🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <EGpGs7.3p...@deshaw.com>,  <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
>Except that McKay's Moby Dick and War and Peace examples make the same
>procedural mistake Drosnin does. He measures the probability of a
>particular "code" after it was found, and thereby tries to discredit
>the model used for computing the probability was measured by. However,
>since there are an absurdly high number of possible "code", many must
>be found in any text.
>
>What needs be done is the reverse. Determine the odds of finding each
>of a list of possible matches, and see if the law of large numbers
>supports the prediction'.

I have no doubt that if one runs the algorithm against any number of
texts, you may find any one text statistically more peculiar in some
way than any other. Even if it turned out that some recension of the
text of the Torah is more statistically peculiar, what would it mean?

If some new generation of Dead Sea Scrolls are found and the text of
the Torah discovered therein is even more "code rich" than what we find
in the Miqra'ot G'dolot (but here and there the language differs just
enough to change a halakhah or two), will you shout Eureka! and accept
that text as the "true Torah"? If it turns out that some recension of
the Christian Bible--maybe even the King James Version--is even more
"code rich" than the Torah, would you then accept those versions as
"better" than the Torah, or would you then claim that the whole thing
is just a foolish waste of time?



-- 
-----------------------
Jack F. Love
Opinions expressed are mine alone, unless you happen to agree