From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 04 2002 - 06:02:18 MST
I wrote a long letter about this, and Hotmail chomped it when I tried to
send it. So have a relatively short one in its place - it looks long only
because I have appended the programs I wrote in an attempt to prove by
example why this is nonsense. Hopefully these results will make it
self-evident to the statistically and logically impaired, who appear to
believe that the Vedas "really truly" contain some "hidden" data which has
been extracted from it by careful analysis, that they are accepting a sucker
proposition - unless they really truly <em>believe</em> that Herman Melville
really intended to "hide" the value of PI in the text of Moby Dick - and
being superior to Bronze Age priests, did so to 38 places... in not one but
two places. Which latter would, I regret, be more than sufficient evidence
to convince me that they are severely IQ deficient or suffering from
classical theological intellectual dishonesty.
Below is the distribution of PI to various precisions as found in Moby Dick
using similar rules (see the below programs) as claimed for the "Hindu
Codes."
Places, Copies found.
14 , 567222
30 , 17356
34 , 743
35 , 56
38 , 2
It is worth noting that Herman Melville appears to be a much better source
of "gematric wisdom" than the Vedas - after all, in the approximately 1.2Mb
input file, the programs located 801 instances of PI to a higher precision
than that claimed for the Vedas which only allegedly contain in once and to
32 places.
As inspection of the analysis programs below will reflect, I "found" these
results without making "starting assumptions" about the codes - in fact, I
simply searched for patterns conforming with the asserted rules and matching
the digits of PI. Had I taken a particular piece of writing, and made up
arbitrary rules (just as I am certain that the inventors of the "Hindu Code"
did when they "discovered" it, and just as the intensely faithful, highly
indoctrinated purveyors of the all too similar "Torah" and "Bible Codes" did
when they sought information in their preferred noise sources) I could
easily make any particular piece of code reflect any particular value I
wanted to. This is not science - or mathematics. It is a valueless exercise
in classifying shit.
Note that the results in Moby Dick were found using far fewer synonymic
digrams (and no trigrams) than the "Hindu Codes" required (i.e. with much
lower probability of detection). Also note that the sheer number of synonyms
required by the rules for the "Hindu Codes," given the claimed 32
significant digits of PI, yields over 4,000 billion (American - i.e. 4^12)
possible "sentences" using only the polygrams claimed to be meaningful. I am
fairly certain that more than a few of these phrases might appear meaningful
- or "prayer-like" even - to those who can follow Sanskrit - particularly
when padded with semantic nulls as the inventors of this alleged "gematria"
do.
Mermaid referenced the VedicMaths site - presumably to support this
brain-damaged assertion. Presumably she didn't notice that it is the work of
some brain-damaged followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (at least two of them
teachers at Maharishi school) - and thus supports my statements in this
regard - as can most trivially be seen if you simply tootle over to the
contact page
(http://www.vedicmaths.org.uk/group_files/whos%20who/whos%20who.htm) and
organization page
(http://www.vedicmaths.org.uk/menu_files/Organisations.htm) at the site. A
pity that those extolling the virtues of this class of crap to the CoV
couldn't (or didn't bother to) figure this out for themselves.
Dealing with a few other assertions taken randomly before the Augean task of
having to deal with so much unadulterated crap for a second time overwhelmed
me:
[Yash] You should expect many things to do so, especially if you subscribe
blindly to all the occidental history which, as I said, is heavily biased.
[Hermit] I strongly disagree. Anyone making claims like this, you included,
simply reflects a lamentable lack of knowledge about history and historians
- who do not tend to subscribe to anything blindly - unlike believers in
incredible theories such as those on the origins of PI as advocated by
yourself. History - like all sciences - is subject to interpretation, the
requirement for substantiation and falsifiability. For many years, academic
interpretation has been likely to bend over backwards to give any
non-occidental claims the benefit of the doubt. Even so, most of it remains
with less support than that for the fairies at the bottom of your garden.
Asserting otherwise does not comprise proof of your claim. To cite the
seriously flawed "Black Athena" as if it were an accepted work, without even
mentioning the many rebuttals to this class of sloppy thinking, anti-western
material, e.g. "Not Out of Africa [Mary Lefkowitz, 1995], is dishonest and
misleading.
[Yash] Dismissing anything just because "it runs in the face of all you
know" is not conducive to search and could make you stagnate instead of
evolve.
[Hermit] Perhaps it could. But it does not. Because I know an awful lot
about rather a lot of interconnected things. Which allows me to evaluate
"new things" in terms of the other things - for which I do have evidence -
and which would provide support - or need to be overthrown, in order for the
new things to make sense. So taking this example, I would have to toss out
the history of PI, my knowledge of statistics, of communication theory, of
the intellectual dishonesty of the TMers, of the gullability and shoddy
thinking of the wannabe mystics of the mid 19th and 20th century and of the
discredited metaphysics of the Theosophers and other purveyors of
new-thought/new-age garbage before I could seriously consider your unproven
claims. For some reason, I find that I prefer the tools that I have, that
work well and provide results, to swallowing mystic balderdash “on faith”.
[Yash] Any argumentation about how much ancient gematric traditions are true
or not are rather unnecessary, especially as these researches by Rabbis and
company are an act of faith. So unless you are initiated into such things, I
know for sure you cannot believe in them, so no use trying to ram that point
home. There's a spiritual nuance between the gematric traditions of the
Hebrews and the Brahmins and the code-hunting of the sensational sort you'd
find in Michael Drosnin's book.
[Hermit] I consider that if you see something dropping out of the rear of a
horse, which looks like horseshit, smells like horseshit and feels like
horseshit, that only an idiot or a true believer would feel the need to
taste it to make a determination of its nature. In this case, the idiot - or
believer - would have to be somebody who rejects history, including Indian
written history (including histories written before Europeans arrived in
India! So much for claims of prejudice), rejects mathematics (including
contemporary Indian mathematics), rejects statistics, rejects the laws of
communications theory, rejects the unsavory reputation of those making the
mystic claims and decides to swallow the shit - presumably on the grounds
that once they have learnt to eat Tofu, anything else is an improvement. So
far as I can see there is no effective difference between such an idiot and
a believer of any other stripe. Your assertions do not persuade me
differently.
[Yash] Okay, so you want to be precise, but then I do not see what value
this brings to the argument. I view it as an attempt on your part to appear
to have researched the matter and seem precise, but you fall short again. I
only wanted to be brief but you had to say that, so here's the real name of
the author because I have the book, which I'm pretty sure by now that you
don't, and you haven't read nor tried to apply the principles therein.
[Hermit] Your unsupported assertions will get you into trouble one day. The
"Maharishi University of Management", located in the town in which I live,
and where my SO graduated with her Masters (Cum Laude - including Sanscrit
(which gives me the advantage of being able to work through the original
Vedas as well as the many lousy translations available) - but like many of
their students - she is a far better student than they deserved) does have
the referenced book (and others by rabid TMers with as little knowledge of
basic mathematics and statistics as Yash and Mermaid it seems) - and I read
them - and discarded them - as part of examining the syllabus for the school
(indoctrination center) associated with the "University". As it is, it seems
that you can't tell the difference between honorifics (Jagadguru Swami -
calling blessings upon the sainted swami) and a name (Sri Bharati Krsna
Tirthaji Maharaja). More fool you - for pontificating in an area where your
lack of knowledge appears nothing short of incredible - almost as incredible
as the "magic" you advocate - except that you appear to be nothing more than
a well meaning fool who finds it easy to believe the unbelievable (which is
what incredible means).
[Hermit] And so you seem to swallow the mystic hook, line, sinker, rod,
fisherman and boat all at once in your eagerness to “prove” the worth of
this copraphagic stew. Which perhaps indicates exactly how worthwhile it is
to attempt to discuss the issue with you (no believer was ever disabused by
reason - but instead they resort - as you appear to me to be doing here - to
toss slime anytime their precious faith is threatened). Why not take it
elsewhere. The CoV is a rational forum, and depreciates faith (which means
accepting that which is not proved), the very opposite of the scientific
method. The reason we reject faith is that it poisons the ability to reason
- as irrationality in one thing cannot be limited to that thing, but instead
spreads insidiously into other areas - and the faith holder must deny this
lest his faith be swept out on a cleansing flood of reason.
[Hermit] I won't bother with the rest, as, at this stage, it seems to me
that the sources are to suspect to deserve much in the way of time or a
serious response... When the stable floor is covered with shit, and you hear
the sound of hooves, it would be foolish to look for zebra or anything else
so exotic. The most likely explanation is in the issuings of the common or
domesticated horse. In this case, the zebra is the wish that "the ancients"
held the answer to things, which we have lost (but since found) and so they
may have held the answer to other things we do not know. The horse is that
the claimed "knowledge" is the result of looking for meaning in noise - and
the fact that better "knowledge" than that allegedly provided by the
ancients may be found quite trivially in other unlikely places using the
same techniques.
==================
Analysis programs:
I've converted the APL program I used for this demonstration into
Micro$tuffed BASIC, assuming that most of you have access to this (e.g. in
Excel) and that you will be able to follow them and play with them if you
choose. You will have to change the embedded filenames to suit your system.
I can provide the datafiles to anyone requesting them off-list. Sorry they
are a little rough, and definitely not optimized, but I didn't think the
topic deserved more time than I had already given it...
Usage:
Download Moby Dick from Project Gutenberg (moby10b.txt) e.g. from
http://elib.phil.pku.edu.cn/pub/gutenberg/etext01/moby10b.txt.
Remove the header (up to but not including "Chapter 1") and footer.
Run OptimizeMobyPairs to create the intermediate and analysis file
Then run PiSearch to get the results.
Sub OptimizeMobyPairs()
'Reads input file and converts it into output digrams
'Does not obey the double consonant rule (which doesn't
'make sense but adds complication), but simply skips all
'non consonants.
'Run this on the downloaded version of Moby Dick.
'Input: Text file
'Output: digram frequency file
' normalized digram stream for further processing
' output contains a sliding repetition of each
' consonant digram to simplify the analysis phase
Dim Pairs(21, 21) As Long
Dim MaxOff As Long
Dim Offset As Long
Dim SkipLen As Long
Dim moby as String
Dim MobyPack as String
Dim ThisChar As String * 1
Dim NextChar As String * 1
Dim Consonants As String * 21
Consonants = "bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz"
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\moby.txt" For Input As #1
Line Input #1, moby
Close #1
moby = LCase(moby)
MaxOff = Len(moby)
Offset = 1
While Offset <= MaxOff
ThisChar = "!"
Do Until (0 <> InStr(Consonants, ThisChar)) Or (Offset > MaxOff)
ThisChar = Mid(moby, Offset, 1)
Offset = Offset + 1
Loop
If (0 <> InStr(Consonants, ThisChar)) Then
SkipLen = 0
NextChar = "!"
Do Until (0 <> InStr(Consonants, NextChar)) Or ((Offset +
SkipLen) > MaxOff)
NextChar = Mid(moby, Offset + SkipLen, 1)
SkipLen = SkipLen + 1
Loop
If (0 <> InStr(Consonants, NextChar)) Then
MobyPack = MobyPack + ThisChar + NextChar
Pairs(InStr(Consonants, ThisChar), InStr(Consonants,
NextChar)) = Pairs(InStr(Consonants, ThisChar), InStr(Consonants, NextChar))
+ 1
End If
End If
Wend
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobypairs.txt" For Output As #1
For i = 1 To 21
For j = 1 To 21
Print #1, Mid(Consonants, i, 1) + Mid(Consonants, j, 1),
Pairs(i, j)
Debug.Print Mid(Consonants, i, 1) + Mid(Consonants, j, 1),
Pairs(i, j)
Next j
Next i
Close #1
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobypack.txt" For Output As #1
Print #1, MobyPack;
Close #1
Debug.Print "done"
End Sub
Sub PiSearch()
Dim distribution(100)
Dim PI as string
Dim moby as string
Dim MaxLen as Long
Dim MaxPi as Long
Dim TestKey as string*100
Dim TestMatchLen as Long
Dim TestMatch as Boolean
Dim PiHop as Long
Dim TestStr as string*2
Dim PiVal as string
'ka, Ta, pa and ya all denote 1; (4)
'kha, tha, pha and ra all represent 2; (4)
'ga, Da, ba, and la all stand for 3; (4)
'gha, dha, bha, and va all denote 4; (4)
'gna, Na, ma and sa all represent 5; (4)
'ca, TA and sha all stand for 6; (3)
'cha, tha, and Sa denote 7; (3)
'ja, DA and ha all represent 8; (3)
'jha and dha stand for 9; and (2)
'Ksa (or Ksudra) means Zero! (2)
'In words with conjunct consonants only the last consonant counts and vowels
do not count at all.
'Thus 'papa' is 11, 'mama' is 55 and 'mary' is 52 and so on.
'Hermit notes that for this demonstration I have assumed that all consonants
count and that vowels do not.
'Hermit further notes that the use of multiple pairings for each letter (as
in the "Hindu Codes") greatly increases the probability of a match, but that
it would have been more rational had this matched the distribution of
numerals in PI in the significant positions.
'i.e. 0:0 1:2 2:4 3:7 4:3 5:4 6:3 7:2 8:3 9:4
'But to make the parallel visible and demonstration convincing, I use the
same awkward distribution, as the supporters of the "Hindu Codes",
'i.e. 0:2 1:4 2:4 3:4 4:4 5:4 6:3 7:3 8:3 9:2.
'1000 digits of PI
PI = "3"
PI = PI + "14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510"
PI = PI + "58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679"
PI = PI + "82148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128"
PI = PI + "48111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196"
PI = PI + "44288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091"
PI = PI + "45648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273"
PI = PI + "72458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436"
PI = PI + "78925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094"
PI = PI + "33057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548"
PI = PI + "07446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912"
PI = PI + "98336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798"
PI = PI + "60943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132"
PI = PI + "00056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872"
PI = PI + "14684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235"
PI = PI + "42019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960"
PI = PI + "51870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859"
PI = PI + "50244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881"
PI = PI + "71010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303"
PI = PI + "59825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778"
PI = PI + "18577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989"
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobypack.txt" For Input As #1
Line Input #1, moby
Close #1
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobykey.txt" For Output As #1
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobykeypairs.txt" For Output As #2
MaxLen = Len(moby)
MaxPi = 0
For Offset = 1 To MaxLen Step 2
TestKey = String(100, Chr(0))
TestMatchLen = 0
TestMatch = True
PiHop = 0
While TestMatch
TestStr = Mid(moby, Offset + (PiHop * 4), 2)
PiVal = Mid(PI, PiHop + 1, 1)
Select Case Asc(Mid(TestKey, 1 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 1))
Case 0
'Not in list yet - add it
Mid(TestKey, 1 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 1) = Chr(1)
Mid(TestKey, 2 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) = TestStr
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
Case 1
'1 In list
If (Mid(TestKey, 2 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr)
Then
' not in list - so add it
Mid(TestKey, 1 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 1) = Chr(2)
Mid(TestKey, 4 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) = TestStr
End If
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
Case 2
'2 In list
If (Mid(TestKey, 2 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr)
And (Mid(TestKey, 4 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr) Then
' not in list - so add it if possible
If (Val(PiVal) > 0) And (Val(PiVal) < 9) Then
Mid(TestKey, 1 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 1) = Chr(3)
Mid(TestKey, 6 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) = TestStr
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
Else
'can't add to list - not in list - so end of
list
TestMatch = False
End If
Else
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
End If
Case 3
'3 In list
If (Mid(TestKey, 2 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr)
And (Mid(TestKey, 4 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr) And (Mid(TestKey, 6
+ (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr) Then
' not in list - so add it if possible
If (Val(PiVal) > 0) And (Val(PiVal) < 6) Then
Mid(TestKey, 1 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 1) = Chr(2)
Mid(TestKey, 8 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) = TestStr
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
Else
'can't add to list - not in list - so end of
list
TestMatch = False
End If
Else
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
End If
Case 4
'4 In list
If (Mid(TestKey, 2 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr)
And (Mid(TestKey, 4 + (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr) And (Mid(TestKey, 6
+ (Val(PiVal) * 10), 2) <> TestStr) And (Mid(TestKey, 8 + (Val(PiVal) * 10),
2) <> TestStr) Then
'not in list - can't add - so end of list
TestMatch = False
Else
'is in list
PiHop = PiHop + 1
TestMatchLen = TestMatchLen + 1
End If
Case Else
'Error
Debug.Print "Case Else Error in Key"
End Select
If Offset + PiHop > MaxLen Then
TestMatch = False
End If
Wend
If TestMatchLen > MaxPi Then
Print #2, TestMatchLen; ",";
For i = 0 To 9
Print #2, i ; ",";Asc(Mid(TestKey, 1 + (i * 10), 1));
Select Case Asc(Mid(TestKey, 1 + (i * 10), 1))
Case 1
Print #2, ","; Mid(TestKey, 2 + (i * 10), 2)
Case 2
Print #2, ","; Mid(TestKey, 2 + (i * 10), 2); ",";
Mid(TestKey, 4 + (i * 10), 2)
Case 3
Print #2, ","; Mid(TestKey, 2 + (i * 10), 2); ",";
Mid(TestKey, 4 + (i * 10), 2); ","; Mid(TestKey, 6 + (i * 10), 2)
Case 4
Print #2, ","; Mid(TestKey, 2 + (i * 10), 2); ",";
Mid(TestKey, 4 + (i * 10), 2); ","; Mid(TestKey, 6 + (i * 10), 2); ",";
Mid(TestKey, 8 + (i * 10), 2)
End Select
Print #2,
"========================================================"
Next i
MaxPi = TestMatchLen
End If
distribution(TestMatchLen) = distribution(TestMatchLen) + 1
Debug.Print Offset; ","; TestMatchLen; ","; MaxPi
Print #1, Offset; ","; TestMatchLen
Next Offset
Close #1
Close #2
Debug.Print "done"
Open "c:\cygwin\usr\mobykeydist.txt" For Output As #1
For i = 0 To 100
Print #1, i; ","; distribution(i)
Next
Close #1
End Sub
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