varuna2 wrote:It seems sensible to leave it wide open, I would too except not when the alternative is worse such as the ideas I was addressing in this thread. I do not consider it to be correlation because that is a kaliyuga notion.
Okay but how are determining what alternative is 'worse'? What tools are we using to determine what is better or worse except for our own subjective viewpoints?
Really if we accept that astrology really is anything which correlates celestial phenomena with earthly/human matters then it is wide enough to incorporate many potential theories and views - even those whose main crime is disagreeing with our own or our own philosophies. We cannot rightly throw some theories out unless we redefine astrology again, and the problem is that when we do this too often what we're left with is a very narrow definition of astrology that excludes anything which disagrees with our own very marginal and idiosyncratic way of doing astrology. I might redefine astrology iteratively until I exclude all those pesky theoretical planets, astrocartography, modern rulerships etc etc ad nauseum until the definition of astrology stops defining astrology and only defines "Paul's Astrology". We run the same risk here. There is nothing particularly offensive about Juan's view point that it cannot also fit into the paradigm of correlating (somehow) celestial phenomena with earthly/human concerns. Btw when I say correlation I just mean "has a relationship with" without specifying what it is (it allows for that relationship to be causal, synchronous, or anything else).
You say this is a 'kaliyoga' notion - this is said as though to explain within itself how automatically this cannot be accepted, the problem is that it does not consider who labels it as a kaliyoga notion, what this actually means or why it is a bad thing. Most importantly it does not consider whether even if it were such a thing, whether this tells us anything about the truth of it.
Really the use of the wording kali yoga implies a religious sentiment that astrology as a whole need not sit within. Whilst it is true that your own philsophy/religious outlook incorporates such things, astrology as a whole need not, and so, astrology as a whole, need not bend to such sentiments - though your own particular usage of astrology and understanding may. As an analogy I might argue "well you're wrong cos that's just satan tricking you so astrology cannot be that" and we're really informing ourselves not one bit about astrology at all, merely using our religious paradigm as a crutch against which we can ignore a valid argument. We cannot simply say "I'll accept all arguments except those which I do not accept for some personal religious reason" as that's not a valid approach to a debate. Of course you personally do not have to agree, and are free to disagree with the sentiment, but we cannot prevent others from taking that view as being equally valid to our own.
Regarding magnetism: Right, I did not explain the missing pieces in the forms of ,e.g., F=ma, since that is a job for those interested in such things.
But wait a second, this is the actual natural science part that you're theorising. What you're now saying is that you're not interested in that part? If you're suggesting electromagnetism is responsible for astrology simply stating is not enough - you need to explain why and how this may be true. Otherwise this is no different than me pointing out that a kettle produces energy and affects gravity and as a result concluding that the kettle is affecting my personality without expanding on how or why that may be true.
Right now we don't even have a theory with regards electromagnetism just your statement that it
may be responsible. The problem with this is that so far nobody, yourself included, has given any rationale as to how it might or indeed any demonstrations that it is indeed the case either.
We do not need to classify astrology as a natural science, except that I personally believe it is a natural science, perhaps the first one, and it was only mentioned as an alternative to the views expressed by Juan and others, which to me is a far worse option.
The question isn't whether we think it worse, the question should only be whether or not we can prove him wrong. If we cannot then we must contend that his theory is at least equally as valid as our own, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We don't have to subscribe to the theory, but we cannot contest that his theory is worse than our own. Certainly saying "well you might be wrong, it might be electromagnetism" is not good enough as you might also say "you might be wrong, it might be magic/unicorns/god/aliens/leprechauns" - it might be lots of things, but then, it is JUST as equal that it might not be.
Until we have evidence or at least some model to work with or to try to test against, all we're left with is a philosophy.
The end result then is that Juan has his view of how astrology works and we cannot disprove him or find flaws or fault in his logic for why he might be right. And yet if we start to turn to electromagnetism to explain our own philosophies all it takes is one skilled enough in understanding electromagnetism to instantly prove us wrong, pointing out, perhaps, the greater electrical field from the microwave oven or mobile phone etc. As soon as we start giving forces which may be responsible all it takes is someone to go examine them, demonstrate that it's not because of that and as a result utterly ridicule astrology as a whole.
In my world, astrology is the result of superior beings from a previous world age, and now all we are left with is bits and pieces and no one knows the basis and such things, because the kaliyuga humans would not be able to invent such a science. So instead we do what we are doing now, I guess.
Well you're certainly entitled to this view, but I would have to say my own philosophy and world view would disagree with it. I do not see any reason to think there was some master race or master beings who knew astrology and what we have is the bits and pieces that were preserved simply because its history clearly shows evolution and change. So if this premise is correct, then what we have is so morphed and shaped from the original that very little if any must be left.
As for indians practicing horoscopic astrology for thousands of years (presumably meaning past the introduction by the greeks) then again we have no evidence for it, just a religious story.
But if we want to talk about natural sciences we need to do better than fall back on a religious argument. Of course if we don't want to, and my opinion is that it is not appropriate, then we don't have to and we can keep our own philosophies whilst recognising that they are just that - philosophies, not hard natural sciences.