Marpa and Ancient Languages: Encouragement and Discouragement, Acceptance and Rejection

[Ron Savage]

Deciphering ancient human languages has a long history, but is replete with personal struggles against people who are, or seem to be, fanatically determined to block progress. Similarities with this and Marpa's progress are blatant. 

I've just finished re-reading 2 fascinating books on ancient human language:

o The Story of Decipherment, Maurice Pope, Thames and Hudson, 0-500-28105-X.

o Glyphbreaker, Steven Roger Fischer, Copernicus, 0-387-98241-8.

Fischer deciphered both the Phaistos Disk, and the rongorongo script of Rapanui aka Easter island.

 

To encourage people working with Marpa, I thought I'd quote a few lines from Fischer's book:

o p 125. When Max Plank was once asked how he changed the minds of those who doubted the new physics he had helped to found. He hadn't changed their minds, he replied. They died. 

o p 125. I (Fischer) was only too mindful of the fierce opposition that Michael Ventris had met thirty years earlier when he revealed - through the successful decipherment of the Linear B script - that the Mycenaeans had spoken Greek.

o p 126. New ideas are never universally accepted. They are a path slashed into the wilderness. Of course there will always be those select pioneers who recognize the promise and at once follow the path. However, most people only gradually, if ever, see that the way into the wilderness is there. This inertia is inherent in every human endeavor and is as old as humankind itself.

o p 126. "But I recognized to my chagrin ... that my working monograph ... was being read by classicists and epigraphers in a way that I hadn't intended it to be read. It was being misinterpreted and misunderstood. This caused me no end of disappointment... The new path was there, but they apparently were still unable to see it.

On p 126 and 127 he gives a long list of fabrications people used to resist acceptable, ending with:

o p 127. And then there was the leading Greek archaeologist who proclaimed that only a Greek could solve the riddle of the Phaistos Disk.

Elsewhere (in the book) Fischer writes in this vein: These same people were of course the ones who controlled access to grant money, and were of course the biggest receivers of such monies despite their personal wealth.

[Jeffrey Kegler]

It's nice to be compared with those making real contributions to progress.  I believe, though, that all real progress comes from a source larger than an individual, and belongs to that source, more than to the individual.  Of course, we identify people with discoveries and that is convenient and it's OK, especially if you are lucky enough to be one of those identified with something worthwhile.

Which is perhaps a good opportunity to mention that I will be looking for an income over the coming months.  As many of you know, I've worked on Marpa for the past 7 years, and it's all been self-funded.  I'm going to move away from that.  Ideal, of course, would be someone else who wants to fund my work on Marpa, but much more likely is that I will be seeking $work.

Thanks, jeffrey kegler

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "marpa parser" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to marpa-parser...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Ron Savage]

On Monday, 9 March 2015 11:21:23 UTC+11, Jeffrey Kegler wrote:

It's nice to be compared with those making real contributions to progress.  I believe, though, that all real progress comes from a source larger than an individual, and belongs to that source, more than to the individual.  Of course, we identify people with discoveries and that is convenient and it's OK, especially if you are lucky enough to be one of those identified with something worthwhile.

Fischer does address this issue, but I refrained from quoting the whole book.......