Life In The State Hospital

"Doctors have throughout time made fortunes on killing their patients with their cures.

ANOTHER PERSON HAS THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM I AVE. HERE IS SHE EVEN SOUNDS LIKE ME.

THESE PEOPLE ALSO SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF GREEDY CORPORATIONS=NAZIS.

HERE WE OBSERVE DOCTOR B.F. SKINNER, EXPLAINING WHY AMERICAN IDIOTS HAVE NO FREE WILL.

DOCTORS ARE MORE DANGERIOUS THAN GUNS

Why Psychiatry Holds Enormous Power in Society Despite Losing Scientific Credibility
It helps to be funded by Big Pharma.
By Bruce Levine / AlterNet
January 6, 2015



“What’s a guy gotta do around here to lose a little credibility?” asked ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger in a 2012 piece about top Wall Street executives who created the financial meltdown but remain top executives, continue to sit on corporate and nonprofit boards, serve as regulators, and whose opinions are sought out by prominent op-ed pages and talk shows.

Wall Street is not the only arena where one can be completely wrong and still retain powerful influence. Influential “thought leader” psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions, by their own recent admissions, have been repeatedly wrong about illness/disorder validity, biochemical causes and drug treatments. In several cases, they have been discovered to be on the take from drug companies, yet continue to be taken seriously by the mainstream media.

While Big Pharma financial backing is one reason psychiatry is able to retain its clout, this is not the only reason. More insidiously, psychiatry retains influence because of the needs of the larger power structure that rules us. And perhaps most troubling, psychiatry retains influence because of us—and our increasing fears that have resulted in our expanding needs for coercion.

But before discussing these three reasons, some documentation of psychiatry’s lost scientific credibility in several critical areas.

Psychiatry’s Lost Scientific Credibility

DSM Invalidity. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic bible, the DSM, was slammed by the pillars of the psychiatry establishment. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the highest U.S. governmental mental health official, offered a harsh rebuke of theDSM, announcing that the DSM’s diagnostic categories lack validity, and he stated that “NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories.” Also in 2013, Allen Frances, the former chair of the DSM-4 taskforce, published his book, Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life.

Biochemical Imbalance Theory Debunked. It was a great surprise for NPR reporter Alix Spiegelin 2012 to discover that the psychiatric establishment now claims it has always known that the biochemical imbalance theory of depression was not true. Ronald Pies, editor-in-chief emeritus of the Psychiatric Times stated in 2011, “In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.” NIMH director Insel had already told Newsweekin 2007 that depression is not caused by low levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin. However, psychiatry made no serious attempt to publicize the fact that the research had rejected this chemical imbalance theory, a theory effectively used in commercials to sell antidepressants as correcting this chemical imbalance—an imbalance psychiatry knew did not exist.

Rethinking the Effectiveness of Antipsychotic and Antidepressant Drug Treatments. In 2013, NIMH director Insel announced that psychiatry’s standard treatment for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses has not been helpful to many people and needs to change so as to better reflect the diversity in this population. Citing long-term treatment studies, Insel concluded that in the long-term, many individuals who have been diagnosed with psychosis actually do better without antipsychotic medication. With respect to antidepressants, “60 Minutes” in 2012 reported on what antidepressant researchers have long known: placebos do almost as well as antidepressants even in drug-company studies that are biased in favor of the antidepressants. The “60 Minutes” report focused on research psychologist Irving Kirsch who used the Freedom of Information Act to study published and nonpublished drug company studies involving 6,944 patients from the FDA database trials of the six most popular antidepressants (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Celexa, and Serzone).

Psychiatric Treatments May Cause Increased Suicide.The FDA —despite protests by the psychiatric establishment—has issued “black box warnings” about the potential for increased suicidality for patients under the age of 25 who use antidepressants. In 2014, AlterNet reported about a University of Copenhagen study comparing Danish individuals who committed suicide to matched controls between the years 1996 and 2009. The researchers found that taking psychiatric medications in a prior year was linked to a 5.8 times increase in suicide; contact with a psychiatric outpatient clinic was associated with an 8.2 times increase; visiting a psychiatric emergency room was linked to a 27.9 times increase; and admission to a psychiatric hospital was linked to a 44.3 times increase in suicide.

While correlation by itself does not necessarily mean causation, an accompanying editorial in the same journal where the article was published pointed out that associations with the features detailed in this particular study indicate a good possibility of a causal relationship. Among the reasons why psychiatric treatment could well cause increased suicide, besides the adverse effects of medication, is the stigma and trauma of treatment, as the editorial authors state: “It is therefore entirely plausible that the stigma and trauma inherent in (particularly involuntary) psychiatric treatment might, in already vulnerable individuals, contribute to some suicides.”

Creating Stigma with Biochemical Defect Theories. In the psychiatry establishment, it has long been proclaimed that framing mental illness as a brain disease or a biochemical defect would result in less stigmatization. But the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF), in a review of the research reported in 2012: “Despite good intentions, evidence actually shows that anti-stigma campaigns emphasizing the biological nature of mental illness have not been effective, and have often made the problem worse.” One example is a 2010 study in Psychiatry Research that reported for the general public, the acceptance of the “biogenetic model of mental illness” was associated with a desire for a greater social distance from the mentally ill. The CHSRF review states: “The evidence shows us that while the public may assign less blame to individuals for their biologically determined mental illness, the very idea that their actions may be beyond their conscious control can create fear of their unpredictability and thus the perception that those with mental illnesses are dangerous...leading to avoidance.”

Corruption of Psychiatry by Big Pharma.Big Pharma heavily funds university psychiatry departments, sponsors conferences and continuing education for psychiatrists, advertises in their professional journals, and pays well-known clinicians and researchers to be speakers and consultants. I documented in 2007 and updated in 2012 how virtually every way the public and doctors get information about mental health has been corrupted by drug company dollars. In 2008, congressional investigations of psychiatry revealed that major psychiatry institutions such as the American Psychiatric Association and several “thought leader” psychiatrists, including Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, were on the take from drug companies, creating obvious conflicts of interest and further damaging psychiatry’s credibility.

The New York Times reported the following about Biederman: “A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007”; and the Times later reported that Biederman had pitched Johnson & Johnson that his proposed research studies on its antipsychotic drug Risperdal would turn out favorably for Johnson & Johnson—and then delivered the goods. Biederman was only one of several thought leader psychiatrists exposed by congressional investigations. TheDSM diagnostic manual is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and according to the journal PLOS Medicine, “69% of the DSM -5 task force members report having ties to the pharmaceutical industry.”

Why Psychiatry Retains Power Despite Lost Credibility

Drug companies need the general public to take psychiatric drug prescribers seriously, and so Big Pharma financially supports psychiatry institutions and thought leaders. And Big Pharma has huge clout over the mainstream media via the media’s dependency on Big Pharma’s advertising dollars. While Big Pharma is the most obvious reason psychiatry retains power despite a loss of scientific credibility, it may not be the most important reason. Psychiatry serves the needs of the power structure in general. And in our increasingly fear-based society, psychiatry meets our own increasing needs for coercion.

Meeting the Coercion Needs of the Power Structure

Ruling elites and power structures, from monarchies to military dictatorships to the U.S. corporatocracy, have routinely used “professionals” to control the population from rebelling against economic inequalities and social injustices so as to maintain the status quo. Power structures routinely rely on police and clergy, and today the U.S. power structure also uses mental health professionals. Medication and behavior modification treatments have been used to subvert resistance to a dehumanizing status quo, be it in a family or in the larger society. The following are a few examples of how both psychiatry and psychology have met the needs of the power structure in return for status and money.

MKULTRA: A piece of American history sounds like the rant of a crackpot conspiracy theorist but ultimately was confirmed decades later by the U.S. Congress’ Church Committee investigations, acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court, and documented in The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" by former State Department officer John Marks. Ewen Cameron, president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1953, sought powerful ways to break down patient resistance, and he experimented with LSD as well as with electroshock and sensory deprivation. The CIA, under a project code-named MKULTRA, eager to learn more about Cameron’s techniques, funded him as well as other renowned psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s to conduct brainwashing experiments.

Assistance in Interrogation/Torture: Shortly after the tragic events of 9/11, the American Psychological Association made high-level efforts to nurture relationships with the U.S. Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies. As Truthout reported in 2014, the APA aimed “to position psychology and behavioral scientists as key players in U.S. counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities.” The APA not only condoned but actually applauded psychologists’ assistance in interrogation/torture in Guantánamo and elsewhere.

Subverting Resistance by U.S. Soldiers: Psychiatrists and psychologists have subverted resistance by U.S. soldiers in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan via psychiatric drug treatments and behavioral manipulations. According to theNavy Times in 2010, one in six U.S. armed service members were taking at least one psychiatric drug, many of these medicated soldiers in combat zones. Martin Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association, has consulted with the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness positive psychology program (as I reported on AlterNet in 2010). Seligman achieved not only “social position and rank” for himself but several million dollars for his University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which quoted Seligman saying, “We’re after creating an indomitable military.”

Pathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance: Both psychiatrists and psychologists pathologize and medicate anti-authoritarianism and noncompliance, which I described on AlterNet in 2012. Many individuals diagnosed with mental disorders are essentially anti-authoritarians, and a potentially large army of anti-authoritarian activists are being kept off democracy battlefields by mental health professionals who have pathologized and depoliticized their pain.

Meeting Our Needs for Coercion

    “It seems to me that this coercive function is what society and most people actually appreciate most about psychiatry....Psychiatry has never ever needed scientific evidence to spread its ideas and practices, and possibly never will.” —David Cohen, co-author of Mad Science.

For two years early in my career, I worked as a psychiatry emergency room therapist. I observed countless instances of police dragging agitated people into the ER who were then forcibly placed in restraints. Some of those police officers emained in the ER to watch—in both admiration and envy—to see how quickly an injection of Haldol or some other antipsychotic drug could calm the person.

All societies, communities and families coerce and control members who frighten them. However, the kinds of behavior that frightens people varies enormously, and thus what is permissible to control and coerce varies enormously. So, while it would be fairly universal for a society to coerce and control someone who is physically attacking another of its members, it is quite historically exceptional—as is done in U.S. society—to use antipsychotic drugs to subdue a bored seven-year-old who is resisting classroom controls.

In December 2012, the Archives of General Psychiatry (renamed JAMA Psychiatry) reported that, between 1993-2009, there was a seven-fold increase of children 13 years and younger being prescribed antipsychotic drugs, and that nonpsychotic conditions such as “disruptive behavior disorders” were the most common diagnoses in children medicated with antipsychotics, accounting for 63% of those medicated.

The dramatic growth of antipsychotic drugs in the United States is largely about ever-increasing societal acceptance of using drugs to control unwanted behaviors. Antipsychotics grossed over $18 billion a year in the United States by 2011, and by 2013 one antipsychotic drug, Abilify, was the highest grossing of all drugs in the United States with nearly $6.5 billion in sales. In addition to children—especially foster children—the burgeoning U.S. antipsychotic market includes the elderly in nursing homes and inmates in prisons and jails, where antipsychotic drugs are a relatively inexpensive way to subdue and more easily manage these populations.

In a 2014 article, David Cohen, in the tradition of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, updates how the societal need for psychiatry’s “extra-legal police function” compels society to be blind to psychiatry’s complete lack of scientific validity. Cohen notes: “Society’s appreciation for psychiatric coercion subtly, but radically, imbalances the playing field. Because of psychiatric coercion, society gives psychiatric theories a free pass. These theories never need to pass any rigorously devised tests (as we expect other important scientific theories to pass), they only need to be asserted.”

Thus, journalists’ continued exposure of psychiatry’s lack of science and its corruption by Big Pharma has had virtually no impact on reducing psychiatry’s influence. Substantive mental health reform will not come about unless society itself is reformed to be less fearful and less in need of controls and coercions. For example, if society could return to the idea that there are many extremely intelligent adolescents who are not “academics” and who do not need extended standard schooling but some other form of education to succeed in many occupations, then adolescent rebellion against standard schooling would not be so frightening for parents, and the compulsion to coerce and control via behavioral manipulations and psychiatric medications would disappear.

Cohen concludes, “Let’s face it: No one cares that psychiatric research of the past 50 years failed to turn up one finding of use for a scientific clinical psychiatry.”

Of course, Cohen cares, and so do all genuine scientists, but Cohen is right that as long as society needs the “extra-legal” coercion that psychiatry provides, society needs to remain in denial about the scientific illegitimacy of psychiatry. Without a decreased societal demand for coercion, psychiatry abolitionists should beware that if psychiatry ever does lose its clout, another coercive institution will likely fill the vacuum.

Bruce E. Levine, a practicing clinical psychologist, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. His latest book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite. His web site is www.brucelevine.net





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This is a FANTASTIC Documentary Film:LSD Experiment - "Schizophrenia Psychosis Induced by LSD25" 1955 CIA Funded (MKULTRA)

 

 

 

 

 

HOW PSYCHE DRUGS WERE DISCOVERED

In 1948 the pharmaceutical researcher Peter N. Witt discovered quite by chance that spiders build quite different webs when under the influence of drugs than they do otherwise. The psychiatrists at the Friedmatt Sanatorium and Nursing Home in Basle, Switzerland, were aware of Witt’s work and hit on the idea of trying to get to the bottom of schizophrenia using spiders.

It was a mystery – and remains so to this day – what the precise trigger was for the onset of this mental illness. However, fifty years ago scientists thought that they had found a promising lead: after taking drugs such as mescaline or LSD, healthy patients began to show symptoms similar to those exhibited by schizophrenics. These chemical substances induced short-term hallucinations and personality disorders. Could it be that such substances were permanently present in the metabolism of those suffering from schizophrenia? In other words, were schizophrenics on a constant ‘high’ due to a mere whim of their body chemistry?

So, at the start of the 1950s, researchers in Basle began to examine the urine of schizophrenics in an effort to discover what this chemical compound might be. Urine was chosen as the basic material for their investigations “so that we ‘d never be stuck for large quantities to work on,” as one of the team involved later wrote. But how on earth were they supposed to find a substance that, for one, they weren’t even sure existed in the first place and, for another, they had no idea what it consisted of?

The biologist Hans Peter Rieder collected and prepared 50 litres’ worth of urine samples from fifteen schizophrenics. The resulting urine concentrate was fed to spiders and the webs that they spun were then compared to those constructed by spiders that had been given researchers’ urine instead. If any systematic difference was evident in the webs made by these two groups, then it might well be that the substance they were trying to find was responsible. Moreover, if the webs also resembled those spun by spiders under the influence of LSD and mescaline, they the scientists would at least what type of substance they were looking for.

The experiment was conducted several times with various different concentrations of urine, but the results were disappointing: although the spiders certainly constructed different webs when under the influence of urine than they did otherwise, no systematic difference was apparent between researchers’ and schizophrenics’ urine. After a further series of experiments, the team came to the conclusion that the geometry of spiders’ webs just wasn’t a suitable tool for diagosing mental illnesses.
  researchers did find out one thing: namely, that the concentrated urine “must taste extremely unpleasant, despite all the sugar that was added”. The spiders’ behaviour left no room for doubt: “After taking just a sip, the spiders exhibited a marked abhorrence for any further contact with this solution; they left the web, rubbed any residual drops off on the wooden frame, only returned to the web after having given their pedipalps and mouthparts a thorough cleaning, and could scarcely be persuaded to take another drop of the stuff”.

Antipsychotics make women into lesbians

These toxins interfere with the natural balances of estrogen and testosterone. This is by design. It is to make women hate men and in doing so reduce the chances for reproduction. Low birth rates are part of the plan by the Republican anti homeless agenda to reduce the population to a "sustainable" level.

My Writing PLAGERISED ...a bad thing

I live in the Tenderloin, in Mercy Senior Housing. ] am 66 Years old, my Family were Mental Health Professionals.
Do Not Accept Historical Revisionist Propaganda to Belie the Catastrophic Ruin to America caused by Corporate Greed, and Yes, the Horrors of Homelessness is A MONSTER caused by Reagan's Handlers. Read this Piece from REAGAN REVOKED THIS LAW UPON TAKING OFFICE!


When the Governor of Michigan Shut Ypsalanti State Hospital 1000, SEVERELY MENTAL PATIENTS WERE DUMPED on the DETROIT SKID ROW, Were Murdered for Their Monty before Winter, another 500, Were Found Drowned in the River next spring….


America was NOT a nice place. Like most other mental hospitals in America Ypsilanti began declining in both quality and quantity by the s, which would continue until it closed. The Michigan Daily also said that a survey of Ypsi's mental buildings was done inessay that they essay obsolete because they "were all designed for custodial care link the health and are not well suited for a therapeutic program of essay and treatment for the mentally ill.


Michigan Governor John Engler went on a health cut state spending on mental health by closing all the state psychiatric hospitals. Ypsilanti Regional Psychiatric Hospital was one of the first to go, closed inthough the "C-Building," and the various service buildings on the property obviously stayed in partial use until early March of under the health CFP, essay, "Center for Forensic Psychology"—meaning it was a hardcore detention facility that housed the State of Michigan inmates who were either unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity, or who pleaded innocent to murder by reason of insanity.


Governor Engler's biography on michigan. Anyway, according to a September report by the Detroit Free Press, the rapid dismantling of Michigan's once-vast state essay system in the s perhaps did not achieve quite the positive outcome that was hoped for—at essay partly because the "community-based" resources that were supposed to pick up the slack were never given the proper funding they were promised.


As the state hospitals closed, tens of thousands of patients who didn't have family to make sure they got proper care were literally turned out on the streets, "with a bus ticket to Detroit, and one bottle of pills," as the local saying goes.

Proven Wrong About Many of Its Assertions, Is Psychiatry Bullsh*t?

Some psychiatrists view the chemical-imbalance theory as a well-meaning lie.

By Bruce Levine / AlterNet

September 23, 2016

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Photo Credit: Olena Yakobchuk / Shutterstock

In the current issue of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Australian dissident psychiatrist Niall McLaren titles his article, “Psychiatry as Bullshit” and makes a case for just that.

The great controversies in psychiatry are no longer about its chemical-imbalance theory of mental illness or its DSM diagnostic system, both of which have now been declared invalid even by the pillars of the psychiatry establishment.

In 2011, Ronald Pies, editor-in-chief emeritus of the Psychiatric Times, stated, “In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.” And in 2013, Thomas Insel, then director of the National Institute of Mental Health, offered a harsh rebuke of the DSM, announcing that because the DSM diagnostic system lacks validity, the “NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories.”

So, the great controversy today has now become just how psychiatry can be most fairly characterized given its record of being proven wrong about virtually all of its assertions, most notably its classifications of behaviors, theories of “mental illness” and treatment effectiveness/adverse effects.

Among critics, one of the gentlest characterizations of psychiatry is a “false narrative,” the phrase used by investigative reporter Robert Whitaker (who won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors Book Award for Anatomy of an Epidemic) to describe the story told by the psychiatrists’ guild American Psychiatric Association.

In “Psychiatry as Bullshit,” McLaren begins by considering several different categories of “nonscience with scientific pretensions,” such as “pseudoscience” and “scientific fraud.”

“Pseudoscience” is commonly defined as a collection of beliefs and practices promulgated as scientific but in reality mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method. The NIMH director ultimately rejected the DSM because of its lack of validity, which is crucial to the scientific method. In the DSM, psychiatric illnesses are created by an APA committee, 69 percent of whom have financial ties to Big Pharma. The criteria for DSM illness are not objective biological ones but non-scientific subjective ones (which is why homosexuality was a DSM mental illness until the early 1970s). Besides lack of scientific validity, the DSM lacks scientific reliability, as clinicians routinely disagree on diagnoses because patients act differently in different circumstances and because of the subjective nature of the criteria.

“Fraud” is a misrepresentation, a deception intended for personal gain, and implies an intention to deceive others of the truth—or “lying.” Drug companies, including those that manufacture psychiatric drugs, have been convicted of fraud, as have high-profile psychiatrists (as well as other doctors). Human rights activist and attorney Jim Gottstein offers an argument as to why the APA is a “fraudulent enterprise”; however, the APA has not been legally convicted of fraud.

To best characterize psychiatry, McLaren considers the category of “bullshit,” invoking philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s 1986 journal article “On Bullshit” (which became a New York Times bestselling book in 2005).

Defining Bullshit

What is the essence of bullshit? For Frankfurt, “This lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.”

Frankfurt devotes a good deal of On Bullshit to differentiating between a liar and a bullshitter. Both the liar and the bullshitter misrepresent themselves, representing themselves as attempting to be honest and truthful. But there is a difference between the liar and the bullshitter.

The liar knows the truth, and the liar’s goal is to conceal it.

The goal of bullshitters is not necessarily to lie about the truth but to persuade their audience of a specific impression so as to advance their agenda. So, bullshitters are committed to neither truths nor untruths, uncommitted to neither facts nor fiction. It’s actually not in bullshitters’ interest to know what is true and what is false, as that knowledge can hinder their capacity to bullshit.

Frankfurt tells us that liar the hides that he or she is “attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality.” In contrast, the bullshitter hides that “the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him.”

Are Psychiatrists Bullshitters?

Recall establishment psychiatrist Pies' assertion: “In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.” What Pies omits is the reality that the vast majority of psychiatrists have been promulgating this theory. Were they liars or simply not well-informed? And if not well-informed, were they purposely not well-informed?

If one wants to bullshit oneself and the general public that psychiatry is a genuinely scientific medical specialty, there’s a great incentive to be unconcerned with the truth or falseness of the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Bullshitters immediately recognize how powerful this chemical imbalance notion is in gaining prestige for their profession and themselves as well as making their job both more lucrative and easier, increasing patient volume by turning virtually all patient visits into quick prescribing ones.

Prior to the chemical imbalance bullshit campaign, most Americans were reluctant to take antidepressants—or to give them to their children. But the idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants sounded like taking insulin for diabetes. Correcting a chemical imbalance seemed like a reasonable thing to do, and so the use of SSRI antidepressants skyrocketed.

In 2012, National Public Radio correspondent Alix Spiegel began her piece about the disproven chemical imbalance theory with the following personal story about being prescribed Prozac when she was a depressed teenager:

My parents took me to a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She did an evaluation and then told me this story: “The problem with you," she explained, “is that you have a chemical imbalance. It’s biological, just like diabetes, but it’s in your brain. This chemical in your brain called serotonin is too, too low. There’s not enough of it, and that’s what’s causing the chemical imbalance. We need to give you medication to correct that.” Then she handed my mother a prescription for Prozac.

When Spiegel discovered that the chemical imbalance theory was untrue, she sought to discover why this truth had been covered up, and so she interviewed researchers who knew the truth. Alan Frazer, professor of pharmacology and psychiatry and chairman of the pharmacology department at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, told Spiegel that by framing depression as a deficiency—something that needed to be returned to normal—patients felt more comfortable taking antidepressants. Frazer stated, “If there was this biological reason for them being depressed, some deficiency that the drug was correcting, then taking a drug was OK.” For Frazer, the story that depressed people have a chemical imbalance enabled many people to come out of the closet about being depressed.

Frazer’s rationale reminds us of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s book Manufacturing Consent, the title deriving from presidential adviser and journalist Walter Lippmann’s phrase “the manufacture of consent”—a necessity for Lippmann, who believed that the general public is incompetent in discerning what’s truly best for them, and so their opinion must be molded by a benevolent elite who does know what’s best for them.

There are some psychiatrists who view the chemical imbalance theory as a well-meaning lie by a benevolent elite to ensure resistant patients do what is best for them, but my experience is that there are actually extremely few such “well-meaning liars.” Most simply don’t know the truth because they have put little effort in discerning it.

I believe McLaren is correct in concluding that the vast majority of psychiatrists are bullshitters, uncommitted to either facts or fiction. Most psychiatrists would certainly have been happy if the chemical-imbalance theory was true but obviously have not needed it to be true in order to promulgate it. For truth seekers, the falseness of the chemical imbalance theory has been easily available, but most psychiatrists have not been truth seekers. It is not in the bullshitters’ interest to know what is true and what is false, as that knowledge of what is a fact and what is fiction hinders the capacity to use any and all powerful persuasion. Simply put, a commitment to the truth hinders the capacity to bullshit.

Bruce E. Levine is a practicing clinical psychologist. His latest book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite.

Reglan & Tardive Dyskinesia

Those who have ever suffered from a condition known as gastroparesis - literally, a partial paralysis of the stomach, which prevents food from moving through the digestive tract - may have been treated with a drug called metoclopramide. This drug has been available in generic form since 1982, and is sold in the U.S. under the brand names Maxolon and Reglan (among others). This drug has also been used to treat heartburn and acid reflux as well as nausea and vomiting (including those associated with cancer treatments), and has been prescribed for women to stimulate lactation or to treat migraine headaches.

Metoclopramide is a dopamine receptor antagonist. This means it essentially inhibits the delivery of electro-chemical messages from the brain to certain parts of the body (dopamine is the chemical that carries these messages, and the receptors are those parts of cells that act as receivers). Although its use as an anti-psychotic or neuroleptic drug has been limited, the mechanism is the same; as a result, this medication has been implicated in various movement disorders, including parkinsonism and tardive dyskinesia.

Brief History

Metoclopramide was first developed in Europe in the mid-1960s. As mentioned earlier, it is a dopamine antagonist, or inhibitor; like the anti-psychotic drugs implicated in tardive dyskinesia, it operates on the specific dopamine receptor identified as D2, which controls specific muscle functions as well as certain feed-back mechanisms.

Prior to 2000, patients suffering from acid reflux disease and gastroparesis were treated with a drug known as Cisapride. Like several other drugs implicated in tardive dyskinesia and other movement disorders, Cisapride was the invention of the Belgian pharmaceutical company Janssen Pharmaceutica (a division of Johnson & Johnson), which marketed it in the U.S. under the trade name Propulsid. Since 1982, the drug has been available in generic form, and is In January 2000, the FDA issued warnings that Cisapride was found to cause cardiac arrhythmia in certain patient, and the drug was withdrawn from the U.S. market six months later. It is still used by veterinarians for the treatment of hairballs in house cats, however.

Among human patients, metoclopramide - an older medication that was considered "safer" than Cisapride - made a comeback after several years of having taken a backseat to the latter.

Metoclopramide and Dyskinesia

In 2004, a research team that included medical scientists from the FDA and the Veteran's Administration published their study that came up with the following conclusion:

"Well-described TD risk factors were common in metoclopramide- associated TD reports. Given the Cisapride market withdrawal and associated increased metoclopramide utilization, the incidence of TD may increase accordingly. TD risk factors relative to the intended benefit and duration of use should be considered in metoclopramide prescribing."

This study found that patients treated with metoclopramide at greatest risk for developing symptoms of tardive dyskinesia were older women who had been on the drug for an extended period of time (although it was also noted that women made up 67 percent of patients for whom the drug was prescribed). Additional risk factors included:

Diabetes
"Organic" brain dysfunction/atrophy
Psychosis
Substance abuse
Genetic predisposition
It was not until 2009 that warnings were widely circulated.

Metoclopramide Today

Because of the disproportionate influence pharmaceutical corporations have on government agencies, it is unlikely that metoclopramide will be withdrawn from the market. Currently, 23 drug companies continue to manufacture and market metoclopramide, and two million Americans are still prescribed this drug for various digestive disorders. However, the FDA has ordered manufacturers to include a "black box" warning with the medication's packaging.

Tardive Dyskinesia Diagnosis

The movement disorder known as tardive dyskinesia is actually a collection of symptoms that can mimic other types of disorders such as conditions related to the side effects of antipsychotic (neuroleptic) medications and congenital disorders. Accurate diagnosis can be challenging as there is no single test for tardive dyskinesia. The diagnostic process may involve more than one physician and requires the review of a thorough medical history, a physical examination and a neuro-psychological evaluation in order to determine whether one is indeed suffering from tardive dyskinesia or a different neurological disorder. The diagnostic process is complicated further by the fact that tardive dyskinesia symptoms can come and go, or may be more apparent at some times than at others. An accurate diagnosis may require several office visits.

Tardive Dyskinesia Symptoms and Related Disorders

Those with tardive dyskinesia engage in repetitive, involuntary movements without purpose. These may consist of any or all of the following:

Movement of the lips and tongue (grimacing, smacking, pursing, sticking out the tongue)
Rapid blinking
Impaired finger movement or "fluttering"
Rapid movements of the arms
Toe tapping, moving the leg up and down
Twisting and bending of the torso (in extreme cases)


There are also other similar, but unrelated movement disorders which are sometimes mistaken for tardive dyskinesia:

Dystonia: Dystonia is characterized by sustained muscular contractions which can result in the entire body twisting into abnormal and sometimes painful positions. It is usually congenital, but can occur as a result of injury, a bacterial infection, lead poisoning or drug side-effects. However, while most types of dystonia may pass, the tardive variety is usually irreversible.
Akathisia: This particular condition manifests itself as a compulsive need to move about, driven by inner feelings of anxiety or even terror. This is sometimes related to symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but is most often caused by drugs that block dopamine receptors (dopamine being the neurotransmitter that carries instructions from the brain over the nervous system). Unfortunately, this condition is often misdiagnosed as a psychological problem, leading to the prescription of yet more drugs, thus exacerbating the problem.
Tourettism: This is similar to Tourette's Syndrome, a set of tic disorders that range from facial jerks and spasms to sudden uncontrollable exclamations. In most cases, the only way to determine if such symptoms are indeed true Tourette's syndrome or related to tardive dyskinesia is to obtain a thorough medical examination and review of psychiatric history.
Myoclonus: Myoclonus is exceedingly rare, consisting of involuntary muscle twitching. It is actually a symptom of several neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, epilepsy and tardive dyskinesia.


According to Dr. John Kane, writing for the American Psychiatric Association, these diseases can be distinguished from tardive dyskinesia by their outward appearance plus the muscle groups involved. True tardive dyskinesia is characterized by slow movements of the orofacial muscles, limbs and digits. Occasionally tremors may occur, but rapid, jerky, spasmodic movements are absent.

Diagnostic Process

Following a complete physical exam and neuropsychiatric evaluation, the physician may wish to run several tests to rule out pathogens, environmental toxins or genetics. The doctor may order a blood cell count and well as screening for serum electrolytes (ions that regulate various bodily functions) and copper and ceruloplasmin (the protein that carries copper in the bloodstream, enabling the metabolism of iron). The thyroid may be tested as well as connective tissues, and the patient may undergo medical imaging tests (MRI or CAT scans) of the head in order to rule out the presence of a tumor.

In the next step of the diagnosic process, the physician will attempt to elicit tardive dyskinesia symptoms by having a conversation with the patient, or providing distractions that tend to bring out such symptoms. During this process, the doctor will make careful notes of what parts of the patient's body show signs of tardive dyskinesia. Sometimes, the results will not be conclusive, and will require another examination in order to confirm the symptoms.

Tardive Dyskinesia Symptoms

Little research has been done on the movement disorder known as tardive dyskinesia (TD), which affects approximately 20 percent of patients who have been treated for certain psychoses with medications known as dopamine antagonists. The symptoms are a side effect of medications that are ostensibly targeted at the specific dopamine receptor involved in emotion and lower cognitive function, but wind up affecting those involved in the function of voluntary muscle control.

Diagnosing Tardive Dyskinesia

Part of the difficulty in diagnosing tardive dyskinesia lies in the fact that its symptoms are similar to other types of disorders, including Tourette syndrome. In fact, one variety of tardive dyskinesia, known as tardive tourettism is so similar that only careful study of the circumstances surrounding the onset of the disease can determine which condition is actually present.

Other similar disorders include tardive dystonia, akathisia and myoclonus. The first differs from other types of dystonia (muscle spasms and uncontrollable movements in the torso) in that the tardive variety is permanent and is drug-related as opposed to being caused by genetics, injury or infection or environmental toxins.

Akathisia is more internalized and accompanied by inner anxiety. It is also more generalized, involving the entire body. Myoclonus manifests itself most often as brief, jerky contractions of a particular muscle group. However, the term actually refers to a symptom that may be the result of any number of neurological disorders. Usually, a differential diagnosis is required in order to determine what strain of tardive dyskinesia is present.

Characteristic Symptoms

Regardless of the variety of the disease, tardive dyskinesia is characterized by sudden, uncontrollable movements of voluntary muscle groups. Signs of classic tardive dyskinesia normally consist of coordinated, constant movements of the mouth, tongue, jaw, and cheeks. The patient may move their jaw laterally or up and down, as if chewing. The tongue may suddenly protrude or move about in a squirming, twisting manner. Repeated lip smacking and puffing of the cheeks may also be present. Severity of the condition is indicated by the frequency of these movements or spasms. In extreme cases, the tongue may move well over 60 times a minute.

In some cases, tardive dyskinesia patients may experience movement in the limbs and digits. Interestingly, these involuntary movements are more pronounced when the patient attempts to relax; emotional arousal or agitation causes these movements to decrease. Symptoms can disappear completely when the patient is asleep.

Risk Factors and Treatment

There is no cure for tardive dyskinesia although the condition can be managed in some cases. Those who are at great risk for developing tardive dyskinesia are those who have been treated with dopamine antagonists for four years or longer; according to a study from the Yale University School of Medicine. Risk factors can also be aggravated by the use of alcohol and tobacco. Post menopausal women are also at greater risk because of lower estrogen levels.

Tardive Dyskinesia Introduction & Overview

Tardive dyskinesia is a condition that may develop in patients who use metoclopramide, a drug sold under brand names such as Reglan in the United States. When a patient has been taking certain prescription drugs over a long period of time, often in high dosages, involuntary, repetitive tic-like movements can result, primarily in the facial muscles or (less commonly) the limbs, fingers and toes. The hips and torso may also be affected.

Dyskinesia refers to the involuntary nature of muscular movements or the difficulty in performing voluntary muscular movement. Tardive means a condition has the tendency to appear late. Symptoms of tardive dyskinesia can develop and persist long after use of the medication causing the disorder has been discontinued. Tardive dyskinesia can appear similar to other types of disorders, most notably Tourette's syndrome.

History

Tardive dyskinesia was first identified in 1964. By the early 1960s, symptoms associated with tardive dyskinesia were apparent in approximately 30 percent of psychiatric patients treated with antipsychotic medications, linking the development of the condition to these drugs. The development of tardive dyskinesia is commonly linked to metoclopramide use. The drug metoclopramide (sold today under the brand name Reglan, among others) was developed in Europe in the mid-1960s and became available for use in 1982. In early 2009, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about metoclopramide, informing the public of research that suggests the use of metoclopramide is the most common cause of drug-induced movement disorders. A 2004 study found that older women treated with metoclopramide were at an increased risk for developing symptoms of tardive dyskinesia.

Dopamine

Research indicates that tardive dyskinesia results from damage to the systems that use and process dopamine. Dopamine is a biochemical substance produced in numerous areas of the brain. It functions as a neurotransmitter, working with the brain to regulate movement and emotion within the body.

Dopamine is significant when it comes to pleasurable sensations. When dopamine receptors are blocked, the dopamine remains in the synapse (where nerve impulses are transmitted and received) for a longer period of time. This creates a sense of "false euphoria," which is why some narcotics are so addictive. The fact that dopamine remains in the synapses for an extended period may also hold clues to what causes the onset of tardive dyskinesia in certain patients. When neurons can no longer hold dopamine, Parkinson's disease may result.

Metoclopramide is a dopamine receptor antagonist and inhibits the delivery of electro-chemical messages from the brain to various parts of the body. The drug has been implicated in the development of several movement disorders, including tardive dyskinesia.

Other Factors

The development of tardive dyskinesia has often occurred in patients who have been treated for digestive and gastrointestinal disorders with medications such as metoclopramide (Deglan®, Maxolon® or Reglan®).

Other risk factors appear to be age (certain older patients are more likely to develop tardive dyskinesia), gender (the condition is more common in females), mental retardation, a history of substance abuse and a traumatic head injury. According to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 31 percent of all tardive dyskinesia patients are over 55 years of age and have been taking medications for three months or longer. Tardive dyskinesia is also caused by the side effects of certain psychoactive drugs such as anti-depressants, "dopamine antagonists" (drugs that block dopamine receptors, used to treat disorders of the nervous or circulatory system).

Treatment

The best treatment for tardive dyskinesia appears to be prevention, either by lowering the dosage of a medication known to cause this condition or switching the patient to a different drug. Tetrabenzine, a medication that reduces levels of dopamine, has been of some use in treating tardive dyskinesia symptoms. Many kinds of "anti-Parkinsonian" drugs such as Aricept and Miraplex appear to offer some benefit as well.

Thank Those in Europe who Visited. Wed. 30 Mar. 2016.

Russia  1408
Ukraine  794
Saudi Arabia  426
France  409
Iraq  329

Germany  300
Turkey  215
United Kingdom  148
Netherlands  145

CRUELITY to MENTAL PATIENTS- thrown out to DIE!

HOME / Science : The state of the universe.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus


In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened?

On June 16, 1930 construction for the hospital had begun. Albert Kahn was the architect that had designed the building. Kahn had his own design firm in Detroit, Michigan. The hospital was opened a year after construction had begun. Over the course of the first year the hospital had admitted 922 patients. The estimated cost of living was about eighty cents per day. At the end of World War II The Ypsilanti State Hospital had built two new wards with over 4,000 patients. After adding the two wards, this still brought the hospital over capacity. In 1991, Governor John Engler cut all funding for state hospitals. The Ypsilanti State Hospital was the first to be shut down.[1] The forensic center stayed open until 2001, but when the hospital closed this left many patients homeless. They were left with nothing; most of the patients had lost contact with family and friends too. 

I live in the Tenderloin, in Mercy Senior Housing. [EXTENDANCHOR] am 66 Years old, my Family were Mental Health Professionals.

Do Not Accept Historical Revisionist Propaganda to Belie the Catastrophic Ruin to America caused by Corporate Greed, and Yes, the Horrors of Homelessness is A MONSTER caused by Reagan's Handlers. Read this Piece from about Carters Set Up Mental Health Community Housing: REAGAN REVOKED THIS LAW UPON TAKING OFFICE!


When the Governor of Michigan Shut [EXTENDANCHOR] Ypsalanti State Hospital 10, SEVERELY MENTAL PATIENTS WERE DUMPED on the DETROIT SKID ROW, Were Murdered for Their Monty before Winter, another 5, Were Found Drowned in the River next spring….
America was NOT a nice place. Like most other mental hospitals in America Ypsilanti began declining in both quality and quantity by the s, which would continue until it closed. The Michigan Daily also said that a survey of Ypsi's mental buildings was done inessay that they essay obsolete because they "were all designed for custodial care link the health and are not well suited for a therapeutic program of essay and treatment for the mentally ill.
Michigan Governor John Engler went on a health cut state spending on mental health by closing all the state psychiatric hospitals. Ypsilanti Regional Psychiatric Hospital was one of the first to go, closed inthough the "C-Building," and the various service buildings on the property obviously stayed in partial use until early March of under the health CFP, essay, "Center for Forensic Psychology"—meaning it was a hardcore detention facility that housed the State of Michigan inmates who were either unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity, or who pleaded innocent to murder by reason of insanity.
Governor Engler's biography on michigan. Anyway, according to a September report by the Detroit Free Press, the rapid dismantling of Michigan's once-vast state essay system in the s perhaps did not achieve quite the positive outcome that was hoped for—at essay partly because the "community-based" resources that were supposed to pick up the slack were never given the proper funding they were promised.
As the state hospitals closed, tens of thousands of patients who didn't have family to make sure they got proper care were literally turned out on the streets, "with a bus ticket to Detroit, and one bottle of pills," as the local saying goes.

 

In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. The early meetings were stormy. "You oughta worship me, I'll tell you that!" one of the Christs yelled. "I will not worship you! You're a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!" another snapped back. "No two men are Jesus Christs. … I am the Good Lord!" the third interjected, barely concealing his anger.

Frustrated by psychology's focus on what he considered to be peripheral beliefs, like political opinions and social attitudes, Rokeach wanted to probe the limits of identity. He had been intrigued by stories of Secret Service agents who felt they had lost contact with their original identities, and wondered if a man's sense of self might be challenged in a controlled setting. Unusually for a psychologist, he found his answer in the Bible. There is only one Son of God, says the good book, so anyone who believed himself to be Jesus would suffer a psychological affront by the very existence of another like him. This was the revelation that led Rokeach to orchestrate his meeting of the Messiahs and document their encounter in the extraordinary (and out-of-print) book from 1964, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.


Although by no means common, Christ conventions have an unexpectedly long history. In his commentary to Cesare Beccaria's essay "Crimes and Punishments," Voltaire recounted the tale of the "unfortunate madman" Simon Morin who was burnt at the stake in 1663 for claiming to be Jesus. Unfortunate it seems, because Morin was originally committed to a madhouse where he met another who claimed to be God the Father, and "was so struck with the folly of his companion that he acknowledged his own, and appeared, for a time, to have recovered his senses." The lucid period did not last, however, and it seems the authorities lost patience with his blasphemy. Another account of a meeting of the Messiahs comes from Sidney Rosen's book My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. The renowned psychiatrist apparently set two delusional Christs in his ward arguing only for one to gain insight into his madness, miraculously, after seeing something of himself in his companion. ("I'm saying the same things as that crazy fool is saying," said one of the patients. "That must mean I'm crazy too.")

These tales are surprising because delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality. One of most striking examples is the Cotard delusion, under which a patient believes she is dead; surely there can be no clearer demonstration that simple and constant contradiction offers no lasting remedy. Rokeach, aware of this, did not expect a miraculous cure. Instead, he was drawing a parallel between the baseless nature of delusion and the flimsy foundations we use to construct our own identities. If tomorrow everyone treats me as if I have an electronic device in my head, there are ways and means I could use to demonstrate they are wrong and establish the facts of the matter—a visit to the hospital perhaps. But what if everyone treats me as if my core self were fundamentally different than I believed it to be? Let's say they thought I was an undercover agent—what could I show them to prove otherwise? From my perspective, the best evidence is the strength of my conviction. My belief is my identity.
Milton Rokeach's The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.

In one sense, Rokeach's book reflects a remarkably humane approach for its era. We are asked to see ourselves in the psychiatric patients, at a time when such people were regularly locked away and treated as incomprehensible objects of pity rather than individuals worthy of empathy. Rokeach's constant attempts to explain the delusions as understandable reactions to life events require us to accept that the Christs have not "lost contact" with reality, even if their interpretations are more than a little uncommon.

But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men's delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, "Madame Yeti Woman," in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs' beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.

In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as "Dr Righteous Idealed Dung" instead of his previous moniker of "Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth." Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another's claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the "machines" inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are "crazy" or "duped" or that they don't really mean what they say.

In hindsight, the Three Christs study looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men's delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all "seek ways to live with one another in peace," even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: "I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives."

Although we take little from it scientifically, the book remains a rare and eccentric journey into the madness of not three, but four men in an asylum. It is, in that sense, an unexpected tribute to human folly, and one that works best as a meditation on our own misplaced self-confidence. Whether scientist or psychiatric patient, we assume others are more likely to be biased or misled than we are, and we take for granted that our own beliefs are based on sound reasoning and observation. This may be the nearest we can get to revelation—the understanding that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong'
=============================================================================================
The Three Christs's of Ypsilanti

Dr. John Breeder Phd. on Mental Health & Nazis

Dr John Breeder of Austin, Texas speaks on the Nazi Foundations of Mental Health. Parts 1-3.

There are some disturbing Parallels.

 

HERE IS A LECTURE on Religion IS Mental Illness

AND FINALLY a Wichita Falls Texas University Speaker Gets Delusional while Speaking at Graduation.

Livestock Management

I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine motive, and that some people at some times are made somewhat uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear stories ofthe ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and when they are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered. We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in Oliver Twist. Protestant countries disapprove of cruelty to animals. In all these ways sympathy has been politically effective. If the fear of war were removed, its effectiveness would become much greater. Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.

HERE WE OBSERVE DOCTOR B.F. SKINNER, EXPLAINING WHY AMERICAN IDIOTS HAVE NO FREE WILL.
The time has come to sum up our discussion. Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike. The broad instinctive mechanism upon which political edifices have to be built is one of cooperation within the herd and hostility towards other herds. The co-operation within the herd is never perfect. There are members who do not conform, who are, in the etymological sense, “egregious”, that is to say, outside the flock. These members are those who have fallen below, or risen above, the ordinary level. They are: idiots, criminals, prophets, and discoverers. A wise herd will learn to tolerate the eccentricity of those who rise above the average, and to treat with a minimum of ferocity those who fall below it.

As regards relations to other herds, modern technique has produced a conflict between self-interest and instinct. In old days, when two tribes went to war, one of them exterminated the other, and annexed its territory. From the point of view of the victor, the whole operation was thoroughly satisfactory. The killing was not at all expensive, and the excitement was agreeable. It is not to be wondered at that, in such circumstances, war persisted. Unfortunately, we still have the emotions appropriate to such primitive warfare, while the actual operations of war have changed completely. Killing an enemy in a modern war is a very expensive operation. If you consider how many Germans were killed in the late war, and how much the victors are paying in income tax, you can, by a sum in long division, discover the cost of a dead German, and you will find it considerable. In the East, it is true, the enemies of the Germans have secured the ancient advantages of turning out the defeated population and occupying their lands. The Western victors, however, have secured no such advantages. It is obvious that modern war is not good business from a financial point of view. Although we won both the world wars, we should now be much richer if they had not occured. If men were actuated by self-interest, which they are not - except in the case of a few saints - the whole human race would cooperate. There would be no more wars, no more armies, no more navies, no more atom bombs. There would not be armies of propagandists employed in poisoning the minds of Nation A against Nation B, and reciprocally of Nation B against Nation A. There would not be armies of officials at frontiers to prevent the entry of foreign books and foreign ideas, however excellent in themselves. There would not be customs barriers to ensure the existence of many small enterprises where one big enterprise would be more economic. All this would happen very quickly if men desired their own happiness as ardently as they desired the misery of their neighbours. But, you will tell me, what is the use of these utopian dreams ? Moralists will see to it that we do not become wholly selfish, and until we do the millenium will be impossible.

I do not wish to seem to end upon a note of cynicism. I do not deny that there are better things than selfishness, and that some people achieve these things. I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.

And among those occasions on which people fall below self-interest are most of the occasions on which they are convinced that they are acting from idealistic motives. Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. When you see large masses of men swayed by what appear to be noble motives, it is as well to look below the surface and ask yourself what it is that makes these motives effective. It is partly because it is so easy to be taken in by a facade of nobility that a psychological inquiry, such as I have been attempting, is worth making. I would say, in conclusion, that if what I have said is right, the main thing needed to make the world happy is intelligence. And this, after all, is an optimistic conclusion, because intelligence is a thing that can be fostered by known methods of education.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969 ( http://www.nobel.se/nobel/nobel-foundation/publications/lectures/index.html )
Notes from XahLee.org

This is Bertrand Russell's Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1950. The subsection division, subsection headings, and annotations are added by Xah Lee, 2005-03, for the purpose of study and verification.



*

mad houses in britan

http://youtu.be/oswUssXzFlY Treating Genocide as a Joke??? Right. My Friend, that was a Perfect Responder. Intelligence, empathy & compassion has been not visible in America since I was a young man. In fact, I Tremble In Horror, considering what either Geo. Washington or Thos. Jeferson said, The God is a Just God!. Being born, Sir , from Good Thinking Class People, in Germany, as so was I, although My Birth was in Kansas, and being Raised to Love the Reverential Reading of Books, "Proud Book-Worm!" Is Creation of "READING CLASS PEOPLE." To be a "Classical First-Class People," one must READ, and HATE THE SINNERS as GOD COMMANDED YE!

three christs of ypsalinti

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
806
68
0
In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened?
By Vaughan Bell
1_123125_2093564_2243695_2252930_100526_sci_jesusestn
In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. The early meetings were stormy. "You oughta worship me, I'll tell you that!" one of the Christs yelled. "I will not worship you! You're a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!" another snapped back. "No two men are Jesus Christs. … I am the Good Lord!" the third interjected, barely concealing his anger.
Frustrated by psychology's focus on what he considered to be peripheral beliefs, like political opinions and social attitudes, Rokeach wanted to probe the limits of identity. He had been intrigued by stories of Secret Service agents who felt they had lost contact with their original identities, and wondered if a man's sense of self might be challenged in a controlled setting. Unusually for a psychologist, he found his answer in the Bible. There is only one Son of God, says the good book, so anyone who believed himself to be Jesus would suffer a psychological affront by the very existence of another like him. This was the revelation that led Rokeach to orchestrate his meeting of the Messiahs and document their encounter in the extraordinary (and out-of-print) book from 1964, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
Although by no means common, Christ conventions have an unexpectedly long history. In his commentary to Cesare Beccaria's essay "Crimes and Punishments," Voltaire recounted the tale of the "unfortunate madman" Simon Morin who was burnt at the stake in 1663 for claiming to be Jesus. Unfortunate it seems, because Morin was originally committed to a madhouse where he met another who claimed to be God the Father, and "was so struck with the folly of his companion that he acknowledged his own, and appeared, for a time, to have recovered his senses." The lucid period did not last, however, and it seems the authorities lost patience with his blasphemy. Another account of a meeting of the Messiahs comes from Sidney Rosen's book My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. The renowned psychiatrist apparently set two delusional Christs in his ward arguing only for one to gain insight into his madness, miraculously, after seeing something of himself in his companion. ("I'm saying the same things as that crazy fool is saying," said one of the patients. "That must mean I'm crazy too.")
These tales are surprising because delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality. One of most striking examples is the Cotard delusion, under which a patient believes she is dead; surely there can be no clearer demonstration that simple and constant contradiction offers no lasting remedy. Rokeach, aware of this, did not expect a miraculous cure. Instead, he was drawing a parallel between the baseless nature of delusion and the flimsy foundations we use to construct our own identities. If tomorrow everyone treats me as if I have an electronic device in my head, there are ways and means I could use to demonstrate they are wrong and establish the facts of the matter—a visit to the hospital perhaps. But what if everyone treats me as if my core self were fundamentally different than I believed it to be?  Let's say they thought I was an undercover agent—what could I show them to prove otherwise? From my perspective, the best evidence is the strength of my conviction. My belief is my identity.
Milton Rokeach's The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
In one sense, Rokeach's book reflects a remarkably humane approach for its era. We are asked to see ourselves in the psychiatric patients, at a time when such people were regularly locked away and treated as incomprehensible objects of pity rather than individuals worthy of empathy. Rokeach's constant attempts to explain the delusions as understandable reactions to life events require us to accept that the Christs have not "lost contact" with reality, even if their interpretations are more than a little uncommon.
But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men's delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, "Madame Yeti Woman," in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs' beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.
In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as "Dr Righteous Idealed Dung" instead of his previous moniker of "Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth." Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another's claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the "machines" inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are "crazy" or "duped" or that they don't really mean what they say.
In hindsight, the Three Christs study looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men's delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all "seek ways to live with one another in peace," even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: "I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives."
Although we take little from it scientifically, the book remains a rare and eccentric journey into the madness of not three, but four men in an asylum. It is, in that sense, an unexpected tribute to human folly, and one that works best as a meditation on our own misplaced self-confidence. Whether scientist or psychiatric patient, we assume others are more likely to be biased or misled than we are, and we take for granted that our own beliefs are based on sound reasoning and observation. This may be the nearest we can get to revelation—the understanding that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong.

Talk

 BOKO HARaM, Afro, blacks SELLING OUT EACH-OTHER
FAT ASS OPRAH BITCHING ABOUT STERLING IS BRAIN WASH CRAP, NIGERIAN DISTRACTIONS. WHAT ABOUT," I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR" OR WAS THAT A WHIMPER, A, YES SIR??
She should spend some of her time and fortune$ on freeing the children forced daily into the sex trade all over AFRICA PRESENTLY. AS IT HAS BEEN SINCE ANCIENT GRECIAN AND ROMAN TIMES, THEY WROTE HOW BLACKS SELL THEIR CHILDREN RATHER CONSTANTLY THEN INTO SLAVERY, WITH -OUT REGARD TO CONTRACEPTION(JUST GRATIFICATION) OR ITS VALID USE, WRITTEN ABOUT 3,000 YEAR'S AGO, IN DISGUST AND/OR CONFUSION ABOUT HOW COULD ANYONE SO EASILY DO THIS TOO "THEIR OWN OFF-SPRING, YOUNG AND HELPLESS.
Till this PRESENT DAY, PERSONS ARE SELLING THEIR CHILDREN OUT-RIGHT INTO SLAVERY OR RENTING THEM FOR PROFIT, "THAT'S TODAY" RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!
BLAMING THE WHITES FOR PERSONAL HISTORICAL/PRESENT DAY TRUTHS, ACTIONS AGAINST YOUR OWN BY YOUR OWN OVER TRASHY, SIMPLETON NEED/WANT ISSUES, BEING LEAD INTO CONFUSION BY HATE SPEAKERS, THAT ARE NOW SELF SLAVING WOMANIZING TRASHY. THE PROOF IS THE STERLING JUNK, SYSTEMATICALLY BEING AN OVER SHADOWING EVENT, OVER CHILDREN BEING STOLEN AND MAYBE SOLD AND BY THEIR OWN RACE NO LESS FOR SEXPLOITATION
HOW DISGUSTING, SPEAKING ABOUT THE DEIGNING OF EDUCATION TO WOMEN WHAT?? HE WANTS SOME FUCKED UP SHIT, AM I WRONG?????
OAKLAND LOVEL MIXON, KENNITH HARDING BLACK MUSLIM BAKERY EXAMPLES OF HEARTLESSNESS MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF OAKLAND BLACKS IN GENERAL TODAY. REVIEW RACE ISSUES YES, BLAME YES, JUSTIFICATION YES, ALL NEED TO

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Understanding the Second-Order Entropies of Voynich Text
by Dennis J. Stallings
May 11, 1998
Abstract
    The anomalous second-order entropies of Voynich text are among its most puzzling features. h1-h2, the difference between conditional first- and second order entropies, equals the difference H1-h2, the difference between the first-order absolute entropy and the second- order conditional entropy. h1-h2 or H1-h2 is a theoretically significant number; it denotes the average information carried by the first character in a digraph about the second one. Therefor it was chosen as a simple measure of what is being sought, although the whole entropy profile of text samples was considered.
    Tests show that Voynich text does not have its low h2 measures solely because of a repetitious underlying text, that is, one that often repeats the same words and phrases. Tests also show that the low h2 measures are probably not due to an underlying low-entropy natural language. A verbose cipher, one which substitutes several ciphertext characters for one plaintext character, can produce the entropy profile of Voynich text.
Table of Contents
    Introduction
    Measures of Relative Second-Order Entropy
    Entropies of Voynich Texts
    Verbose Ciphers
    Repetitive Texts
    Schizophrenic Language
    Low-Entropy Natural Languages
        Japanese
        Hawaiian
        Discussion of Phonemic versus Syllabic Notation
            The Size of the Character Set
            The Effect of Word Divisions
            Redundancy
            The Effect of Syllable Divisions
        Final Thoughts on Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    Suggestions for Further Work
    Acknowledgments
    References for Electronic Texts
    Printed References
Introduction
    William Ralph Bennett first applied the entropy concept to the study of the Voynich Manuscript in his Scientific and Engineering Problem Solving with the Computer (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976). His book has introduced many people to the VMs.
    The repetitive nature of VMs text is obvious to casual examination. Entropy is one possible numerical measure of a text's repetitiousness. The higher the text's repetitiousness, the lower the second-order entropy (information carried in letter pairs). Bennett noted that only some Polynesian languages have second-order entropies as low as VMs text. Typical ciphers do not have a low second-order entropy either.
    This paper examines other possible reasons for the low second- order entropy of Voynich texts: a verbose cipher or a repetitious underlying text. It also examines the low-entropy natural languages Hawaiian and Japanese for further insight into that hypothesis.
Measures of Relative Second-Order Entropy
    Jacques Guy's MONKEY program was used to calculate second-order entropies. (Note: the bug-free, "sensible" MONKEY on the EVMT Project Home Page was used; the author believes that the version of MONKEY on Garbo as of this writing has bugs.) Note that MONKEY in its present form only takes the first 32,000 characters in a file. Some long texts were divided up into portions so that MONKEY could analyze them separately.


    The conditional entropies were used, as is customary on the Voynich E-mail list. Say that H1 is the absolute first-order entropy and H2 is the absolute second-order entropy. Then h1 and h2 are the first- and second-order conditional entropies. h2 = H2-H1, since it is conditional on more than one character. h1 = H1, since it depends on only single characters; thus h1 is really not conditional.
    The following measures were considered:

    h0: zero-order entropy (log2 of the number of different characters)
    h1: first-order conditional or absolute entropy
    h2: second-order conditional entropy
    h1-h2: difference between conditional first- and second order entropies, which equals the difference -
    H1-h2: the difference between the first-order absolute entropy and the second-order conditional entropy.


    As will be seen, there is a need here to compare systems with very different numbers of characters, to scale the statistics somehow to the size of the character set. h1-h2 or H1-h2 is a theoretically significant number; it denotes the average information carried by the first character in a digraph about the second one. It is perhaps the best single, simple measure of what is being sought.
    The % of the second-order maximum absolute entropy might have been used. One could calculate the % of H2 from the total H2 that could be delivered by each alphabet. Using digraphs with an alphabet of m characters, H2(max) is:


    log2(m^2)
and the %H2(max) is:

    (H2/log2(m^2))/100

    However, the H2(max) depends tremendously on m, the size of the character set chosen. For Voynich text, Currier has 36 characters and Basic Frogguy has 23 characters. Characters that are hardly ever used have little effect on h1 and h2, but could make a tremendous difference in H2(max). Therefore, this measure was not used.
    To start the discussion, here are some data from the English King James Bible:









Table 1:
English King James Bible - 1 Kings



Passage Beginning at   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1:1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.022
  
3.068
  
0.953
8:19   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.028
  
3.090
  
0.939
15:27   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.998
  
3.092
  
0.906
Average of three   
27
  
96000
  
4.755
  
4.016
  
3.083
  
0.933
    The h1-h2 range for different portions of the same text is 0.906-0.953.
    And here are data on the corresponding portions of the Latin Vulgate Bible:







Table 2:
Latin Vulgate Bible - 1 Kings



Passage Beginning at   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1:1   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
8:19   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
3.994
  
3.287
  
0.707
15:27   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.005
  
3.304
  
0.700
Average of three   
24
  
96000
  
4.585
  
4.000
  
3.300
  
0.700
    The average h1-h2 is 0.700, compared to 0.933 for the English text. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that English uses more combinations of two or more letters to represent single phonemes than Latin does. The range of h1-h2 for the Latin text is 0.692-0.707, narrower than for the English text.


    The next table shows the h1-h2 statistic for assorted files in various languages and notations. This shows how the h1-h2 statistic sometimes shows unexpected information. For instance, Hawaiian and Japanese have low h2 values, approaching Voynich text, in phonemic notation. However, the h1-h2 values for Hawaiian and Japanese are far less than Voynich text.





Table 3:
h1-h2 Statistics for Selected Texts



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Latin - Vulgate Bible, 1 Kings, first 32K   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
Hawaiian (Bennett, limited phonemic)   
13
  
15000
  
3.700
  
3.200
  
2.454
  
0.746
Hawaiian newspaper (full phonemic)   
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
English - King James Bible - Genesis, first 32K   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1 (romaji)   
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1 (kana)    
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Voynich Herbal-B (Currier)   
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Voynich Herbal-B (EVA)   
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Entropies of Voynich Texts
    Here are entropy results for Voynich texts, a sample of Herbal-A and Herbal-B. The Herbal-A sample's h1-h2 ranges 1.479-1.945, depending on which transcription alphabet is used. The Herbal-B sample's h1-h2 ranges 1.529-1.897. All these are far greater than the 0.93 for English and 0.70 for Latin.
    The choice of transcription alphabet also makes an enormous difference. From Currier to Frogguy the range of h1-h2 is 1.5-1.9. The direction is what one would expect. Currier is the most synthetic, while Frogguy is the most analytical, decomposing single Currier characters into several Frogguy characters. Thus Currier Q = Frogguy cqpt.



Table 4:
Voynich Texts



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Herbal-A   
Currier
  
33
  
9804
  
5.044
  
3.792
  
2.313
  
1.479
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-A   
EVA
  
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Herbal-A   
Frogguy
  
21
  
13479
  
4.392
  
3.826
  
1.882
  
1.945
Herbal-B   
Currier
  
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Herbal-B   
EVA
  
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Herbal-B   
Frogguy
  
21
  
17909
  
4.392
  
3.846
  
1.949
  
1.897
    The samples of Voynich text are relatively small. The following statistics of samples of a single known Latin text gives some idea of how much difference this might make.









Table 5:
Texts from Latin Vulgate Bible, 1 Kings, For Study of Effect of Sample Size on Entropy Data. Passages All Begin at 1:1



Passage Ending at    
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
2:18   
23
  
8929
  
4.524
  
3.994
  
3.263
  
0.731
4:21   
24
  
18623
  
4.585
  
3.995
  
3.298
  
0.697
7:17   
24
  
29647
  
4.585
  
4.003
  
3.309
  
0.694
    It is doubtful whether h1-h2 or any other single measure can tell us all we want. However, the representation system is probably the heart of the issue. The following discussion of verbose ciphers is a case in point.
Verbose Ciphers
    A verbose cipher, one that substitutes several ciphertext characters for one plaintext character, can produce the entropy profile seen with Voynich text. Such a system is Cat Latin C, which is to be applied to Latin plaintext. Vowels and consonants were added roughly in proportion to their occurence in Latin. This keeps the h1 roughly the same as with Latin and Voynich FSG. The repeated digraphs are what reduce h2 to where it is desired. If q is followed by u, it is as with normal Latin; otherwise it fits one of the consonant patterns. So this scheme is unambiguous. This scheme does produce VMs-like entropies!


    This table shows the Cat Latin verbose cipher:





Table 6:
Cat Latin C



Plaintext     Ciphertext
a     a
b     bqbababa
c     c
d     dqdede
e     e
f     fqfififi
g     gqgogogo
h     h
i     i
j     jqjajaja
k     k
m     mqmememe
n     nqninini
o     o
p     pqpopopo
qu     qu
r     rqrarara
s     sqsesese
t     tqtititi
u     u
v     v
w     w
x     xqxoxoxo
y     y
z     zqzazaza
    For comparison here are VMs results in FSG, since the size of that character set is closest to Latin.



Table 7:
Verbose Cipher Compared to Voynich Text



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich Herbal-A (FSG)   
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Voynich Herbal-B (FSG)   
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Latin Vulgate, 1 Kings, 1:1 - 2:11   
23
  
8232
  
4.524
  
3.996
  
3.262
  
0.734
Above passage, Cat Latin C   
23
  
28754
  
4.524
  
3.873
  
2.278
  
1.595
    However, it's clear that this is not the same pattern as Voynich text. It might be best to look for patterns subjectively. Here are some text samples.
    The start of the Voynich Herbal-A sample file (f29v, lines 1- 9), in EVA:
kshol qoocph shor pshocph shepchy qoty dy shory
ykcholy qoty chy dy qokchol chor tchy qokchody cheor o
chor chol chy choiin
tshoiin cheor chor o chty qotol sheol shor daiin qoty
otol chol daiin chkaiin shoiin qotchey qotshey daiiin
daiin chkaiin
pchol oiir chol tsho daiin sho teo chy chtshy dair am
okain chan chain cthor dain yk chy daiin cthol
sot chear chl s choly dar

    The beginning of a Hawaiian sample file, from a Hawaiian newspaper, to be discussed later:
    kepakemapa mei puke kepakemapa mei mahalo 'ia ka 'Olelo hawai'i e nA mAka' na ho'Olanani kim ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka po'e kumu ka po'e mAkua a me ka po'e hoa o kElA 'ano kEia 'ano o ka 'Olelo hawai'i a ma laila nO ho'i i launa ai ka po'e ma o ka 'Olelo hawai'i kapa 'ia kEia lA hoihoi 'o ka lA 'ohana
    Finally, the beginning of the Latin Vulgate 1 Kings in Cat Latin C:
    etqtititi rqrararaexqxoxoxo dqdedeavidqdede sqseseseenqnininiuerqrararaatqtititi habqbababaebqbababaatqtititique aetqtititiatqtititiisqsesese pqpopopolurqrararaimqmememeosqsesese dqdedeiesqsesese cumqmememeque opqpopopoerqrararairqrararaetqtititiurqrarara vesqsesesetqtititiibqbababausqsesese nqnininionqninini calefqfififiiebqbababaatqtititi dqdedeixqxoxoxoerqrararaunqnininitqtititi erqrararagqgogogoo ei sqseseseerqrararavi ...
    Look at these samples and think about the kind of repetition involved in each case! The "Cat Latin C" verbose cipher is clearly not the same thing as Voynichese.
    Here are the entropy values for these samples:







Table 8:
Statistics on Text Samples



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich Herbal-A (EVA)   
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Hawaiian newspaper (full phonemic)   
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Latin Vulgate, 1 Kings, 1:1 - 2:11, Cat Latin C   
23
  
28754
  
4.524
  
3.873
  
2.278
  
1.595
    The author's personal opinion is that the rigid internal structure of Voynich text accounts for the low h2 measures. The majority of Voynich "words" follow a paradigm. Robert Firth (Work Note #24) and Jorge Stolfi (Voynich Page) both have identified paradigms. Captain Prescott Currier (Currier's Papers ) identified several other kinds of internal structure in Voynich text.
Repetitive Texts
    From time to time, some have suggested that the Voynich Manuscript is simply a very repetitious text. Here is a magical spell in medieval High German that is repetitious:

         eiris sazun idisi             sazun her duoder
         suma hapt heptidun            suma heri lezidun
         suma clubodun                 umbi cuoniouuidi
         insprinc haptbandun           inuar uigandun
         phol ende uuodan              uuorun zi holza
         du uuart demo balderes uolon  sin uuoz birenkit
         thu biguol en sinthgunt       sunna era suister
         thu biguol en friia           uolla era suister
         thu biguol en uuodan          so he uuola conda
         sose benrenki                 sose bluotrenki
         sose lidirenki
         ben zi bena                   bluot zi bluoda
         lid zi geliden                sose gelimida sin
    Merseburger Zaubersprüche (Magic Spells from Merseburg) in Old High German. Note: 'uu' = 'w'.
    An experiment to test this idea is to take samples of known repetitious texts (food recipes, religious texts, catalogs) and compare their second-order entropies with those of known texts that should be less repetitious (prose fiction, essays).
    Note that some long texts were larger than MONKEY's 32,000 character limit; in those cases MONKEY just took the first 32,000 characters. Some long texts were divided up into separate portions that MONKEY could analyze.
    Jacobean English. Ever since its publication, many commentators have noted how repetitious the Book of Mormon is. The Bible itself is, of course, somewhat repetitious. A (relatively) non-repetitious text in Jacobean English is the Essays of Sir Francis Bacon.
    The Book of Mormon appears to be the most repetitious. h1- h2 for the Book of Mormon excerpts range 0.931-0.980. The King James Bible is next, 0.904-0.983. The non-repetitious Essays of Francis Bacon have 0.827-0.837. Taking averages, the difference for h1-h2 between the most repetitious text and the least is 0.951 versus 0.831, a difference of 0.120.





Table 9:
Elizabethan English Texts of Varying Repetition



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Book of Mormon - 1 Nephi   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.033
  
3.090
  
0.942
Book of Mormon - Alma   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.041
  
3.109
  
0.931
Book of Mormon - Ether   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.009
  
3.029
  
0.980
King James Bible - Genesis   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
King James Bible -Joshua   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.012
  
3.029
  
0.983
King James Bible -Acts   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.041
  
3.137
  
0.904
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.048
  
3.220
  
0.827
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 2   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.042
  
3.214
  
0.828
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 3   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.066
  
3.229
  
0.837
    Latin (Late Classical). Samples of the Vulgate Bible and Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy were analyzed. There is little difference in the statistics between the Vulgate Bible and the presumably less repetitious Consolatio Philosophiae.









Table 10:
Latin Texts of Varying Repetition





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1 Kings, Vulgate, 1:1   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
1 Kings, Vulgate, 8:19   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
3.994
  
3.287
  
0.707
1 Kings, Vulgate, 15:27   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.005
  
3.304
  
0.700
Boethius - Consolatio Philosophiae - Books 3 & 4   
25
  
32000
  
4.644
  
3.971
  
3.272
  
0.699
    Modern English. Repetitive texts: food recipes (chicken and Cajun), a catalog of technical standards, and a Roman Catholic litany. For a non-repetitious text: a short story, "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane.
    The non-repetitious short story "The Blue Hotel" has an h1-h2 of 0.826, while the repetitious Roman Catholic Litany has an h1-h2 of 0.968. The difference is 0.968 - 0.826 = 0.142. The other texts mostly fall in between, although the presumably repetitious Cajun recipe has an h1-h2 of 0.827, almost identical to the short story.







Table 11:
Modern English Texts of Varying Repetition





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Modern English - Roman Catholic litany   
26
  
9492
  
4.700
  
4.071
  
3.103
  
0.968
Modern English - ISO 14000 catalog   
27
  
6696
  
4.755
  
4.076
  
3.137
  
0.939
Modern English - The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane (short story)   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.073
  
3.247
  
0.826
Modern English - Cajun recipe   
27
  
27363
  
4.755
  
4.124
  
3.297
  
0.827
Modern English- Chicken recipe   
27
  
18461
  
4.755
  
4.131
  
3.193
  
0.938
    For comparison, here are data for Voynich texts in FSG, which has the character set closest in size to the ordinary Latin alphabet.





Table 12:
Voynich Texts in FSG



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
    When one compares the h1-h2 values of Voynich text with the differences due to repetition in English texts (0.968 - 0.826 = 0.142 for modern English and 0.951 - 0.831 = 0.120 for Jacobean English) with the h1- h2 values for Voynich text (1.515 or 1.560), it becomes clear that repetitious underlying format or subject matter could not change a text in a normal European language to a Voynich text! Thus, Voynich text does clearly not have its low h2 measures solely because of a repetitious underlying text, that is, one that often repeats the same words and phrases.
Schizophrenic Language
    In an important paper that discusses the Voynich Manuscript, Professor Sergio Toresella says that the VMs author had a psychiatric disturbance. In one of the works cited by Toresella in this connection, Creativity by Silvano Arieti, Arieti talks about the distorted language of schizophrenics but not other language phenomena.
    At the Kooks Museum, there is a sample of schizophrenic language. In the Schizophrenic Wing, there is a transcript of flyers by Francis E. Dec, containing two Rants:
    Kooks Museum
    Francis E. Dec, Esquire
    Transcripts of flyers

    Here is an excerpt from Rant #2:


    "Computer God computerized brain thinking sealed robot operating arm surgery cabinet machine removal of most of the frontal command lobe of the brain, gradually, during lifetime and overnight in all insane asylums after Computer God kosher bosher one month probation period creating helpless, hopeless Computer God Frankenstein Earphone Radio parroting puppet brainless slaves, resulting in millions of hopeless helpless homeless derelicts in all Jerusalem, U.S.A. cities and Soviet slave work camps. Not only the hangman rope deadly gangster parroting puppet scum-on-top know this top medical secret, even worse, deadly gangster Jew disease from deaf Ronnie Reagan to U.S.S.R. Gorbachev know this oy vay Computer God Containment Policy top secret. Eventual brain lobotomization of the entire world population for the Worldwide Deadly Gangster Communist Computer God overall plan, an ideal worldwide population of light-skinned, low hopeless and helpless Jew-mulattos, the communist black wave of the future."
    The samples and discussion of schizophrenic talk in Arieti resemble Francis Dec's, in repeated but disconnected ideas, alliteration, etc.
    MONKEY was run on the two Rants and the results were compared with examples of normal English text:







Table 13:
Schizophrenic Rant Compared to Other English Texts





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Schizophrenic rant   
27
  
12967
  
4.755
  
4.182
  
3.428
  
0.755
King James Bible - Genesis   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.048
  
3.220
  
0.827
Modern English - Roman Catholic litany   
26
  
9492
  
4.700
  
4.071
  
3.103
  
0.968
Modern English - The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane (short story)   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.073
  
3.247
  
0.826
    The second-order entropy of the schizophrenic rants is definitely higher, and h1-h2 lower, than any of the ordinary texts. As with the repetitive texts, the nature of the text itself would not by itself explain the puzzling nature of VMs text.
Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    One may write Japanese in Latin characters (romaji) or in syllabic scripts (hiragana and katakana, the kana). In romaji Japanese is a low-entropy language because of a relatively low phonemic inventory and severe phonotactic constraints. A Japanese syllable may begin in zero or one consonant (counting ts, ry, and ky as one consonant), have one vowel, and end with nothing or -n (although the following syllable's consonant may be doubled). (There are at least some long and short vowels in Japanese, which complicates this a little.)
    However, the very fact of these severe phonotactic constraints makes only a limited number of syllables possible in Japanese and therefore makes a syllabic script such as kana feasible. One would expect Japanese in kana to have a higher relative h2 (lower h1- h2) than Japanese in romaji.
    Hawaiian has even more severe phonotactic constraints, and thus one ought to be able to write Hawaiian in a syllabic script. In Hawaiian a syllable may begin in zero or one consonant, have only one vowel, and may only end in nothing! Hawaiian has a much more limited phonemic inventory than Japanese. Hawaiian is especially significant because Bennett compared Voynichese to Hawaiian and noted that they had similar second-order entropies. Bennett said that some Polynesian languages are the only natural languages with second-order entropies as low as Voynichese.
    Therefore, in order to gain insight on these issues, Hawaiian and Japanese are compared in syllabic as well as phonemic notation.
Japanese
    The classic Japanese novel Tale of Genji is written almost entirely in kana. Gabriel Landini kindly adapted this both into romaji and into a kana notation that MONKEY could analyze.









Table 14:
Entropies of Japanese in Romaji and Kana



File   
Orthography
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Tale of Genji - Section 1   
Romaji
  
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Tale of Genji - Section 2   
Romaji
  
20
  
31505
  
4.322
  
3.751
  
2.627
  
1.124
Tale of Genji - Section 3   
Romaji
  
20
  
29474
  
4.322
  
3.749
  
2.639
  
1.110
Tale of Genji - Section 4   
Romaji
  
20
  
32000
  
4.322
  
3.750
  
2.641
  
1.109
Tale of Genji - Section 5   
Romaji
  
20
  
27064
  
4.322
  
3.744
  
2.630
  
1.114
Tale of Genji - Overall   
Romaji
  
22
  
152043
  
4.459
  
3.751
  
2.643
  
1.108
Tale of Genji - Section 1   
Kana
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Tale of Genji - Section 2   
Kana
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Tale of Genji - Section 3   
Kana
  
70
  
18574
  
6.129
  
4.709
  
3.410
  
1.298
Tale of Genji - Section 4   
Kana
  
70
  
20386
  
6.129
  
4.716
  
3.464
  
1.252
Tale of Genji - Section 5   
Kana
  
70
  
17096
  
6.129
  
4.698
  
3.362
  
1.337
Tale of Genji - Overall   
Kana
  
71
  
97300
  
6.150
  
4.730
  
3.404
  
1.326
    As one would expect, the absolute h0, h1, and h2 numbers for kana are much higher than those for romaji. However, the differences for h1-h2 are consistently higher for kana, which one would not expect.
Hawaiian
    Bennett did his Hawaiian study with a limited Hawaiian orthography that did not recognize vowel length or the glottal stop. Therefore, statistics were run both on Hawaiian in limited phonemic and syllabic spellings, with long/short vowels not separated and glottal stop not indicated, and in full phonemic and syllabic notation.


    Hawaiian has the following phonemes:


    Consonants: h k l m n p w '(glottal stop)
    Vowels: a e i o u A E I O U (cap's means long)

    Bennett used a "lossy" Hawaiian orthography that did not distinguish the long vowels and did not write the glottal stop (call this Hawaiian limited phonemic). He also had his own Voynich transcription alphabet. Finally, he only compared the absolute h2 values and not relative measures such as h1-h2. It's as good as any an illustration of the problems here.
    Here is a sample of the Hawaiian newspaper text used in this paper for statistics in Bennett's notation:
    ma ka la o malaki ua noa ka paka o kapiolani no ke anaina na lakou ke kuleana o ka malama ana ma ka olelo ana aku i ka olelo hawaii ma laila no i Akoakoa ai ka poe haumana ka


    And here is the same text in full phonemic notation:
    ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka


    Here are the entropy values.





Table 15:
Entropies of Hawaiian Texts in Different Orthographies





File   
Orthography
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Hawaiian (Bennett)   
limited phonemic
  
13
  
15000
  
3.700
  
3.200
  
2.454
  
0.746
Hawaiian newspaper   
limited phonemic
  
13
  
13097
  
3.700
  
3.224
  
2.437
  
0.787
Hawaiian newspaper   
limited syllabic
  
39
  
9533
  
5.285
  
3.816
  
2.929
  
0.887
Hawaiian newspaper   
full phonemic
  
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Hawaiian newspaper   
full syllabic
  
77
  
9160
  
6.267
  
4.361
  
3.162
  
1.200
    And here are data for Bennett's and this paper's Voynich texts for comparison:







Table 16:
Voynich Texts for Comparison with Hawaiian



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich (Bennett)   
Bennett
  
21
  
10000
  
4.392
  
3.660
  
2.220
  
1.440
Herbal-A   
Currier
  
33
  
9804
  
5.044
  
3.792
  
2.313
  
1.479
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-A   
EVA
  
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Herbal-A   
Frogguy
  
21
  
13479
  
4.392
  
3.826
  
1.882
  
1.945
Herbal-B   
Currier
  
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Herbal-B   
EVA
  
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Herbal-B   
Frogguy
  
21
  
17909
  
4.392
  
3.846
  
1.949
  
1.897
    Bennett compared his Voynich text in a 21-character transcription to Hawaiian in a 13-character orthography (including the space character). He got h2 values of 2.220 for Voynich text and 2.454 for his Hawaiian text. However, a sample of Hawaiian text in a full phonemic orthography, with 19 characters including spaces, has h2 of 2.650, even higher. A comparison of h1-h2 values shows a dramatic difference between Hawaiian and Japanese on one hand and Voynichese on the other. h1-h2 equals 1.8 for Voynichese in EVA. h1-h2 is 0.746 for Bennett's Hawaiian data, 0.925 for Hawaiian in full phonemic notation, and 1.1 for Japanese romaji. These figures are all very different from Voynichese.
Discussion of Phonemic versus Syllabic Notation
    While perhaps not germane to the Voynich Manuscript problem, it is odd that h1-h2 increases from phonemic to syllabic notation, both for Japanese and Hawaiian. In syllabic notation, given the first character, the second character is more predictable than it is in phonemic notation. This is quite puzzling. How can we explain these results for Hawaiian and Japanese?
The Size of the Character Set
    In going from phonemic to syllabic, the text becomes shorter, more information is packed into fewer characters --but that is accomplished by using a larger character set. The numbers of characters for the syllabic notations are more than three times those for the phonemic notations. The measure h1-h2 was chosen to minimize the effect of the size of the character set, but surely is not entirely successful in doing that.


The Effect of Word Divisions
    Perhaps one loses predictability because the number of space characters in relation to the total is greater for syllabic notation than for phonemic. If that were the case, leaving out the spaces ought to decrease h1-h2 for syllabic notation more than for phonemic notation. MONKEY runs were made leaving out the spaces to test this. However, the h1-h2 results for syllabic notation decrease less than those for phonemic notation do.





Table 17:
The Effect of Word Divisions on Statistics for Japanese and Hawaiian







File   
Orthography
  
Spaces Included
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Romaji
  
Yes
  
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Romaji
  
No
  
21
  
26106
  
4.392
  
3.803
  
2.935
  
0.868
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Kana
  
Yes
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Kana
  
No
  
70
  
14051
  
6.129
  
5.666
  
4.330
  
1.337
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Phonemic
  
Yes
  
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Phonemic
  
No
  
18
  
10433
  
4.170
  
3.622
  
2.935
  
0.687
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Syllabic
  
Yes
  
77
  
9160
  
6.267
  
4.361
  
3.162
  
1.200
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Syllabic
  
No
  
76
  
6120
  
6.248
  
5.156
  
3.982
  
1.174
Redundancy
    Gabriel Landini, who did graduate studies in Japan, noted that the redundancy of Japanese is only apparent, that it is actually rather ambiguous. In writing this is overcome with ideographs (kanji), while in speech it is overcome with the context of the speech and with rigid structures (phrases and expressions).
    However, Jacques Guy (doctorate in Polynesian languages, was once fluent in Tahitian) notes that Tahitian (similar to Hawaiian) is no more ambiguous than English or French! So redundancy is not likely the explanation.
The Effect of Syllable Divisions
    Could the (relatively) high h1-h2 values for syllabic Hawaiian and Japanese mean that combinations of two syllables (eg. yama in Japanese, wiki in Hawaiian) are as repetitious and fixed as combinations of phonemes within syllables?
    The phonemic vs. syllabic problem here is more complex than this. Take "yamamoto" in romaji and in kana: (ya)(ma)(mo)(to). When we are analysing the second-order entropy in romaji, one is looking for the distributions of "ya" "am" "mo" "ot" "to", while for kana it is "(ya)(ma)" "(ma)(mo)" "(mo)(to)". For half (or so) of the romaji, one deals with combinations of letters ("am", "ot") that are never represented in kana. So the second-order entropy in one type of text is not strictly comparable with the second-order entropy in the other. The second-order entropy order of the romaji text is in principle "near" in meaning to the first-order entropy of the kana, but about only half of the digraphs correspond to kana.
    While the differences in statistics between syllabic and phonemic notation are interesting, they are not necessarily relevant to the Voynich Manuscript. They are chiefly interesting in raising questions about the use of the entropy concept.


Final Thoughts on Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    Consider again the start of the Herbal-A sample file (f29v, lines 1-9), in EVA:
    kshol qoocph shor pshocph shepchy qoty dy shory
    ykcholy qoty chy dy qokchol chor tchy qokchody cheor o
    chor chol chy choiin
    tshoiin cheor chor o chty qotol sheol shor daiin qoty
    otol chol daiin chkaiin shoiin qotchey qotshey daiiin
    daiin chkaiin
    pchol oiir chol tsho daiin sho teo chy chtshy dair am
    okain chan chain cthor dain yk chy daiin cthol
    sot chear chl s choly dar

    And then the beginning of the Hawaiian newspaper sample file:


    kepakemapa mei puke kepakemapa mei mahalo 'ia ka 'Olelo hawai'i e nA mAka' na ho'Olanani kim ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka po'e kumu ka po'e mAkua a me ka po'e hoa o kElA 'ano kEia 'ano o ka 'Olelo hawai'i a ma laila nO ho'i i launa ai ka po'e ma o ka 'Olelo hawai'i kapa 'ia kEia lA hoihoi 'o ka lA 'ohana
    One sees that the low h2's of Hawaiian and Japanese are due to their very strict consonant-vowel alternation. The EVA Voynich sample shows that the consonant-vowel alternation of Voynichese (as determined by the Sukhotin vowel-recognition algorithm) is not as strict.
    Once again, h1-h2 equals 1.8 for Voynichese in EVA. h1-h2 is 0.746 for Bennett's Hawaiian data, 0.925 for Hawaiian in full phonemic notation, and 1.1 for Japanese romaji. These figures are all very different from Voynichese.
    For these reasons, it seems unlikely that an underlying low- entropy natural language explains the low h2 measures of Voynich text.


Suggestions for Further Work
    The various h2 measures are only crude, partial measures of all the factors that interest us. However, the entropy measure will continue to be useful. It would be nice to have a program that would calculate the entropies of files larger than 32K and calculate higher- order entropies more accurately.


    The author believes that the "paradigms" and other structural restrictions of Voynichese explain the low h2 measures. Further study of these structural constraints will be most useful.
Acknowledgments
    Many of these ideas and data were previously discussed on the Voynich E-mail list. A special thanks to Gabriel Landini and Rene Zandbergen for their assistance.


References for Electronic Texts
    Voynich Text
        Rene Zandbergen kindly provided samples of Herbal-B and Herbal-A from voynich.now.
        Herbal-B: 26r, 26v, 31r, 31v, 33r, 33v, 34r, 34v, 39r, 39v, 40r, 40v, 41r, 41v, 43r, 43v, 46r, 46v, 48r, 48v, 50r, 50v, 55r, 55v, 57r
   
   
        Selected Herbal-A: 28v, 29r, 29v, 30r, 30v, 32r, 32v, 35r, 35v, 36r, 36v, 37r, 37v, 38r, 38v, 42r, 42v, 44r, 44v, 45r, 45v, 47r, 47v, 49r, 49v
   
   
    Jacobean English
    Book of Mormon
    Bible, KJV
    Sir Francis Bacon, Essays
    Late Classical Latin Vulgate Latin Bible
    Estragon
    or
    Gopher
    Boethius: Consolatio Philosophiae: Book 3 & Book 4
    Modern English
    Catholic Litany
    ISO Standard Catalog
    "The Blue Hotel", by Stephen Crane
    Chicken Recipe
    Cajun Recipes, Part 1 and Part 2
    Japanese Text
        Gabriel Landini kindly prepared this. The text is from the Genji monogatari's [Tale of Genji, a classic Japanese novel mostly written in hiragana] first 4 parts: 01 Kiritsubo 02 Hahakigi 03 Utsusemi 04 Yugao.
        The "kana" output is not kana, of course, but an arbitrary substitution for kana so that MONKEY could be applied.
   
   
    Hawaiian
        The author prepared the Hawaiian texts. Hawaiian has the following phonemes:
   
   
        Consonants: h k l m n p w '(glottal stop)
        Vowels: a e i o u A E I O U (cap's means long)
   
        However, the difference between long and short vowels is often not indicated. Also, the glottal stop is often not written. Obviously both of these things need to be written, since even with them Hawaiian has a rather limited phonemic inventory!
   
   
        The Hawaiian text came from all the articles in this issue of a Hawaiian newspaper:
     Na Maka o Kana
    Puke 5, Pepa 5
    15 Malaki, 1997
   
        The text was changed to the notation above. All numbers, English, Japanese, and other foreign words were removed until the character set (the number of characters MONKEY showed) matched the Hawaiian notation. A syllabic script for Hawaiian using characters that MONKEY recognizes was devised.
    Schizophrenic Language
        At the Kooks Museum, in the Schizophrenic Wing, there is a transcript of flyers by Francis E. Dec, containing two schizophrenic Rants:
     Francis E. Dec, Esquire
    Transcripts of flyers
   
Printed References
    Arieti, Silvano. Creativity : the magic synthesis. New York : Basic Books, c1976. Library of Congress call number: BF408.A64
   
   
    Bennett, William Ralph. Scientific and Engineering Problem Solving with the Computer. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976. [Contains a chapter on VMS.]
    D'Imperio, M. E. The Voynich Manuscript--An Elegant Enigma. National Security Agency, 1978. Aegean Park Press, 1978?
    Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' [Alchemical herbals.] In Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali -- erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri, [Pharmaceutical art and medicinal plants -- herbals, jars, instruments and texts of the Ligurian collections.] Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Profusely illustrated. Fits the VMS into an ``alchemical herbal'' tradition.]
   
   
Copyright © 1998 by Dennis J. Stallings, all rights reserved.
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