Orangecakes: Oops! :o
Orangecakes: Rather than me telling you what my sign is and you then telling me how that reflects my behavior, how about you tell me what my sign is based on said behavior?
David! You found me! I am Not an astrologer anymore. My guess for what sign you are would be No Left Turn. I know, lame joke.
I don’t know you That well, so I’ll just guess. Leo.
Are there any astrology practitioners on the board who feel confident enough in their art to subject it to some public testing?
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I suggest a refresher course in physics. 
–
peas on earth
orangecakes said to me:
glances down pants
Nope, that’s still attached…
Orangecakes said:
I haven’t been looking. Sorry, but once you publicly hooked up with the user formerly known as Snarkberry, I decided it wasn’t worth the time to stalk you any more. Hope I haven’t hurt your feelings.
Why not? No, wait, let me guess. It just wasn’t in the stars. 
BAAANT. Sorry.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Spiritus Mundi:
**Elucidator:
Your example would be more accurate if each ping pong ball was ticking to its own rhythm before the watch was introduced, and if the number and position of the ping pong balls were constantly shifting, and if watch rather than ticking constantly actually faded out sometimes and grew stronger at others, and if there had ever been any indication that microgravity effects were significant in personality deveopment.
Thought experiment for purposes of illustration only! (Didn’t think I’d have to explain that)
I tried to cover the minituae with the “nothing else enters the equation” line. All I’m getting at with that is no matter how micro the force, if that force is relentlessly repetitious, given enough time, (and we got OODLES of time) the rythym of that force, NOT the force itself , will become impinged more or less generally.
“No proof of microgravity effects on personality…” And just how would you go about obtaining such proof? What experiment could you perform? Not quite cricket to chide me for not offering rigid empirical results from an experiment that cannot be reasonably expected to be performed by anybody but Dr. God.
You didn’t. I did not critique your experiment by pointing out methodological error or questioning your analysis of results. I simply pointed out that it was a bad thought experiment. As an illustration, it served admirably.
You covered the details by pretending they did not exist? And what is it exactly that you thought you were illustrating?
And what about the billions of other forces moving to their own beats? Oh, and perhaps we should discuss the idea that planetary “rhythms” are extremely unlikely to repeat within a human lifetime, given the orbital period of the outer planets.
Interesting, I would have thought you had millenia of astrological results to draw upon. Surely in all that time there have been some strong correlations noted? More to the point, you are arguing that a gravitational “rhythm” has objective and predictable effects upon human personality development. If you have no evidence, then why do you believe it?
BTW – if you are so certain of your thought experiment, why have you not jumped at the chance to subject your “science” to some public testing?
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Oh, and perhaps we should discuss the idea that planetary “rhythms” are extremely unlikely to repeat within a human lifetime, given the orbital period of the outer planets.
Looked it up and yer right. Boy, those outer planets sure are slow,huh? Guess that shoots my theory right in the butt, huh? However, in the lifetime of the Earth itself,some billions of years, the kind of effects I allude to (in my woefully conceived thought experiment)will form a sort of environment that might be the physical basis for the kind of things astrology interprets. That really all, I have no intention of setting back Western civilization pre-Copernicus.
The utterly rational mind is a wonderful tool, in its place, but one doesn’t hunt butterflys with a hammer. One mustn’t allow his worldly skepticism to get a death grip. If someone asks if your mind can come out and play, say yes. Its a beautiful day outside.
Wow, elucidator. 8 posts and you’ve used that butterfly/hammer metaphor in nearly half of them. Maybe you need to go steal some new material.
My goodness, what a touchy-feely, newage load of pseudo-scientific sewage. You allude to effect which have never been measured using a poorly-conceived [gedanken experiment which fails to account for the majority of active forces in the environment and claim that this somehow provides an environmental context for atrological effects. What, couldn’t you work ley lines and chi into the story?
I love fantasy as much as the next guy. I just realize that it is a poor means of determining how th euniverse behaves. Maybe you should train your mind to undrestand the difference between play-time and reality.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Elucidator wrote:
Sorry, but the ping-pong balls will NOT start oscillating at the watch frequency, no matter how long you wait. Each tick of the watch will propagate through the balls immediately around it, becoming smaller as it goes out, until the nonlinear effects kill it entirely. By the time the second tick comes around, there might still be some remnants of the first tick echoing around, but certainly by the tenth tick, the effects from the first tick will be completely vanished.
Wait wait wait - weren’t you the one saying that the position of the planets has observable effects on personality (that’s what astrology is)? So what you’re saying now is that if astrology is real, we can’t observe it? So what’s the point talking about it? I know arguments like this are foreign to touchy-feely people, so here it is restated. You’re saying that:
-
Astrology has real effects. [Implicit in saying that they’re real is that they can be observed.]
-
Astrology cannot be observed, because only God could do the experiments.
Thanks for clearing this up.
" Maybe you need to go steal some new material."
Beneath you. Ad hominem. Tsk.
And the metaphor is a poor thing, but mine own (at least so far as I know). $20 says you can’t prove different.
A tone of sarcastic banter adds zest to a debate, and if my tone has ever seemed mean-spirited, you have my apology. But “steal some new material?” Not exactly an enlightened contribution to the dialectic, don’t you think? Or don’t you?
But piffle! back to business!
It interesting that you load the Oriental concept of chi in with your crystal clutching new age Temple of Contemptible Crapola. I humbly submit that you may be out of your depth on that one. Chi is a very real thing.
I know, I’ve been hit with it,as in “Wham!” As Pascal once remarked “If it kicks my butt, its damn sure real enough” (Maybe it was Hegel…probably sounds better in German)
You ought to give that one another look. Out towards the edge, there are still some wonders to be found, mostly small, but still wonders. But you can’t find them if you hunt… No, can’t say that, that’ll make nine…
How’s about “boiling jellyfish for soup”?
To “Vickie,” born on January 1, I once wrote a letter after I had seen a page from a newspaper in Mexico, in Spanish, about her. It said she was ‘fanatical about astrology.’ Knowing the closeness of her birthday to Molly’s, I wrote her, "But when I saw astrology connected with you in that text, I knew the writer was talking through his sombrero. Not only am I opposed to astrology on scientific grounds, but this “Capricorn” sign that is supposedly yours also belongs to another girl (Dec. 29) who was your old Nemesis–Molly Anderson. (So much for astrology!)
I have been accused of ad hominem attacks by a poster who clearly implied that my mind was closed. Perception is a wonderful thing.
A was not, of course, implying that you had stolen the metaphor in question. the implication was more along the lines, “since you apparently can only come up with one metaphor on your own, perhaps . . .”
It was a joke. I doubt you find it more amusing now that it has been explained to you.
I have seen literally hundreds of chi demonstrations. I have yet to see one that I cannot reproduce without reliance on chi or attack on clear methodological grounds.
Your own perceptions are obviously different. I give them all the credence that our brief association merits.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I read somewhere that the zodiac actually has thirteen constellations–including Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer; early astrologers, I presume, omitted Ophiuchus so the zodiac would appear better organized–with twelve constellations instead of the unlucky 13.
“Boiling Jellyfish for Soup”, or even just “Boiling Jellyfish” would make a kick-ass band name.
Oh, and astrology is silly.
dougie_monty wrote:
Heck, even the twelve constellations that are part of the Zodiac are all different sizes. This kinda puts a kink in sun-sign astrology, which assumes that the sun is “in” one of the signs of the Zodiac for exactly 1/12 of the year. Astrologers have to “round off” the widths of the constellations so that each sign is exactly 30 degrees wide (1/12 of a complete circle around the sky).
And, of course, traditional astrology totally neglects the precession of the equinoxes, and still assumes that the sun is pointing at Aries at the vernal equinox when in fact the modern equinoxes occur when the sun is pointing at Aquarius.
I saw on TV a study from a sample population which suggested that people born in certain months tend to get certain types of jobs, but it was by no means uniform across the “zodiac”, and from very dim memory seemed to be confined to only two or three months of the year.
Intriguing. Sorry I can’t provide a citation.
This is your free reading:
I can sense that you’re a very caring person with a lot to give…but sometimes you don’t trust yourself enough. You are going through a period of transition in your personal life, and I’m sensing that a person with either an M or a J in their name has something to do with it.
You’ll never hear an astrologer/psychic/tarot reader tell you:
I can sense that you’re a very callous person with nothing to offer, and you trust too much in your abilities. I’m also sensing that everything in your life is pretty much staying exactly as it always was, and you are very close to a person whose name starts with either a Q or an X.
Tip: Be extremely vague, speak in generalities that are almost universally true, use flattery, give common sense advice (be kind to your family/co-workers etc.) If possible, listen to the person’s tone of voice for hints to the kind of answers they’re expecting or hoping for.