reflection, I have to say that this is potentially a brilliant analogy. It intentionally illustrates the impracticality of the EA/GAEL--a point that Will agreed with. However, it also, as with Kevin, unintentionally, though favorably illustrates some of what Will argues in his FAIR presentation. The only way to improve on the analogy and make it absolutely brilliant, is to title your cipher key "Egyptian Alphabet," and then create a manuscript with the "a" character in the left margin and the text of the Encyclopedia Britannica as the body of the manuscript, with the title of the manuscript something like "Translation of the Encyclopedia Britannica by their own hands hands upon paper and found in the local library."

Since it would be so brilliant, and for the sake of argument, I will go ahead and assume these additions to your analogy and precede in the next several post to explicate why it is so brilliant.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 9, 2011 by wenglund

[Xander]

I've run away from nothing. I continue to quote from my presentation at every juncture.

And so do I. But I also quote the parts where you contradict your current claims. You do not respond directly to any of this. You just ignore it and keep accusing me of misrepresenting you.

You have misrepresented the argument from the beginning.

That sounds like an empirical claim. Do you have evidence? Let's see it!

You are famous for misrepresenting people's arguments. That is what a propagandist does. You are a propagandist

Then prove it!

[wenglund]

[Egytptian Alphabet]

Symbol | sound | meaning

A ........| "ay" .......| {insert the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica here}

[Manuscript #1:

Translation of the Encyclopedia Britannica by their own hands hands upon paper and found in the local library

A | {insert text of the EB here}

| ]

1. Cobalt's EA is called "Egyptian," and may well have been thought to be "Egyptian".

2. The "Egyptian" in Cobalt's EA is different from ancient "Egyptian" and modern "Egyptian" on paper. We know this because the character "a" is not ancient or modern "Egyptian" and does not appear on papyri or Egyptian paper. And, for simplicity sake and to avoid confusion, let's refer to the former as CE and the later as PE:

CE = Cobalt "Egyptian"

PE = Papyri or Paper "Egyptian"

3. Since CE is so different from PE, then CE could not have been used to decipher ancient Egyptian papyri or modern Egyptian papers.

4. There is no known extant documents, predating December 8th, 2011, that were written in CE.

5. As such, the CE could not have been used to decipher anything in ancient or modern "Egyptian" written prior to December 8th, 2011.

6. If the CE in his EA couldn't be used to decipher anything written prior to the creation of the Cobalts EA (i.e. it couldn't be used to decipher texts written in the then past), then one may reasonably ask what, exactly, his EA could have been used for?

7. Cobalt's EA could have been used to encipher new texts in the then future, and later decipher those new texts. In other words, Cobalt's EA could have been used as a cipher key, or rather a tool for translating future texts from English to CE and the other way around.

8. The intent and purpose of Cobalt's EA was implicit in what it could have been used for, and not what it couldn't.

9. Hence, the intent and purpose of Cobalt's EA was to be a cipher key or translation tool for future CE texts.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 9, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

That sounds like an empirical claim. Do you have evidence? Let's see it!

Then prove it!

Actually, it is an authoritative claim. It is a claim by the ultimate authority of what Will said and meant. It is a claim by the only person who can actually read Will's mind. It is, itself, evidence and proof. That you do not get this, is stunning to say the least.

Worse yet, repeatedly over the last year and a half you have been shown painstakingly where you have misrepresented Will's position. I have done just that in the last several threads you started, and I even pointed you to previous threads where the same has happened. And, yet, each time you continue undeterred, pretending that no evidence has been presented and that your criticism stands.

It is time for us all to face the fact that there is nothing anyone can say to disabuse you of your false notion. You are cemented to your errant position and that is that. With all your commendable improvement in tone, your dogmatic and intractable position still make it entirely a waste of time attempting to engage you. I wish it were different because I think you could add much to the discussion, but you are who you are.

For that reason, I chose not to try and engage you, but I will wait until I see evidence from you of a genuine desire to have an intelligent and productive as well as civil conversation. Feel free to view this as me "running away." It really doesn't matter to me.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Somebodyz]

Please, Kevin, this is getting embarrassing for you and you don't even realize it. Do yourself a favor and go through compassionately reconstructed syllogism and let me know if or where you disagree. If need be, I will then walk you step-by-step through each point and show you where it aligns perfectly with what Will said in his FAIR presentation, just as I have done with the first two points you agreed with. If you keep resisting then I will have no choice but to conclude that you actually know you are wrong but you are incapable of facing up to it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Your patience has amazed me. Well done.

I was hoping Xander would work with you here, but sadly not.

[wenglund]

[Egytptian Alphabet]

Symbol | sound | meaning

A ........| "ay" .......| {insert the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica here}

[Manuscript #1:

Translation of the Encyclopedia Brittanica by their own hands hands upon paper and found in the local library

A | {insert text of the EB here}

| ]

Now, some well-intending and studious souls may see the word "Egyptian" in the title of Cobalt's alphabet, and the word "translate" in the title of his presumed manuscript, and conclude from this that the manuscript is a translation of an Egyptian papyri or an Egyptian paper--particularly if someone, like myself, were to take up where Cobalt left off in his manuscript, and using actual Egyptian characters from an ancient papyri, put them in the left-hand margin of the manuscript, and somewhat associate each with things like World Book Encyclopedia, Growliers Encyclopedia, the Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends, etc.

These good souls may even show a correlation between the first character and text in the manuscript and the same in Cobalt's EA, as evidence that Cobalt's EA was the "modus operandi" for translating the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Furthermore, these good souls may look at the Editor in Chief for the Encyclopedia Britannica and conclude that he, not Cobalt, was the lead in creating the EA, and that the manuscript was translated by the Editor in Chief, and this to his scribes, Cobalt and Wade.

However, using the syllogism mentioned above, as well as other evidence (like the existence of a preexisting text and dependency of the EA on that text, as well clear evidence that Cobalt was the lead in the EA project, etc.), it is clear that these good souls are incorrect.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 9, 2011 by wenglund

[Hestia]

We are really trying to keep this discussion going. Please address issues and not people.

[wenglund]

FYI:

Using the EA/GAEL, it took me all of three minutes to ENcipher the two examples of coded sounds I posted HERE on this thread.

It took me even less time to ENcipher the one example of encoded characters HERE on this thread.

On the other hand, over a month ago I posted HERE these Egyptian characters from an extant Joseph Smith papyri:

and I asked for anyone to DEcipher them using the EA/GAEL--and this so as to test the "modus operandi" theory. Yet, I am still waiting. I am quite sure I could wait for another 3 months, or even another three years, and no one would be able to DEcipher those characters using the EA/GAEL. I offered to post other characters from the extant papyri, but I doubt that it would make any difference.

Why do you suppose there is such a disparity between being able to ENcipher new text from the EA/GAEL, and using the same to DEcipher old text? Logically, what does this tell us about the intent and purpose of the EA/GAEL?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Xander]

Before we move further we really need to settle this issue once and for all. I mean if wade and Will cannot even acknowledge the difference between "they were not deciphering" and "they were deciphering," then there really isn't much more I can do except present the evidence again in a concise manner and let readers judge this for themselves. I understand that to most people coming into this discussion, it might seem confusing what all this is about so I will try to explain as this clearly as I can.

My intention with this thread was to address the Cipher presentation presented at last year's FAIR conference. William Schryver provided the presentation online in both video and text format.

I addressed a claim that was prevalent throughout his presentation which asserts, without evidence, that these men were not trying to translate anything from the Egyptian papyri, despite what they said. Instead, Schryver informs us that the "meaning and purpose" of the entire project was to encipher existing English revelations into these symbols that these men referred to as Egyptian, even though Schryver insists they never really believed these symbols were Egyptian. Again, he presents no evidence for this, we're just supposed to accept it.

But the point of frustration you're witnessing now comes from William and wade's denial that they have contradicted themselves. I've been called a propagandist for pointing this out, so now I will present the evidence, for the fourth time now.

After I demonstrated that what these men were doing was deciphering, William responds by laughing at me, stating that I unwittingly proved his point because he had been arguing this all along.

This is false.

Wade told us that we were too hung up on the word "cipher" and that we should drop it. William implied that we were all too dumb to understand that a cipher and translation go hand in hand. I mentioned that the word cipher or one of its variants appears in Schryver's presentation more than 90 times. Schryver then jumps in to tell me how deceptive I am because it only appears 68 times. Well, I have two things to say to this. One, 68 times doesn't help wade's case when he says we are the ones "hung up" on the word, especially when what he claims he argued was only mentioned five times. And two, the version I downloaded months ago shows 105 total hits for "cipher" but 12 of those are for decipher and 3 are for encipher, so I subtracted those and came up with "over 90 times." I wasn't trying to be precise, I was only trying to make the point that his argument was precisely as I said it was and it was plastered all over his presentation from beginning to end. Of course some of these "cipher" words appear in the titles of the slides mentioned in his online version, so that probably explains the difference between 68 and 105.

In any event, his presentation he properly distinguished between a translation and a cipher, or deciphering as opposed to enciphering. In a nutshell, deciphering is when meaning within a symbol is translated from it. Enciphering is when a meaningless symbol is given meaning by whomever is attempting to create a cipher. In 2010 Will Schryver emphatically argued that only the latter took place within this project.

He now claims otherwise and wants to claim I have intentionally misrepresented him for a year. So here is the evidence that comes straight from his presentation. William explains that the meaning and purpose of the KEP can be determined by understanding the purpose of the Egyptian Counting document:

...the most instructive two pages of the entire collection of documents known as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers: the Egyptian Counting document."

Why is this document so instructive? Because it, more clearly than all the others, demonstrates the fundamental purpose of the project of which it is an integral part.

As I pondered the ramifications of these facts, the conclusion became obvious to me: what we have here is a tool not intended to decipher Egyptian, but rather one intended to encipher the descriptive English text of the cardinal numbers!

It constitutes a specimen of what is known in cryptography as a “cipher key.” The characters, which are not Egyptian and which do not come from the papyri, are intended to be a cipher representing the English words in the “explanations” column

...the Alphabet, Grammar, and Counting documents appear to have been intended to render the English text of the Prophet’s revelations into some kind of cipher that these men apparently believed to be typical of language as practiced by “the ancients.” Not that they would have called it a cipher. No, I believe the term they would have used to describe what they were doing is “translation”—not of Egyptian papyri, mind you, but of already written English texts—into a set of characters of their own selection and invention. Nevertheless, these tables they produced in the process of their translation project have the effective function of a “cipher key.”

Indeed, the more I considered the evidence in this new light, the more I came to believe that these men were not focused on translating the Egyptian papyri at all!

You’ll recall that Champollion used the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone as a primer to decipher the corresponding hieroglyphic Egyptian text. I surmised that William Phelps, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery set out to do something similar with the previously received Book of Abraham text. However, as my studies of the Alphabet and Grammar materials progressed, I discovered evidence that effectively disproved such a notion.

Again, the evidence strongly suggests that the Alphabet and Grammar was never intended nor designed to “decipher” anything! Quite to the contrary, it was a short-lived attempt to construct an ideographic cipher and lexicon

The point is that deciphering Egyptian scrolls was not their purpose. The kind of translation they were attempting ran in the other direction.

To the extent this lexicon was built partially on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri; texts that were written not in Egyptian at all, but in English, then the Alphabet and Grammar simply could not have been intended as a tool to decipher the papyri.

So when Will tells me that he had always argued that these men were deciphering and not enciphering, and as he stated quite emphatically two weeks ago: "I don't believe they were trying to create a cipher," then how is this not a contradiction from his presentation which spends a great amount of time repeating the opposite conclusion?

Further, wade tells me I'm misunderstanding this system because, "The EA/GAEL is the system for both enciphering and deciphering large amounts to text. It isn't one or the other." I think it is clear wade is the one who hasn't paid attention to what was argued in the original presentation.

In summary,

Will Schryver August 2010: "There is a substantial body of historical evidence demonstrating this desire to encipher information such that it was only understandable to those who possessed the key to the encrypted data. In addition to encryption, there were other motivations driving this Egyptian Alphabet project...what we have here is a tool not intended to decipher Egyptian, but rather one intended to encipher the descriptive English text of the cardinal numbers!

Will Schryver Novemberr 2011: "I don't believe they were trying to create a cipher....'translation key' (is what I argued all along)"

How is this not a contradiction in what Will argued? Is it really unreasonable for me to ask and/or expect some kind of reconciliation with both sets of arguments? Telling me Will is the world's authority on his view doesn't explain the contradiction, nor does it explain his refusal to address criticism ina point by point manner. He leaps over virtually everything I say and then continues to assert that there is no contradiction and that I am a "propagandist" for misrepresenting him.

You see, what we're witnessing here is a perfect example of what not to do when you're caught with your pants down. It is OK to change your position, but it is not OK to blame other people for simply pointing this out. I've kindly asked wade and Will to reconcile their statements with the presentation, but they absolutely refuse to respond with anything except backhanded dismissals, accusing me of misrepresenting the presentation. OK, then show me how I've misrepresented it. This should be interesting.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Xander

[Cobalt-70]

Just for fun, and to reinforce my earlier point, I have used the EA/GAEL to encipher a new coded message from English into "Egyptian," but this time I will use characters instead of sounds. See if you can figure out the message (I bet Chris Smith can):

(Remember to read from right to left)

In response to the above, I said, "Again, why are we not just translating Egyptian here (as Smith and Phelps understood it)?" Your response was:

That will become apparent in the follow-up exercise. But, I will wait until you finish this exercise. Please let me know when you have.

So apparently, before answering the question, you want me to acknowledge that these are characters that appear on the Book of Abraham manuscripts, associated with the text of the Book of Abraham, and that the answer to your question is a passage from the first part of the Book of Abraham. Duly acknowledged.

So again, why are we not just translating Egyptian here, as Smith and Phelps understood it, from the lacunae of the Hor papyrus? Your example is not sufficient to distinguish between the process of encryption and translation.

If you are arguing that Smith and Phelps could have used the (reconstructed) Hor papyrus as an encryption of the Book of Abraham, then that's a pretty bizarre claim. Why go through all the trouble to encrypt the Book of Abraham as an Egyptian papyri that already exists, and translates to something entirely different from the thing that it encrypts? Moreover, if it takes a copy of the Book of Abraham to decrypt this new code, then what is the point of encrypting it in the first place? You have to send them the Book of Abraham manuscript anyway, so why do you also have to send them the encoded version (i.e., the Hor papyrus).

Even if you think that the symbols on the left-hand column of the Book of Abraham manuscripts have nothing directly to do with the Hor papyrus, this is still a useless cipher. In any case, you will have to send the receiver a copy of the Book of Abraham manuscript (the supposed "cipher key," in your view) with the symbols in the left column, and then at some later time you will have to send the receiver the code, which tells the receiver nothing he doesn't already know by having the "cipher key" in his possession.

[Cobalt-70]

Close. Mine means: "See five virgin daughters..."

So do you really think there would be some occasion in 1835 for Smith or Phelps to be communicating a secret message to someone that discusses five virgin daughters? This is not the type of argument I would expect to come from an apologist.

[Cobalt-70]

1. Cobalt's EA is called "Egyptian," and may well have been thought to be "Egyptian".

2. The "Egyptian" in Cobalt's EA is different from ancient "Egyptian" and modern "Egyptian" on paper. We know this because the character "a" is not ancient or modern "Egyptian" and does not appear on papyri or Egyptian paper. And, for simplicity sake and to avoid confusion, let's refer to the former as CE and the later as PE:

CE = Cobalt "Egyptian"

PE = Papyri or Paper "Egyptian"

3. Since CE is so different from PE, then CE could not have been used to decipher ancient Egyptian papyri or modern Egyptian papers.

4. There is no known extant documents, predating December 8th, 2011, that were written in CE.

5. As such, the CE could not have been used to decipher anything in ancient or modern "Egyptian" written prior to December 8th, 2011.

6. If the CE in his EA couldn't be used to decipher anything written prior to the creation of the Cobalts EA (i.e. it couldn't be used to decipher texts written in the then past), then one may reasonably ask what, exactly, his EA could have been used for?

7. Cobalt's EA could have been used to encipher new texts in the then future, and later decipher those new texts. In other words, Cobalt's EA could have been used as a cipher key, or rather a tool for translating future texts from English to CE and the other way around.

8. The intent and purpose of Cobalt's EA was implicit in what it could have been used for, and not what it couldn't.

9. Hence, the intent and purpose of Cobalt's EA was to be a cipher key or translation tool for future CE texts.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Once again, your logic fails you.

#6 is a non sequitur, but I'll assume it to be true.

#7 is where the logic completely goes off the rail. "Cobalt's EA" could not have been used to encipher new texts in the "then future." Rather, it could only be used to encipher one text--the Encyclopedia Britannica. But there would be no point to encipher the Encyclopedia Britannica, because if the receiver has the "cipher key," she already has a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Though it might easily be considered to be a valid "Egyptian" translation from the perspective of a naive 1830s Ohioan who thinks that the letter A can magically hold vast quantities of information, It is a completely useless cipher.

#8: again, I have no idea what this means, and you have not explained what this means since the last time you used it.

#9: This is a non sequitur. Moreover, it is false, unless the "future CE texts" you refer to are the entire text of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and you make absurd intuitive inferences about my "intent and purpose" which are themselves incorrect, which I can tell you because the only reasonable interpretation of my correspondence, journal entries, and other external evidence is that I am not a competent Egyptologist, and that when I said "Egyptian," I meant Egyptian and not some hypothetical and useless Templar/Masonic cipher language.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Cobalt-70

[William Schryver]

/snip another subtle misrepresentation of my arguments/

This is the kind of thing that makes it impossible to have a reasonable debate with Graham. He is a propagandist. And he is not averse to misrepresenting his opponents' arguments in pursuit of his propagandist agenda.

I invite objective readers to peruse this thread, wherein I have clearly explained my own arguments. I don't believe it is too much for me to demand the right to express my own position.

I have nothing more to add to this thread. I invite readers to read my own words here if they want to know where I stand on these issues.

Edited December 10, 2011 by William Schryver

[wenglund]

So apparently, before answering the question, you want me to acknowledge that these are characters that appear on the Book of Abraham manuscripts, associated with the text of the Book of Abraham, and that the answer to your question is a passage from the first part of the Book of Abraham. Duly acknowledged.

I will take this as a tacit admission that the EA/GAEL can be used to encipher large amounts of text, contrary to what you previously suggested. Much appreciated.

So again, why are we not just translating Egyptian here, as Smith and Phelps understood it, from the lacunae of the Hor papyrus? Your example is not sufficient to distinguish between the process of encryption and translation.

The intent of the exercise was to primarily demonstrate that the EA/GAEL could be used to ENcipher (translate) large amounts of text using a few characters. It, along with the enciphered sounds, was secondarily meant to evince that the EA/GAEL may be used cryptographically. Hopefully, that point has been made as well. It was not intended to address the question of what kind of "Egyptian" language Smith or Phelps may have thought the EA/GAEL to be. That question was addressed in the syllogism. In short, my example is sufficient to do what it was intended to do.

Since the three characters I chose have apparently caused you to miss the point, then when I return home tomorrow or Sunday, I will post three more ENciphered characters from the EA/GAEL that are not on the Abr. Mss. to see if that will help you reach cognition.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

So do you really think there would be some occasion in 1835 for Smith or Phelps to be communicating a secret message to someone that discusses five virgin daughters? This is not the type of argument I would expect to come from an apologist.

Somehow you managed yet again to miss the point of the example. It wasn't intended to argue what Smith or Phelps may or may not have wished to communicate. Rather, as iterated and reiterated, the example was intended to demonstrate that the EA/GAEL could be used to ENcipher new texts. Has it sunk in yet?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[cksalmon]

Go away Chrissy.

We've already picked teams for this game...

Now, did you pick Wade or did he pick you?

At any rate, you and Wade contra mundum.

I invite objective readers to peruse this thread...

Good advice.

I have nothing more to add to this thread.

I don't believe that.

I invite readers to read my own words here if they want to know where I stand on these issues.

I have. What I've seen are attempts to introduce confusion with regard to where you stand on these issues.

But see:

I have nothing more to add to this thread.

And:

I don't believe that.

Chrissy

[wenglund]

Once again, your logic fails you.

#6 is a non sequitur, but I'll assume it to be true.

Let's test whether it is non sequitur or true. Please produce for us any papyri or papers written in modern Egyptian prior to yesterday that contain the character "a". As you look fruitlessly, hopefully the clear logic of #6 will finally register.

#7 is where the logic completely goes off the rail. "Cobalt's EA" could not have been used to encipher new texts in the "then future." Rather, it could only be used to encipher one text--the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I see you are going to go to the absurd length of nit picking the plural form of text in an effort to miss the point of #7. But, I will help pick you up after stumbling over that low hurdle by walking you through this slowly. The first time someone uses Cobalt's EA to encipher, would that one text be new? The correct answer to that question is "yes." Since the answer to that question is "yes," then that affirms the point of #7, contrary to what you suggest. Then, If someone else used Cobalt's EA to encipher a new text, then how many text would we then have? The answer would be "two." Would that mean there would be multiple texts? The correct answer would be, "yes." As such, my use of the plural for text in my example was reasonable. Did you get it that time?

But there would be no point to encipher the Encyclopedia Britannica, because if the receiver has the "cipher key," she already has a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Though it might easily be considered to be a valid "Egyptian" translation from the perspective of a naive 1830s Ohioan who thinks that the letter A can magically hold vast quantities of information, It is a completely useless cipher.

You are here arguing against a point that the example nor the syllogism was intended to make. Perhaps that may explain why you failed to grasp the point and the logic of both.

#8: again, I have no idea what this means, and you have not explained what this means since the last time you used it.

I would have thought it would be obvious, but since it is not, i will happily explain. It means that, given the nature of an item, the intended use of that item may be logically and pragmatically induced from the array of possible uses, and not from the array of impossible or implausible uses. For example, given the soft and absorbent and yet relatively fragile nature of Kleenex tissues, we may induce its use to be among the array of things that involve softness and absorbancy, and we can pretty much rule out uses that involve a lot of structural and tensil strength, durability, and so forth. In other words, we may logically induce that the tissue may be used for things like blowing noses and drying tears, and not things like girding skyscrappers or windshields of cars. Does that help?

#9: This is a non sequitur. Moreover, it is false, unless the "future CE texts" you refer to are the entire text of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and you make absurd intuitive inferences about my "intent and purpose" which are themselves incorrect, which I can tell you because the only reasonable interpretation of my correspondence, journal entries, and other external evidence is that I am not a competent Egyptologist, and that when I said "Egyptian," I meant Egyptian and not some hypothetical and useless Templar/Masonic cipher language.

See above. It was your attempt at logic that failed. sorry.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Cobalt-70]

I will take this as a tacit admission that the EA/GAEL can be used to encipher large amounts of text, contrary to what you previously suggested. Much appreciated.

This has never been about whether they can in theory be used as a cipher. It has been about whether they were intended as a cipher, and whether realistically, it could have been used as a cipher. I haven't seen evidence of either which is not also consistent with the idea that Smith thought he was translating.

The intent of the exercise was to primarily demonstrate that the EA/GAEL could be used to ENcipher (translate) large amounts of text using a few characters. It, along with the enciphered sounds, was secondarily meant to evince that the EA/GAEL may be used cryptographically. Hopefully, that point has been made as well. It was not intended to address the question of what kind of "Egyptian" language Smith or Phelps may have thought the EA/GAEL to be. That question was addressed in the syllogism. In short, my example is sufficient to do what it was intended to do.

Cryptographically, your argument has no leg to stand on. The purpose of cryptography is the secure transmission of information. Your example (actually, originally my example) is not a true cipher because the receiver of this code already has a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica (because you already had to provide the receiver with the "cipher key"). The code itself conveys no information content that the receiver did not already possess. The "cipher" has zero efficiency, and is thus not a real cipher.

[Ares]

I deleted as many purely personal comments as possible while leaving some attached to content.

As for accusations of favoritism, I found myself deleting comments by those on both sides of the argument. Surprise! Surprise!

Kevin/Xander- you have a long history of personal and condescending comments. Even if you decide to be more civil here you are going to have live with the history you created for yourself.

Will- you need to be respectful of other posters despite their history or the content of your arguments will be lost in the noise.

Moderate yourselves and you won't need to complain about who is being unfair on the moderating team. It is really a shame that interesting topics get buried in personal crap.

Thread closed for now. I really expect more of our "scholars" when posting. If someone brings up this topic again let it be in the scholarly discussion forum and will much less noise to content.