I’ve read some fascinating debates between astrologers over how to deal with people born either in the Southern Hemisphere or above the Arctic Circle. The former is a problem for some astrologers because the sign-season correspondences are obviously reversed. The latter is a problem for many astrologers because the calculations of the houses (that Polycarp mentions above) use formulas that have degenerate results (resulting in zero or negative-width houses) north of the Arctic Circle. It is interesting to note that most practicing astrologers ignore the first problem and use equal-angle houses (or some other system) for people born north of the Arctic Circle, on the grounds that “these systems work for them”.
I suspect that you could use a random number generator to generate a “chart” and get the same results that you do with all the complex formulae.
That said, I still use my astrology software to find sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset times, moon phases, equinoxes and solstices, and eclipse information. The calculation engine is quite good for that.
If you’re looking for reasons as to how astrology could even possibly work from a remotely scientific perspective, you might want to check out Arthur Young. I haven’t read his stuff on astrology but his The Reflexive Universe is easily the most thought-provoking (if not a bit nutty) book I’ve ever read. He was a physicist and inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Of course being a good physicist doesn’t automatically make you a good metaphysicist (if there is such a thing) but I would venture to guess if anyone could make a compelling case, it would be him. I doubt that his ideas of what astrology can and can’t do are the same as the 3.95 per minute( 5 minute minimum) astologer but check him out if you’re sufficiently motivated and have a mind for physics and a stomach for questionable conceptual leaps. To give you an idea what you’re in for:
I think, KC, that your reference is a bit more on the quackery side than it is on the eschewing ignorance side. I give it a www.crank.net score of Cranky at best, but probably more along the lines of Crankiest.
While the author you champion does have a vague literacy with scientific concepts, his jumping to conclusions is reminiscent of the jet-set crowd changing their locations. I imagine the vast majority of his readers are people who are scientifically illiterate in the first place and are simply dazzled by his exposition of concepts that seem vaguely scientific. Those of us who have studies physics can tell you he basically is a loonball. I would be extremely surprised if any scientist took his work seriously: it’s that ignorant.
There is no known physical phenomenon that can account for astrology.
If there is anything going on it deals with the soul entering the body at birth. Therefore you are getting into metaphysics and reincarnation. see:
OLD SOULS by Tom Shroder
try: Dion Fortune
The occult is a can of worms. Of course wouldn’t God want to create a universe that was a challenge to run and humans to figure out? Do you think God is a WIMP?
Christ, I knew I was going to regret that post because of a response like this that completely missed the point.
Quote from the OP:
(Emphasis His)
If he wants to assume the above then he needs to source someone who has at least been willing to consider it. Not many scientists are willing to theorize about the unfalsifiable for fear of being called a crank by someone who hasn’t even read his book. I personally don’t believe in astrology and I said that his book was probably going to require a stomach for questionable conceptual leaps (along with 5 or so other caveats). Is there any book on Astrology that wouldn’t sound like quackery?
BTW, If you can comfortably say that Arthur Young only has a “vague literacy” with scientific concepts then I assume you’ve found the Grand Unified Theory and integrated a fifth fricking heretofore unknown force while you were at it.
I’m a virgo. I’m marrying a Leo. I never really thought that was a good combo til now, obviously. BUT! I was born in Montreal and he was born in Australia …
So seeing it’s a different hemisphere, would that change what sign he is more likely to resemble? Would he be the OPPOSITE of a Leo (a Pisces maybe?) Do you get what I’m saying?
Polycarp took more time than I to explain it, but thats how it works.
I did charts for people way back when (by HAND, without a computer).
For one person, they had Taurus rising (acsendant)
Saturn was in Leo, their 4th house of Home.
I told them they would move.
Lo and behold, they did!
So I guess they started belieivng in atrology then.
It was ridiculous, becasue there are hundreds of thousands of people with taurus rising, they didn’t all move.
Cheeky, most "astrologers’ would say just becasue of your Sun signs doesn’t make or break compatibility.
Its where your planets are.
If you venus were in cancer, and her mars in scorpio, they would say thats compatibility right there.
Pretty convoluted.
I am so glad I’m out of it; I was addcited to it the way a heroin addcit would be to their drug.
Astrology, tarot, crystal balls, Quija boards, etc., and many other things all serve the same purpose. They force you to be reflective, allowing intuitive information to surface. This information is drawn from our spiritual nature rather than the physical making it more reliable. We are spiritual beings, we come into the physical with all the knowledge we need to succeed.
You will not win the lottery, or gain any other large sums of money, or perfectly predict the future with spiritual knowledge. All things are dynamic, changing by the second. If you wish to learn, it is possible. If you believe it doesn’t exit, it will not be possible for you to accomplish.
Historically, astrology, rather than promoting reflection and an opportunity for growth, has fostered fatalism since one cannot change one’s “fate” in the stars.
And other tools are more useful for reflection than astrology. Actual thought, for instance.
Isn’t the more interesting question here how an astrology believer could marry a rational person, and vice versa?
Astrology is a fraud, no better than cold reading. Does your wife have other mental problems that are going untreated that might make her susceptible to suggestion or drive her to seek answers in this way?
You can always change your fate by changing your choices, common knowledge among the informed, and thought can’t bring about reflection, in fact it hinders reflection. Refliection brings about thought.
Crap. Just because someone is prepared to countenance astrology being correct and therefore willing to suggest a mechanism doesn’t absolve them of the necessity to be coherent when discussing physics.
No, I haven’t read Young’s book either. But the portion you linked to does seriously suggest that he’s badly out of his depth.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I don’t think a teacher should ignore a kid wetting his pants in class. It’s rather a big deal…unless what you mean is that the OP shouldn’t ignore my post in the same way that a teacher shouldn’t ignore a kid soaking in his own urine.
Actually, the reason is because the unfalsifiable is not subject to scientific theory, not because someone will call you a crank. Your insinuation that I haven’t read Young’s book is, at best, jumping to hasty conclusions but I’m going to put it out there that you have a genuine chip on your shoulder wrt science. Not the first person I’ve come across who has one, but generally speaking they tend not to have a lot in the way of scientific literacy as evinced by your astoundingly obtuse comment:
That Young knows about the wranglings of GUT is not surprising. That requires only a vauge literacy. That such an evaluation should imply that the evaluator have a grand unified theory to counter Young’s lunacy is an absurd leap indeed.
The ad hoc “fifth freaking heretofore unknown force” just seems to me to be posturing. We are in the business of fighting ignorance and I find Young to be in the other camp.
