Hi Pocket Dragon and all,

"I answered all of their questions, many of them more than once, but was unable to answer the question of how astrology works."

It might seem strange, but astrology does have a mechanism. The mechanism is the chart. The chart is a mathematical construct that provides a means of consistent observation for astrology's practical rsearch. The chart is really not so different than the mathematical constructs used to study gravity. Gravity obeys the inverse square law and the relativistic curvature of space, and these are not physical mechanisms but mathematical ones.

Ask yourself. Why is gravity regarded as a force? How is gravity mediated, what is the physical mechanism? There is no medium that conducts its force, hence no physical mechanism. Gravity acts equally through solid matter or empty space, in apparent defiance of cause and effect. Gravity is said to bend light by curving space. How? Gravity is a mathematical model, just like astrology. If one were to rule out the chart as the mathematical mechanism of astrology, then one would also have to rule out the mathamatical frameworks of gravity. How does gravity work?

KennethM

I tried coming up with a reply for you, but not being of a scientific nature and not knowing exactly what you are saying I only managed a short answer: Give gravity symbolic and metaphoric meaning; then you are on common ground with astrology. Gravity as scientifically explained keeps me here on Earth, but astrology tells me which direction I may be inclined to go in, why I may choose that direction, and in what manner I would likely proceed. But it doesn't say that I surely will go in that direction and in that manner.

Here is something I wrote way back in July when I was a fresh, young forum poster. I have aged since then (he says as he shakes his fist at transiting Saturn).

Instead of screaming out the window at the scientists in the building across the way, our time may be better spent becoming acquainted with the art and literature professors who are a few doors down the same hall.

It?s all in the art, you know.

Ask yourself. Why is gravity regarded as a force?

Finally you give me an easy one: Because they tell me it is.
Translation: Scientific explanations and mathematical formulas are detached explanations for the mind. Few of us have been actively involved in studies of gravity and must rely (with faith) on the judgment of others more knowlegable than us. Astrology concerns personal, subjective experience and perception. That's where the art comes in.

funny you should mention gravity, while sitting with no less than three of the finest physicists I know, at lunch just Friday we were discussing how Gravity is magic, because it's not explainable via physics. There probably is a scientific explanation, but it doesn't exist yet that we know of, and considering where we work, we're pretty sure we'd know about it. Even though we use 9.8 meters per second squared as the speed of gravity on earth and we have a mean speed of gravity for objects in space as well, we have no description of how it really works.

The annoying part of this philosophical discussion is that the nay sayers deny science in order to deny astrology. Science is observation. It is supposed to be definable and under experimental conditions it can be repeated under observation, but somehow Chemistry got thrown in with Physics and Biology and lord knows you can repeat chemical experiments over and over again and not get the same results. (weird set of probables is my definition of Chemistry!)

but I digress, if we agree that Gravity is observable, repeatable (check my bruises from weekend gardening), exists and is a scientific fact, then why can we not agree that astrology is observable, repeatable and a scientific fact? Because there is no proof for gravity other than its effects. Silly in my book. I really just dont argue the point anymore. (Okay, except when I'm overly irritated. LOL)

Granny

Hi,

Granny makes a good observation.

"The annoying part of this philosophical discussion is that the nay sayers deny science in order to deny astrology. "

Although a case can be made that there is no mechanism to explain how some things in science (such as gravity) work or how things generally in astrology work, there is really no need to deny either science or astrology.

The point that astrologers can bring forward in their discussions with skeptics is why should science be free of the mechanistic worldview and astrology not? The skeptics who insist on a mechanism to explain astrology are thinking of two separate worldviews and trying to place astrology into a much idealized world view where they know it does not fit.

Both gravity science and astrology use mathematical frames of reference (not causal, mediated mechanisms) within which observations are made, and that is where the potential value to knowledge of each resides.

There is far too much of a sense of resignation on the part of many astrologers with regard to scientific criticism. This resignation is really unwarranted. In principle, science and astrology are actually much closer together than most people think.

I've have had some very good dialogs with skeptical astronomers I've met. I believe that astronomers are by far the best people to dialog with because they are knowledgeable and if you can meet them on a level playing field they will listen.

KennethM
www.encosm.net
Environmental Cosmology

>> There is no theory explaining why astrology works. [Brockbank, p.1]

This statement can be read in different ways, but one reading is to replace "theory" with "explanatory mechanism". The skeptic then says that the absence of an explanatory mechanism is a conclusive reason for rejecting astrology. Let's then have a look at science itself:

Ex. 1. It is a fact that the process of xerography was discovered, refined, put into commercial use, and was churning out millions of photo-copies for many years before the underlying physics was properly understood.

Ex. 2. For many years, low-temperature physics knew of superconductivity as it related to substances in very close proximity (<10 deg K) to absolute zero. This prompted the development of several explanatory theories of superconductivity, of which the prefered candidate predicted some upper temperature limit to the phenomenon. Some years later, experimenters report superconductivity in certain rare-earth ceramic materials at temperatures far exceeding the accepted limit. Clearly the theory and its mechanism was premature.

Ex. 3. Newton was an admirer of Descartes and his mechanistic model of the universe. But as he himself recognized, his theory of gravitation doesn't fit it, because there is no requirement in it for the presence of anything to mediate gravitational attraction -- it depends only on the mass of the bodies and their distance apart. Others sought to fill the void with an "ether", but this is not a logical requirement for Newton's theory of gravitation (only a requirement for the Cartesian metaphysics of nature).

This skeptical argument against astrology is thus at once both too liberal and too conservative when applied to science itself. To claim photo-copying doesn't work when you can see the machine in action is of course absurd.

It is worth emphasizing that the Cartesian metaphysics contains the covert stipulation (held axiomatically without prooof) that the same type of consistency should apply to the explanation as pertains to the phenomena being explained. When applied to mechanistic phenomena (billiard balls, levers, solar systems, etc) it implies (actually falsely in my view) that these must have a mechanistic explanation. Because this "principle" is so recondite it has been implicitly held by many scientists long after Kant showed it was unnecessary. Are not children still taught to think of atoms (and atomic particles) either as billiard balls or solar systems?

More interestingly, while this explanatory principle was unnecessary for Newton (it did tho almost send him mad I suspect), it re-emerges in the theory of relativity. The so-called relativistic curvature of space (strictly speaking, of space-time) is an attempt to give the space between objects some property which functions equivalently in the explanatory matrix.