Do you believe in horoscopes?

[Emil Miller]

Now let me say that I think the whole idea of star signs controlling our lives is nonsense. But recently, after a number of years, I met someone who has a very great affinity with the way I think and the things I believe in. She is a little toughie not given to self-deception, so I was surprised when she asked me my star sign and I found we were both born under the same sign. I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?

[MystyrMystyry]

Gemini - Yes, it seems the world is against you, but this week perceptions are deceptions, and your life is really an expertly executed trompe l’oel, only you are to blame for any further nose breakages. Remember when you were young? It’s only a memory.

Cancer - Weren’t you listening last week? Now what to do - short of poisoning the dog and finding the perfect vantage point atop the MLC building (but if it’s the only option try the slingshot this time - spitballs are out of favour)

Leo - Time to discard those deadbeats you’ve let hound you seemingly for ever (or indeed forever!) But what to replace them with? Simple, a better class of deadbeat - others do it, now’s your chance. How can these newbies enhance your fruitless existence, or further, how can you make them? But first the Big Question will be how to win them over. Lies? Treachery? Deceit? These techniques have all held you in good stead before - where did you go wrong?

Virgo - When the only colour is black, it can be difficult to tell what colour black actually is - well it's not red but it might feel like it when the blanket has finally lifted. The main issue will surely have to do with money. Or rather how to keep your small pile from the prying eyes and thieving hands of your N and D

Libra - Still talking to the aliens eh? And the bus seats just aren’t getting any better. Perhaps it’s time you talked to the aliens on the buses. The seats won’t get any better but at least you’ll be guaranteed more room.

Scorpio - Mischievous Pluto’s in haughty Sagittarius this week, which means every past mistake and sin are waiting in the wings to pounce when least expected. Don’t go making plans to socialise nor impress - it’ll only get you in hotter water than you’re already in. You’ll spill the soup and do something you’ll never live down

Sagittarius - Time to get creative - use that boundless energy to confound and confuse your enemies, which by now are legion. Alternately you can just hire someone to-... perhaps too drastic? Remember they might not think the same about you. They will however consider whether you’re worth the expense.

Capricorn - Genius reigns supreme in your mystical sector, but are you strong enough to focus it into something solid/worthwhile? No, so instead you’ll curl up in bed with a book by someone of greater genius. As Nabokov said: ‘genius is patience’, and you’ll need more than patience to get through the third-rate effort you’ve chosen. Instead try The Bible, and consolidate your argument for when the Mormons next visit.

Aquarius - Tired/weary? Bored/angry? You deserve to be. And shot. The way you’ve been behaving lately, not to mention the way you’ve been treating those closest, it’s only a matter of time. They may be only words to you but the illiterate do tend to take things literally. It may not be entirely your fault you made those bad investments, but nor is it anyone elses.

Pisces - Attention all fish! Feeling washed up? This is the time to sieze the day, to surface and evolve into something greater. Thinking can be difficult at first but before you know it you’ll have free will and self-determination and that mortgage won’t be a problem.

Aries - Full moon lurking in the shadows, but you have much larger, more sweeping, farther reaching troubles. What, for instance, will you do with the body under the bed? Never mind how it got there, don’t think you can bury it.

Taurus- Ah, you guys, What to do, What to do? It’s not your fault you were born without talent and the brain capacity of the average distended amoeba. But before you decide to go blaming the universe on your mess of a life, there’s still time to do something useful. Parliament’s full of politicians, which even taken as a collective hole, are destined to achieve less than you can in a moment of inspiration.

[YesNo]

I haven't really paid much attention to Western astrology, but the Chinese version that you occasionally get on place mats in Chinese restaurants has often been entertaining. I guess I would be a Sagittarius by Western standards and a dragon by Eastern standards.

I suspect the messages in fortune cookies might be as good a method as any to getting insight into whatever.

In general, I don't see any need to "believe" in these things. They should be something you can experiment with to find out how well they work or don't work. I suspect for some people they work better than for others. That's about as far as I would be able to go at the moment to grant them validity.

Edit: There is a way to answer simple Yes and No questions using a pendulum. You can search for this on YouTube to get an example of what this is about. I suspect this might work better than astrology since you can practice it and see if you improve your predicting ability. I did try it once and found I didn't quite have what it took to get beyond random in the tests I ran. The person who introduced this to me was more talented than I was.

[manolia]

I believe it's crap. No offence to any believers.
I find it really sad that people want so desperately to feel important, in a cosmic sense (tiny and insignificant specks of dust floating into space that they are).
Whatever happens to me during my lifetime has absolutely no significance for the cosmos. Castor and Pollux being several light years away from earth (approx 50 and 30 respectively) have nothing to do with me. Even the fact that i was given the gemini sign just because i was born in june is quite arbitrary.

[Dodo25]

It's nonsense. And discriminating, if you think about it.

[JuniperWoolf]

And discriminating, if you think about it.

How so?

[Dodo25]

Imagine someone actually believes that her soulmate is a specific star sign. Eleven twelfths of the population would arbitrarily be ruled out from her consideration.

Dawkins quote:

"Amusingly, it [astrology] falls foul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping. How would we react if a newspaper published a daily column that read something like this: "Germans: It is in your nature to be hard-working and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural tendency to obey orders. Chinese: Inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today. British: Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life."

[qimissung]

Ahem. Virgo, with Sagittarius rising, here.

I don't know that I believe in astrology. I enjoy it. Linda Goodman's Sun Signs is really fun to read. I find hers to be a surprisingly accurate assessment of my character. Does it affect my life? Not at all. It's not fortune telling. Did being born in September cause me to be this way? I don't know. It seems unlikely.

It might give you a smidgen of insight into yourself, if your reading something that is well done (not that newspaper crap), but anyone who's willing to work, think, grow can achieve that without astrology.

[MarkBastable]

I'll be quite happy to give serious consideration to astrology when someone explains to me how it works.

[qimissung]

Impossible!

[loe]

I am a cancer, ascendent scorpion. In the Chinese world I am a sheep/goat...

Some characteristics seem to fit perfectly, but I think this is pure coincidence. Probably other signs would fit too, but we do not take a closer look at them.
It is nonsense, but at least it can also be funny.

The one thing that makes me sad is an article I read some time ago (or did I hear it on the radio?). It said that there are really enterprises which hire people according to their horoscope... :rolleyes:

[MystyrMystyry]

Back again for some reason.

In the way that all self-help books contain an element of truth, so can horrorscopes. They can be an easy fun read (like numerology, one of those novels that can purportedly change your life, Spike Milligan's sillier verse), but take it too seriously and read too much into it you risk the possibility of ruining it for yourself


An explanation of my earlier post (if any were needed): it's part 1 of 12 bad poems designed for a poetry meeting, with each consecutive part filling in the details of the relationship with each other until ultimately all are entwined and related to each other

It was supposed to be clever but I only made it to part 6 before my braincell *snapped*

Anyway, keep having fun! (And someone please post after me immediately)

[JuniperWoolf]

I'll be quite happy to give serious consideration to astrology when someone explains to me how it works.

Yeah, I don't really understand how it works either. I think that it has something to do with which constellation is in closest proximity to the moon when seen from the hemisphere that you're born in at the time of your birth, and then you're assumed to have certain character traits depending on the "personality" of that constellation.

[MarkBastable]

Yeah, I don't really understand how it works either. I think that it has something to do with which constellation is in closest proximity to the moon when seen from the hemisphere that you're born in at the time of your birth, and then you're assumed to have certain character traits depending on the "personality" of that constellation.


No - I understand that bit. I mean that I want someone to explain to me how my personality is shaped by light emitted from stars thousands of years ago and perceived at the moment of my birth, if anyone happens to be watching which I certainly wasn't, and how, even if that's true, those same random and remote bodies can act as predictors of my future at a detailed and very personal level, and incidentally, given that they publish horoscopes daily and the movement of the stars is so predictable, why can't every single day of my life be predicted at the moment of my birth?

[MystyrMystyry]

You wouldn't be suggesting it's a steaming pile of... mumbo jumbo?

[manolia]

Yeah, I don't really understand how it works either. I think that it has something to do with which constellation is in closest proximity to the moon when seen from the hemisphere that you're born in at the time of your birth, and then you're assumed to have certain character traits depending on the "personality" of that constellation.

Is that how they did it? I wonder how they measured the distances (whoever "they" were) considering that each star in the 88 constellations has a different distance from the rest that "belong" to the same constellation.

(and why on earth did they exclude Orion which is the most impressive of them all?)

[qimissung]

Does it really matter? I just like reading things about myself on occasion.

[YesNo]

Is that how they did it? I wonder how they measured the distances (whoever "they" were) considering that each star in the 88 constellations has a different distance from the rest that "belong" to the same constellation.

(and why on earth did they exclude Orion which is the most impressive of them all?)
I'm far from an expert on this, but I suspect that astrology could be considered a sort of "wave theory". The stars are used as a clock to measure the length of the waves. That is why Orion is excluded. It is not part of the zodiac clock.

The theory would claim that our personalities are different, but dependent on where in the wave pattern we were born.

There are some serious wave theories out there (not saying astrology isn't serious :) ). One that I find interesting is Elliott Wave Theory that Robert Prechter promotes as a stock market technical analysis tool:

http://www.elliottwave.com/

Some people think Prechter is even nuttier than the astrologists, especially today when the US DOW Industrial Average has closed above 11500. He is anticipating a severe crash, perhaps to DOW 1000, although I don't remember exactly how low he expects the DOW to go this decade. I do find his analysis interesting.

[12weeks]

Now let me say that I think the whole idea of star signs controlling our lives is nonsense. But recently, after a number of years, I met someone who has a very great affinity with the way I think and the things I believe in. She is a little toughie not given to self-deception, so I was surprised when she asked me my star sign and I found we were both born under the same sign. I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?

Personally I don't believe in horoscopes, or astrology, or any of the other stuff like tarot etc, and although I have met a few Librans who resonate with my way of thinking, I also know far too many who are nothing like me.

What springs to my mind when I read your encounter is that maybe you both share similar personality types (a la MBTI > something some other people do try to dismiss as modern astrology but which I disagree with lol).

I know someone who not only shares my MBTI type, but also my western horoscope and chinese one, I dismiss the horoscope connection and believe our extreme similarities come from our shared MBTI type.

Maybe this person you met also shares a similar type?

Personally I have more faith in the 4 letters resulting from a test, than my sign according to when I was born.

[Wilde woman]

I'm an Aquarius on the Western zodiac and a tiger in the Chinese zodiac.

In terms of accuracy, I think it's all crap, BUT it's fascinating to study the history and origins of zodiacs.

[Paulclem]

I wonder if it's an ancient way of trying to make sense of, and categorise, personality traits and different characters? I think Dodo's point about stereotypes suggests this. Stereotypes are not always negative, but do help us to make sense of people. We may have our own stock of useful stereotypes that we apply to people whom we meet so we can make judgements about them.

I was also thinking about those personality tests they use these days - you know the management ones where group are assigned types according to what part of a complex task they complete, (I forget the name) - or those tests they get you to take when you apply for a job. Are they so dissimilar I wonder to the purpose of astrology?

[MystyrMystyry]

Can we take a class action suit for all the times the astrologers' predictions have been wrong?

[Paulclem]

What's a class action suit?

[faithosaurus]

As far as horoscopes in magazines and newspapers and such, I don't believe in them. For the same month, each one is saying something different.
I've never had my horoscope told by a reliable source, though, so I wouldn't know about that.

[MystyrMystyry]

What's a class action suit?

It's what men in suits do all the time in America, and occasionally Julia Roberts gets involved

[Paulclem]

It's what men in suits do all the time in America, and occasionally Julia Roberts gets involved

I'm no wiser. What do men in suits do all the time in the US?

[MystyrMystyry]

Class Action is when a group of people whom a large company has individually screwed over, come together for the purpose of suing the arse off of it, something they would be unable to pursue alone because the manner in which a large company tends to do its screwing usually involves taking as much of a person's lifesavings as possible

[Paulclem]

I see.

Doesn't that make the whole business of planning ahead/ making projections even more dodgy?

[Patrick_Bateman]

Well I believe horoscopes exist, yes because they are in every newspaper and women's magazine.

But do I believe horoscopes

Well, no, they are sly, ambiguous trash propagated by the same con artists and liars who 'tell' fortunes and 'read' Tarot cards.

[Emil Miller]

Well I believe horoscopes exist, yes because they are in every newspaper and women's magazine.

This raises an interesting question, namely, why are women more likely to be attracted to horoscopes than men?

[Paulclem]

Well I believe horoscopes exist, yes because they are in every newspaper and women's magazine.

But do I believe horoscopes

Well, no, they are sly, ambiguous trash propagated by the same con artists and liars who 'tell' fortunes and 'read' Tarot cards.

It seems in in our ulfra rational western societies that there can't be any truth in horoscopes, and indeed where's the scientific proof? Proof has been discussed ad infinitum and causes an impasse as anecdotal evidence does not meet the criteria for proof.

Yet Brian raises an important point. Every rational sense says that astrology is rubbish, and we can all point at the tricksters and charlatans you mention.

Clearly newspaper horoscopes come under the designation of light entertainment, and I don't think they have anything to do with astrology. But if you said all astrology is rubbish then I would have to disagree. It has clearly served a purpose in the past - perhaps as means of making sense of human characters and situations - but I bet - like Brian - if people were asked, a good number could cite an unexplained event or reading from someone. I can - and I think most of the rest of it is rubbish.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?I think it is nonsense too. In fact, nothing I have seen during my 51 years has made me hesitate even the slightest bit in calling it a load of crock. I have also one met a person who was writing horoscopes for magazines. She agreed that it was a load of crock, but added that it helped paying a few bills. :rolleyes: She also admitted to trying to write the stuff in such a way that it would fit in to a lot of peoples everyday lives without really committing to anything.

However: Just as I have the right to consider it a load of crock, I also grant others their right to believe in it.

/Claes

[soundofmusic]

I'll be quite happy to give serious consideration to astrology when someone explains to me how it works.

Okay, I'll explain how this works:reddevil: When I meet a person I like, I start out by asking their sign; it seems a harmless question to them, and anyone from the 70s will relate. Of course, at this point, it opens up the way to ask what side of the month they were born...usually, at some point, they tell me their birthdate and then:
I look their names up in public records, court records, property records...before having coffee with them...:yikes:


By the way, I am a Scorpio and totally awesome and it is true...very sexy:smilielol5:

[Paulclem]

Just to add - when we think of horoscopes, we often think of newspaper and magazine versions. There are different versions though - such as in Sri Lanka. I wonder if people from those cultures where horoscopes are considered differently have a different take on them? I once was fortunate to meet and have some teachings from a Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk who told me that he did horoscopes. I would regard one from him very differently, though it would perhaps have a different purpose to the ones we have in the West.

[Dodo25]

It seems in in our ulfra rational western societies that there can't be any truth in horoscopes, and indeed where's the scientific proof?

Oh aren't we bad we Westeners? All this talk about that common sense thing and this rationality!

No, seriously, 'ultra rational'? I wish it were! Our society is an esoteric jungle, a mumbo-jumbo of bronze age mythology and pseudo-scientific nonsense.



Proof has been discussed ad infinitum and causes an impasse as anecdotal evidence does not meet the criteria for proof.

There's no impasse, if it worked, it could be demonstrated scientifically in simple experiments. One just needs enough data to get statistically significant results. This has been done, and of course, it didn't produce any results in favor of astrology.



But if you said all astrology is rubbish then I would have to disagree. It has clearly served a purpose in the past - perhaps as means of making sense of human characters and situations - but I bet - like Brian - if people were asked, a good number could cite an unexplained event or reading from someone. I can - and I think most of the rest of it is rubbish.

Well of course it served some purpose, that doesn't mean it can't be rubbish.

By the way, I can't believe no one has posted this yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59boLMnrbU

(@ soundofmusic, so much for starting a conversation with astrology :D )

[YesNo]

There's no impasse, if it worked, it could be demonstrated scientifically in simple experiments.

...

By the way, I can't believe no one has posted this yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59boLMnrbU

I have no belief either in astrology or in its impossibility.

Saying that, like the girl in the youtube video, I'm a Sagittarius, or so they tell me.

[MystyrMystyry]

They can also be a bit dangerous

Were you aware that backin the Eighties the then president Ronald Reagan (dubbed Raygun for his Star Wars ambition) read the daily zodiac and acted on its advice? When the CIA discovered this they put the heavy on the mysticist (like a sebaceous cyst but if you lance them you get arrested) saying 'Regardless what the stars foretell today, whatever you do try to ensure that his sign tells him to avoid any conflict with foreign countries.

See, he really wanted to be the president who dropped the big bombs on the commies

True story, badly told

[MystyrMystyry]

Okay, I'll explain how this works:reddevil: When I meet a person I like, I start out by asking their sign; it seems a harmless question to them, and anyone from the 70s will relate. Of course, at this point, it opens up the way to ask what side of the month they were born...usually, at some point, they tell me their birthdate and then:
I look their names up in public records, court records, property records...before having coffee with them...:yikes:


By the way, I am a Scorpio and totally awesome and it is true...very sexy:smilielol5:


That, of course, is the exception that proves the rule!

[Paulclem]

Oh aren't we bad we Westeners? All this talk about that common sense thing and this rationality!

No, seriously, 'ultra rational'? I wish it were! Our society is an esoteric jungle, a mumbo-jumbo of bronze age mythology and pseudo-scientific nonsense.



There's no impasse, if it worked, it could be demonstrated scientifically in simple experiments. One just needs enough data to get statistically significant results. This has been done, and of course, it didn't produce any results in favor of astrology.




Well of course it served some purpose, that doesn't mean it can't be rubbish.

By the way, I can't believe no one has posted this yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59boLMnrbU

(@ soundofmusic, so much for starting a conversation with astrology :D )

I didn't say rationality is bad. It's good. Especially as there are many cynical rational people out there who know that what they are doing is charlatanism, and too many guillible people who fund them - and you're right about the esoteric mumbo jumbo.

As for your rational demonstration of scientific results - it doesn't seem to work like that. My own anecdotal experience, as well as throwing up lots of examples of mumbo-jumbo, has also thrown up the mysterious unexplained. Rare - yes. Repeatable - definately not.

For example - someone I know very well was approached - out of the blue in a busy Indian street - was told a few things which demonstrated some kind of knowledge of her life, and then given some predictions. She wasn't paying, and is naturally sceptical of anyone purporting to know such things - especially as in India there are commercial horoscope makers who harass tourists on busy streets. Yet everything she was told was relevant. Do I know this person well enough to accept this? Absolutely. Did she see this person who gave her this information again? No, and had not known them or seen them before.

All I'm saying is that if there is no room in our minds for extra possibilities - mysteries, then there is a likelihood that we might miss out on something. Of course scepticism is healthy. We all know people who will believe lots of daft things, but having an open mind does not mean that you will drink in every crackpot idea.

Does the above fit the scientific model? Nope. How could it - but that does not invalidate the experience of having predictions given.

Edit: The Big Bang Theory is funny.

I've just had another thought. The science worldview is dominant now for very good reasons - it is the commonly accepted measure. But it is not the only worldview, and just as people in an earlier age couldn't imagine a non-religious worldview becoming dominant, we can't perhaps imagine this worldview being challenged or marginalised. I'm not suggesting that pseudo-science or astrology will surmount it - I can't imagine what might become the underpinning worldviews of the future as I have no crystal ball. Perhaps it could be an eco-Gaia construct. Who knows. The only thing that's certain is that things - including attitudes and underpinning worldviews - will change.

[Paulclem]

Okay, I'll explain how this works:reddevil: When I meet a person I like, I start out by asking their sign; it seems a harmless question to them, and anyone from the 70s will relate. Of course, at this point, it opens up the way to ask what side of the month they were born...usually, at some point, they tell me their birthdate and then:
I look their names up in public records, court records, property records...before having coffee with them...:yikes:


By the way, I am a Scorpio and totally awesome and it is true...very sexy:smilielol5:

I knew there was some use to it. :D Brilliant

[Dodo25]

I see, I'm glad we seem to agree on many points. But,



For example - someone I know very well was approached - out of the blue in a busy Indian street - was told a few things which demonstrated some kind of knowledge of her life, and then given some predictions. She wasn't paying, and is naturally sceptical of anyone purporting to know such things - especially as in India there are commercial horoscope makers who harass tourists on busy streets. Yet everything she was told was relevant. Do I know this person well enough to accept this? Absolutely. Did she see this person who gave her this information again? No, and had not known them or seen them before.

Let's make a thought experiment:
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that 1 in 500 Indians likes, for whatever reason, to have fun messing with tourists by telling them things he/she 'knows' about their lives. Now, if each of these jokesters during their lifetime hit up 5 tourists, this means that as many tourists are approached as the population of India divided by 100. And that's 10 million.

So we have 10 million predictions. This means, that 1 million predictions will correct for things as unlikely as 1 in 10 odds. That could for instance be guessing one's star sign right (odds: 1 in 12). By the same reasoning, there will be 1000 predictions with likelihood of 1 in 10'000 of being right. This is like coin flipping 14 times and always getting heads -- pretty impressive, right?

And there will, by mere statistics, be likely one correct prediction with a 1 in 10 million likelihood of being true. That's like flipping coins 22 times and ALWAYS getting heads. This would probably translate to correctly guessing one's birthday (not even figuring into the possibility that the Indian could already have spied and found that out) and phone number / some 6 digit number.

As you see, there's a good reason why its problematic to infer whether a method works by mere anecdotal evidence. Even if you happen to be impressed by 20 consecutive head tosses with a non-fake coin, beware that this will happen to about 4 people by chance anyway (given our assumptions, which are rather conservative actually), and you could well be one of these four.

If all our jokesters would only guess birthdays, more than 20'000 tourists would have their birthdays guessed correctly. The other 9 million 880 thousand tourists where it was wrong wouldn't think much about it and forget the instance, while of the 20'000 where it happened by accident, many will probably be greatly impressed and believe something supernatural might be going on. In fact, the 40'000 people where the date was just 1 day off might well think that there's something magical too. And the 600'000 people where the guesser hit the right month/starsign might well think the same thing -- after all, wasn't it uncannily close to the actual date?

People's notions of probability are often wrong, our sense of statistics evolved for a world where our ancestors lived in groups with maybe 30 individuals. When the amount of individuals involved goes up in the millions, our gut-feeling fools us.



All I'm saying is that if there is no room in our minds for extra possibilities - mysteries, then there is a likelihood that we might miss out on something. Of course scepticism is healthy. We all know people who will believe lots of daft things, but having an open mind does not mean that you will drink in every crackpot idea.

By all means, be open minded. Yet that doesn't mean one should blindly accept things without (valid) evidence!



I've just had another thought. The science worldview is dominant now for very good reasons - it is the commonly accepted measure. But it is not the only worldview, and just as people in an earlier age couldn't imagine a non-religious worldview becoming dominant, we can't perhaps imagine this worldview being challenged or marginalised. I'm not suggesting that pseudo-science or astrology will surmount it - I can't imagine what might become the underpinning worldviews of the future as I have no crystal ball. Perhaps it could be an eco-Gaia construct. Who knows. The only thing that's certain is that things - including attitudes and underpinning worldviews - will change.

This thought makes no sense to me. Science is dominant because of its track record. Science produces results. We've been to the moon, we've found particles smaller than nuclei by smashing protons together in an underground 26-kilometer ring at nearly the speed of light. Can astrology, or Gaia, do that?

The whole reason behind science's suggest is that it's evidence based, and ready to discard wrong hypotheses in favor of new ones. Why on earth would we go back to non evidence based methods? Examples would be belief in authority (whatever my teacher/parents/pastor/Mr. President says is certainly right), revelation (whatever the next prophet says is certainly right, even if it's another Hitler) or simple economics, where propositions are true when people pay money to read about them (i.e. homeopathy, astrology etc)...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CRtMt721qAM/S9QyE9DFlAI/AAAAAAAAAgs/F0z2hcCWbco/s1600/sciencevsreligion.png

'Faith' can stand for any non evidence based method. Clearly, there's no way around science. By the way, even Gaia theorists think that they're relying on science. Even creationists (with some tragic exceptions) think (or at least pretend) to have evidence for their claims.

[Paulclem]

Let's make a thought experiment:
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that 1 in 500 Indians likes, for whatever reason, to have fun messing with tourists by telling them things he/she 'knows' about their lives. Now, if each of these jokesters during their lifetime hit up 5 tourists, this means that as many tourists are approached as the population of India divided by 100. And that's 10 million.

So we have 10 million predictions. This means, that 1 million predictions will correct for things as unlikely as 1 in 10 odds. That could for instance be guessing one's star sign right (odds: 1 in 12). By the same reasoning, there will be 1000 predictions with likelihood of 1 in 10'000 of being right. This is like coin flipping 14 times and always getting heads -- pretty impressive, right?

And there will, by mere statistics, be likely one correct prediction with a 1 in 10 million likelihood of being true. That's like flipping coins 22 times and ALWAYS getting heads. This would probably translate to correctly guessing one's birthday (not even figuring into the possibility that the Indian could already have spied and found that out) and phone number / some 6 digit number.

As you see, there's a good reason why its problematic to infer whether a method works by mere anecdotal evidence. Even if you happen to be impressed by 20 consecutive head tosses with a non-fake coin, beware that this will happen to about 4 people by chance anyway (given our assumptions, which are rather conservative actually), and you could well be one of these four.

If all our jokesters would only guess birthdays, more than 20'000 tourists would have their birthdays guessed correctly. The other 9 million 880 thousand tourists where it was wrong wouldn't think much about it and forget the instance, while of the 20'000 where it happened by accident, many will probably be greatly impressed and believe something supernatural might be going on. In fact, the 40'000 people where the date was just 1 day off might well think that there's something magical too. And the 600'000 people where the guesser hit the right month/starsign might well think the same thing -- after all, wasn't it uncannily close to the actual date?

.

I find your thought experiment a little presumptious in that seems to infer that the exampe I gave contained merely prosaic information. It didn't, but was very relevant and specific. I do find that scientists are very good at suggesting explanations and theories based upon a rationale view without actually considering evidence. In this case none. I think this is a fault but probably arises due to the prevailing acceptance of the current worldview.

[Paulclem]

By all means, be open minded. Yet that doesn't mean one should blindly accept things without (valid) evidence!

.

I thought I'd made that clear. To be honest common sense is all you need to test most things out. Where an experience is subjective - then that's a different matter. For example where something is passed on verbally. Is it true/ relevant/ helpful/ insightful / wise is the test.

[Paulclem]

This thought makes no sense to me. Science is dominant because of its track record. Science produces results. We've been to the moon, we've found particles smaller than nuclei by smashing protons together in an underground 26-kilometer ring at nearly the speed of light. Can astrology, or Gaia, do that?

The whole reason behind science's suggest is that it's evidence based, and ready to discard wrong hypotheses in favor of new ones. Why on earth would we go back to non evidence based methods? Examples would be belief in authority (whatever my teacher/parents/pastor/Mr. President says is certainly right), revelation (whatever the next prophet says is certainly right, even if it's another Hitler) or simple economics, where propositions are true when people pay money to read about them (i.e. homeopathy, astrology etc)...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CRtMt721qAM/S9QyE9DFlAI/AAAAAAAAAgs/F0z2hcCWbco/s1600/sciencevsreligion.png

'Faith' can stand for any non evidence based method. Clearly, there's no way around science. By the way, even Gaia theorists think that they're relying on science. Even creationists (with some tragic exceptions) think (or at least pretend) to have evidence for their claims.

You misunderstand me. I never mentioned going back, and I certainly wasn't referring to astrology. I mentioned Gaia as an example of how science and ecology migt be combind to generate a new worldview. This hasn't happened of course. Science is dominant due to it's track record. Yes. 200 years ago Christianity was dominant in the west because of it's track record and who then would have predicted the secular society we live in now? The narrow minded adherence to that worldview provided obstacles to scientific development. I'm just speculating. Say, for example, there were developments in awareness of the mind. A combination of mind practices which were applied to science could be very powerful. Initially, though, there might be opposition due to a lack of empiricle evidence. Just a thought experiment.

I think we would agree on most things. I feel we are debating details - interesting though they are. :D

[MarkBastable]

. Say, for example, there were developments in awareness of the mind.

That would still be science, wouldn't it?

[Paulclem]

That would still be science, wouldn't it?

Possibly. I was thinking about the subjective experience of the mind though.

[YesNo]

Let's make a thought experiment:
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that 1 in 500 Indians likes, for whatever reason, to have fun messing with tourists by telling them things he/she 'knows' about their lives. Now, if each of these jokesters during their lifetime hit up 5 tourists, this means that as many tourists are approached as the population of India divided by 100. And that's 10 million.

...


'Faith' can stand for any non evidence based method.
Are you sure that your position is not based on 'faith'?

The reason I ask that is because it seems that you are too quick to explain away something Paulclem mentioned about his friend in India.

It is the sort of thing that I would expect a Christian to do if I said that I found Jesus' tomb or told a Muslim the Quran was wrong in some way.

I am not a member of these Abrahamic faiths and I am not trying to shake your faith in science to get you to join them or any other group, but I just want to suggest that there is no need to explain things away so quickly.

[Dodo25]

I find your thought experiment a little presumptious in that seems to infer that the exampe I gave contained merely prosaic information. It didn't, but was very relevant and specific. I do find that scientists are very good at suggesting explanations and theories based upon a rationale view without actually considering evidence. In this case none. I think this is a fault but probably arises due to the prevailing acceptance of the current worldview.

I simplified things by using examples which are easy to calculate probabilistically. The method remains the same, it's just harder to translate more personal 'fortune-telling' into probabilities -- especially since they can often be ambiguously interpreted.

Anyway, I'm not telling you that I know it was all mere coincidence, I certainly wasn't there and I don't know the exact wording, so I can't make a final judgement. I just wanted to make a point about contrasting isolated data -- which can seem extremely impressive on its own -- with the context of all the occasions when it fails.


Are you sure that your position is not based on 'faith'?

The reason I ask that is because it seems that you are too quick to explain away something Paulclem mentioned about his friend in India.

It is the sort of thing that I would expect a Christian to do if I said that I found Jesus' tomb or told a Muslim the Quran was wrong in some way.

I am not a member of these Abrahamic faiths and I am not trying to shake your faith in science to get you to join them or any other group, but I just want to suggest that there is no need to explain things away so quickly.

Yeah I'm sure it's not based on faith, and your implying of me having faith in science is misguided. My intention wasn't to 'explain away', though I admit it might have seemed like it. Much rather, I wanted to offer a convincing, alternative explanation; what people do with it is their business.

My position is not based on faith because I just showed that there's a perfeclty valid, scientific explanation for very uncanny coincidences -- if they happen isolated to random people at a random time. In order to get conclusive evidence, the individual that approached Paulclem's friend would have to be able to produce statistically significant results over a sample of several attempts. Or the one prediction would have to be so staggering that the odds of it being true by accident were extremely small, as in 1 in billions, say.

There are two problems here, let me elaborate:

1) Paulclem seems to imply that science's methods are incapable of making sense of 'anecdotal evidence', and thus, there could be good reasons for believing in things science hasn't (yet) validated. That's wrong because anecdotal evidence isn't just impractical, it's almost always insufficient. An exception proving the rule: If a stranger approached me, asking me to think of a eleven-digit number, and he then guessed correctly what I'm thinking of, the coincidence would be so vast that I'd comply and grant him psychic powers.

By the way, it doesn't have to be that impressive. In fact, even being able to guess right what number from 1-10 someone is thinking of 2 out of 10 times on average is extremely impressive and definitely works as statistical evidence if the individual keeps that average over hundreds of answers. For even the sligthest supernatural bias, the right experiment with the right number of trials will give statistically significant results! So simply blaming an inadequacy of the scientific method is wrong and doesn't give any more credence to claims like astrology -- which, if we switch numbers with character traits and other variables, works around the same statistical lines we've been discussing.

2) People often forget about actual implications of what they believe in. If astrology/homeopathy/psychicism is true, this would mean there exists a whole new kind of force. It'd be a revolution in science (and no, that's no reason for scientists to dogmatically insist it's impossible; in fact, it's a reason for every scientist to try to be the first one finding evidence for it and become famous like Darwin and Einstein).

For instance, some people believe things like 'group consciousness' and psychic connections. The problem here is that these theories go against evolution -- a standart scientific theory. Since evolution is about the spreading of genes, not about some romantic ideal of species survival and cooperation, a thing like 'group consciousness' couldn't evolve gradually, it would be, 'irreducibly complex', to use Behe's intelligent design term. So what's more likely, some anecdotal data being a mere coincidence, or a wholly developed consciousness system being a mere accident -- for where else would it come from anyway?

Long story short: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Paulclem]

I agree that extraordnary claims need extraordinary evidence to change a theory or alter the worldview. That doesn't occlude the space for personal experiences which affect the microcosm of a person's life. Such events are globally insignificant, but personally important.

In fact I think many people harbour vews that would subvert the prevailing scientific worldview if they became mainstream - though I am making assumptions. I wonder what other think about that? My own are based upon my idiosyncrastic experience coloured by my attempts to make sense of it. I don' have a problem with this in that it runs alonside the strongly rational views that mainly colour my day to day expreriences. I feel I can't ignore them, though I am aware that I my understanding them better in the future may refute them as anything but natural occurrences or deluded experiences. Until that comes though, I need to keep an open mind in case they are mysterious. In the case of one man I met, the mystery is still with me 20 years later.

[Dodo25]

I agree that extraordnary claims need extraordinary evidence to change a theory or alter the worldview. That doesn't occlude the space for personal experiences which affect the microcosm of a person's life. Such events are globally insignificant, but personally important.

Interesting, I haven't thought about it that way. To me, the two are identical, yet what you're saying would explain a lot of inconsistencies in people's worldviews.



In fact I think many people harbour vews that would subvert the prevailing scientific worldview if they became mainstream - though I am making assumptions.

Haha, you're certainly right about that! 40% of Americans reject evolution. Then there's homeopathy, astrology, psychics, ghosts, religions, Mayan prophecies, gambler fallacies... I'd say more than 80% of 'Westeners' dearly hold views that go against science.

[YesNo]

For instance, some people believe things like 'group consciousness' and psychic connections. The problem here is that these theories go against evolution -- a standart scientific theory. Since evolution is about the spreading of genes, not about some romantic ideal of species survival and cooperation, a thing like 'group consciousness' couldn't evolve gradually, it would be, 'irreducibly complex', to use Behe's intelligent design term. So what's more likely, some anecdotal data being a mere coincidence, or a wholly developed consciousness system being a mere accident -- for where else would it come from anyway?

I don't see why there need be a problem with "group consciousness", if I understand that correctly, and evolution. The idea of "irreducibly complex" sounds like a code phrase for "I don't like it, therefore, it's bad". But maybe I just didn't understand what you wrote.

By "group consciousness", do you mean something like what James Cameron described in the movie Avatar?

I assume you have seen the movie. What did you think of it? I thought it was fantastic. It should have won Best Picture. I showed it to one of my relatives with fundamentalist Christian beliefs and I think he was offended by the idea of consciousness going from the humans into the avatars. I know he wanted to screw my head on right.

[Dodo25]

I don't see why there need be a problem with "group consciousness", if I understand that correctly, and evolution. The idea of "irreducibly complex" sounds like a code phrase for "I don't like it, therefore, it's bad". But maybe I just didn't understand what you wrote.

Creationists use 'irreducibly complex' in the sense of 'I don't understand it, therefore God created it'. Yet basically, it means if you take away any constituent that make up a certain system, the whole thing will break down. And if there's no way it could have evolved gradually, where each small step (mutation) represents an improval, it's unlikely to evolve (for the whole system would have to jump into place rightly arranged out of nowhere). The thing with 'group consciousness' is that it starts top-down, from the group. In evolution, changes happen from the bottom-up, at the gene level. So how do changes in one's own body suddenly produce some new entity encompassing others as well? It strikes me as highly dubious to even begin with, not to mention that there's no evidence for it anyway.

As for what exactly 'group consciousness' is, it might well be what you said about Avatar, it sounds similar. Here's a website that attempts to explain what it is: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

But don't buy their propaganda! :) I've rarely seen so much nonsense crammed together. As I understand it, the link is the 'weak version' of group consciousness, some people go much further and assert that thoughts exist independently of individual minds in some Platonic realm..



By "group consciousness", do you mean something like what James Cameron described in the movie Avatar?

I assume you have seen the movie. What did you think of it? I thought it was fantastic. It should have won Best Picture. I showed it to one of my relatives with fundamentalist Christian beliefs and I think he was offended by the idea of consciousness going from the humans into the avatars. I know he wanted to screw my head on right.

Haha, I'm addicted to watching movies, yet I haven't seen Avatar yet. I've heard that it uses the 'find wisdom in nature/native people' cliche, which, if overdone, is quite annoying and unrealistic. But I need to see the movie first to judge, it definitely looks interesting.

[YesNo]

I heard in the car today that the constellations in the zodiac have changed. Basically, "they" are going to add a new one: Ophiuchus

I think it should be pronounced "o-fee-yuck-cuss", but that's just my regional peculiarity.

Here are the details: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1347140/Horoscope-change-2011-Sidereal-astrology-reveals-13th-OPHIUCHUS-zodiac-sign.html

So that means I'm no longer a Sagittarius. I'm actually an Ophiuchus.

My wife has also corrected me about my Chinese horoscope. I thought I was a dragon, but she's the dragon. I'm the tiger.

[Emil Miller]

.





. . .



.


.

[JuniperWoolf]

Ophiuchus is a cool one. It's based on Asclepius, and I love Asclepius.

[Dodo25]

I heard in the car today that the constellations in the zodiac have changed.

So does this mean people's character attributes changed as well, overnight? Or, if the constellations had been all wrong to begin with, doesn't that prove that believers are fools?

[YesNo]

So does this mean people's character attributes changed as well, overnight? Or, if the constellations had been all wrong to begin with, doesn't that prove that believers are fools?

:biggrin5:

Well, the zodiac is just a kind of clock. So, what difference does it make if we add a 13 to it?

In my case, I could barely spell Sagittarius, so I'm not out much. How do you pronounce the new one anyway?

When it comes to "belief" in astrology, what does one actually have to believe in? You get a sign. Someone gives you some advice or a prediction. I get enough predictions and advice from fortune cookies to keep my imagination amused.

[Dodo25]

When it comes to "belief" in astrology, what does one actually have to believe in? You get a sign.

Haha yeah, I don't think anyone really knows. Least of all the actual believers!

By assuming that the signs say anything truthful about you, one assumes something along the lines of there being a force connecting arbitrary planet and star patterns (from the past) to a) ones DNA at birth (not at conception for some reason!) and b) to one's everyday happenings. This rises some interesting questions: How the hell does that work, why the hell does it work like that, and how the hell did the original inventor just figure out all these connections without doing large-scale double blind studies??

But of course, most people don't think that far. They see some vague prediction about their love life and believe it because it sounds somewhat hopeful.

[Lote-Tree]

I believe it's crap. No offence to any believers.
I find it really sad that people want so desperately to feel important, in a cosmic sense (tiny and insignificant specks of dust floating into space that they are).
Whatever happens to me during my lifetime has absolutely no significance for the cosmos. Castor and Pollux being several light years away from earth (approx 50 and 30 respectively) have nothing to do with me. Even the fact that i was given the gemini sign just because i was born in june is quite arbitrary.

Manolia how can say this! The ancient Greeks did they not create a great civilisation out of this ;-)

[manolia]

^^ So nice to see you back Lote : ]]

(you know i don't think that much about the ancient greeks :D)

[Lote-Tree]

^^ So nice to see you back Lote : ]]

(you know i don't think that much about the ancient greeks :D)

Abandon not ye such rich heritage that changed the western civilisations Manolia ;-)

The Furies will pursue you to the nether reaches of the kingdom of Hades ;-)

[manolia]

Abandon not ye such rich heritage that changed the western civilisations Manolia ;-)

The Furies will pursue you to the nether reaches of the kingdom of Hades ;-)

hehehehehehe i pass you score : ]]

[jmnixon95]

No, I actually do not. :3

[Baudolina]

Here is the story of a professional astrologer who turned away from the subject when he discovered it was all nonsense:

http://www.undeceivingourselves.com/S-astr.htm



and don't even get me started on homeopathy...

[Armel P]

Now let me say that I think the whole idea of star signs controlling our lives is nonsense. But recently, after a number of years, I met someone who has a very great affinity with the way I think and the things I believe in. She is a little toughie not given to self-deception, so I was surprised when she asked me my star sign and I found we were both born under the same sign. I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?

I don't believe it one bit.

[iamnobody]

Of course it's nonsense, but it's still fun.

[jlb4tlb]

Voodoo is much more fun!!!

[Scheherazade]

The OP:
Now let me say that I think the whole idea of star signs controlling our lives is nonsense. But recently, after a number of years, I met someone who has a very great affinity with the way I think and the things I believe in. She is a little toughie not given to self-deception, so I was surprised when she asked me my star sign and I found we were both born under the same sign. I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?

[YesNo]

I recently read a book on Vedic astrology and used some software to create my own horoscope. The hardest part was to find my time of birth and the latitude and longitude of the hospital where I was born, but I was able to track it down from some birth documents. I don't know what the information is trying to tell me.

[free]

Now let me say that I think the whole idea of star signs controlling our lives is nonsense. But recently, after a number of years, I met someone who has a very great affinity with the way I think and the things I believe in. She is a little toughie not given to self-deception, so I was surprised when she asked me my star sign and I found we were both born under the same sign. I still think it is nonsense but what do other Litnetters think about Astrology?

Some things have lead me to understand that there are similarities in characters between the people born in the same astrology signs. Also, once I read an astrology book foreseeing future of the world's happenings. The book had been written much further in the past from the time when I read it. I was surprised to see how many important things that had already happened in the world this book foresaw. So, I think, there may be some connections between the stars positions and things happening under them. Of course, it takes an astrology expert to 'read' and 'decipher' this cosmic 'text'.

[Dreamwoven]

The closest to science this gets is in Michel Gauquelin The Cosmic Clocks: from Astrology to a Modern SciencePaladin (1967). He uses a vast store of statistical material to show correlations. I won't go into the details here but recommend buying the book at a second hand book website.

[Ecurb]

I never thought about astrology one way or the other until I had a girlfriend for several years who was a famous astrologer. When I first met her, I read Plotinus (to impress her). I remember him writing that although it is obvious to everyone that the fates of humans can be read in the stars, it remains uncertain whether the stars CAUSE human fates, or are merely CORRELATED with them.

My friend scoffed at newspaper sun sign astrology. She had written a number of books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages, including Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Russian. We didn't actually talk about astrology very much, because I was too naive about it to be able to say anything of interest to her, and because I didn't want my skepticism to ruin our relationship (and she didn't want her lack of skepticism to do the same).

She claimed that the mythic archetypes in an astrological chart can't actually predict the future, but they can help people understand themselves, just as (for example) literature can help us understand ourselves. In other words, astrology is enlightening, but not scientific.

Just recently she sent me a paper of hers about the antikythera device, touted as the first analog computer. It comprises 30+ geared wheels, that fit into a shoe-box-sized box, and, when set to a birth time by a crank, work out all the pertinent positions of the stars. It was discovered in 1901, by divers, in a ship that sunk in 150 B.C.E. (or so), but how it worked wasn't discovered until recently, when new archaeological techniques allowed archaeologists to read the instructions.

In addition to being an astrologer, she is a classical scholar who has translated original Greek documents. As a result, I once got to stay in the visiting faculty rooms at Brasenose College, Oxford University, while she did a series of lectures. You can't have more fun than that!

[prakssj4]

It is utter nonsense.

[Ecurb]

It is utter nonsense.

It seems to me this is an anti-intellectual comment. For several thousand years a great many very smart people have spent a great deal of time and effort on astrological research. The science of astronomy, for example, owes much to the discoveries of astrologers. Since this site is devoted to literature, we might expect that members would be interested in the Humanities -- art, literature, and religion -- the creative works of mankind. Of course some people might say, "Christianity is total nonsense", just like prakssj4 says astrology "is utter nonsense". However, whether Jesus rose from the dead or not, it would be silly and dismissive to say, "Christianity is utter nonsense". The mythic archetypes embodied in religion (including in astrology, which is 'religious' in that it involves supernatural statements) are enlightening, valuable, and intriguing -- whether the principles on which they are based are "true" or not. Many astrological commentators (including Plotinus) are rational, sensible people, whose commentaries are about as far from "utter nonsense" as possible. It is possible to be incorrect without being nonsensical.

[YesNo]

Ten years ago, I would have thought astrology was utter nonsense also. Today, I don't want to say anything is nonsense without trying it out. Even if it didn't work for me, I wouldn't claim it might not work for someone else.

Were I to try to come up with a theory that might justify planetary influences I would note the following:

1) The typical scientific reductions to quantum "particles", selfish genes and neurons coupled with chance doesn't explain enough. Astrology may be a way to understand some of the constraints on us that we don't currently recognize.

2) Most influences that science acknowledges can be expressed as field properties within space-time. That is, all influences are at a distance even though that distance might be very small. The influences that astrology talks about are also all at a distance so they might be expressed as field influences.

3) There are also non-local influences for entangled quantum reality. If one defined space-time as reality with only local (field) influences, non-local influences would be outside space-time. Astrology could be discussing those non-field influences.

I know that these anti-reductionist, field and non-local arguments will not likely persuade most people and they would not have persuaded me ten years ago, but at the moment they are a way for me to think outside the cultural constraints of my metaphysical box.

[Dreamwoven]

Well put, YesNo. I've already posted abut one book that I have read among many others (Cosmic Clocks by Gauquelin) that used thousands of cases and ran correlations. I was impressed but I am still chary of taking a definite position on the matter.

[YesNo]

I haven't read Gauquelin's work, but what I found by searching after you mentioned him seems to show that he has found the existence of an influence. Here is something by him on the "Mars effect": http://www.theoryofastrology.com/gauquelin/mars_effect.htm

[Pompey Bum]

I used to be a Libra on the Virgo cusp. Then the planet wobbled or something and I became a little more of a Virgo. Now I think I may be what we used to refer to in High School as a "technical Virgo." I didn't really expect to get that back.

[Dreamwoven]

Thanks for that article extract, YesNo. Good work.

What I found impressive in Gauquelin's work was the large number of cases he worked with, and that as the article shows, calculated likelihood parameters for them. Sadly I lost the book but could look up the author's name, and work from there.

There is an interesting side-effect of all this. One might think that Gauquelin's findings would make traditional scientists more receptive to this theory and test it many other cases. This seems not to have happened. The answer maybe lies in Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the idea of a tipping point when an old paradigm is overthrown and a new one is developed to replace it.

[free]

I like this quote on astrology by Jung, who, certainly, was a man who knew human nature more than ordinary people.

We are born at a given moment in a given place and like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything else. - C.G.Jung

http://www.wisdom-of-astrology.com/thewisdomofastrology%3Ayourlife'sblueprint

[Dreamwoven]

Indeed!

[YesNo]

I like this quote on astrology by Jung, who, certainly, was a man who knew human nature more than ordinary people.

We are born at a given moment in a given place and like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything else. - C.G.Jung

http://www.wisdom-of-astrology.com/thewisdomofastrology%3Ayourlife'sblueprint

The quote from Jung that stood out for me from that link was this:


Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, i.e. meaningful coincidence.

I realized I did not know what synchronicity was although I've heard the term before. This link helped: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity03.htm

The correlations that Gauquelin found might be best viewed as synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. They cannot be explained by chance and yet there is no causal, deterministic explanation either.

[free]

The quote from Jung that stood out for me from that link was this:


Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, i.e. meaningful coincidence.

I realized I did not know what synchronicity was although I've heard the term before. This link helped: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity03.htm

The correlations that Gauquelin found might be best viewed as synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. They cannot be explained by chance and yet there is no causal, deterministic explanation either.

Synchronicity is sometimes amusing, sometimes meaningless, for me. But I am not an explorer of it. Jung was. Talking about I Ching, they say that Jung used to spend hours 'under a tree' throwing the I Ching coins.

[Danik 2016]

The quote from Jung that stood out for me from that link was this:


Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, i.e. meaningful coincidence.

I realized I did not know what synchronicity was although I've heard the term before. This link helped: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity03.htm

The correlations that Gauquelin found might be best viewed as synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. They cannot be explained by chance and yet there is no causal, deterministic explanation either.
Found this old thread when I was looking for something else.
Meaningful coincidence seems to me a good synonym for synchronicity.
Astrology is a science and a very old one with it´s own parameters practiced already in old Egypt.
In India they used astrology (I don´t know if they still do) to predict if a certain marriage would be happy or not.
According to my experience it is more helful in exploring trends and charactheristics in a certain chart. It is not usual to make a very definite prediction as a certain aspect can mean several things. For example, a good astrologer won´t tell anyone he is going to win in next week´s lotery. He well tell the asker about his abilities to deal with money and if he can see a good astrological aspect in the chart that favours playing in the lotery next week.

[YesNo]

That's how I see astrology as well, Danik. The trends aren't as clear, but the basic question is whether there is any reality that the astrologer is observing that the astronomer misses? I would say, yes. The astronomer misses the subjectivity of the observer.

Astrology is a holistic theory, much like Elliott Wave's "social mood" which I think is even more accurate than astrology. The opposite of a holistic theory is a mechanistic one that assumes some reductionist approach to reality is true rather than just a convenient model.

For what it's worth, I also think Tarot cards are valuable. If one sees them as prompts for one's intuition most people can find them useful. I have an app on my phone that gives me a card of the day to think about. I occasionally use it and find it helpful in focusing my attention.

[Danik 2016]

Yes, I agree that the astrological approach is holistic. The astrological cards of people, places, countries and events follow very accurate patterns of calculation though. Today there are several internet programs to calculate an astrological chart.

An introduction to astrology I like very much, "Astrological signs/the pulse of life" by Dane Rudhyar though the book is from the 20 C- it is a dynamic at times poetic account of the zodiac, showing how each particular sign adds its contribuition to the whole process.

[YesNo]

I'll see what the library has on astrology when I walk there this morning. There is a Vedic astrology which takes into account the precision of the equinoxes. I can't remember much about it at the moment although I did my horoscope using some online tools and the description it gave of me seemed rather accurate.

[Danik 2016]

I haven't read anything about the Vedic horoscope. For the traditional horosope one has to know the exact date and hour of birth and the place of birth. There are several online sites that make your card for free, for example astrocenter.com. But the readings of the card are usually standard computer readings.

[YesNo]

I found a printout of a vedic horoscope I did many years ago. I can't believe I still have it. Unfortunately, I didn't record the site address. It looks like there are many places now to get this done online for free.

I picked up a book by Caroline Casey at the library, "Making the Gods Work for You". She seems to be approaching it more from a psychological perspective. I don't remember much about it anymore.

[Danik 2016]

I did a Vedic one yesterday, but I still prefer the traditional one, maybe because I am more used to it. I used to try interpreting charts but I´m no astrologer. You have to have experience as a chart is like a poem. You can read it indifferent ways.
I don´t know this author but the psychological perspective can be interesting too.

[YesNo]

The charts are a calculation. The reading of them is what counts. It is like reading a poem. It occurred to me just now that academics who write about literature and socionomists reading a market chart are like tarot and horoscope readers. They each take a text and with their subjectivity say something else about the text to make it more personal and understandable to their listeners. What they say is another formulation into words that could be viewed as a new objective text open to further interpretation if one saved it. The understanding is subjective. Anyone can do these things, but some people are better at it.

[Danik 2016]

I agree with you about literature, but one needs a solid theoretical background because one must have acceptable parameters. It´s like iin science, in fact it is a kind of science. One must be able to demonstrate ones conclusions.It´s not wholly subjective, though subjective sensibility and subjective perspective play a large role in interpretation.
I don´t know how it works in socioeconomics, which is not at all my area of knowledge.
I found this link. Didn´t have the time to exame it yet but seems to be a treasure. Nothing very recent though, because of the author´s rights:
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/texts.html

[YesNo]

What I'm referring to would even work in science and mathematics. Some people are able to read these things better than others and come up new insights very rapidly. They use their subjectivity just like a psychic would who reads a Tarot spread. In the early 20th century there was an attempt to eliminate the subjective in mathematics leading to Whitehead and Russell's "Principia Mathematica". Strings of symbols and transformations were manipulated that deliberately had no meaning. The goal was to generate all of arithmetic. Godel, Turing and Church showed the project could not be completed as expected.

The underlying question is whether there is anything there to read or is it just intuitive guesswork. That is, is one actually reading something when one reads a Tarot spread or a horoscope or an Elliott Wave on a market chart? Or are these things random diagrams that suggests something to the reader that coincidentally is useful? That question goes even for those theories that claim to be reductionist and scientific: maybe all we have are models that coincidentally work?

I found the book on Vedic astrology I used some years ago. It came with software to draw the horoscope: Andrew Bloomfield, "How to Practice Vedic Astrology". I'll see if I can find something online.