varuna2 wrote:We see all sorts of examples where the so-called natural sciences cannot offer proof, here are a few: singularities, black holes, dark matter, the original biological seed - for example, acorns. We also see contradictions, for example, light is a particle and a wave. We also see numerous unexplained phenomenon that science cannot yet account for. Therefore, the classification of astrology as a soft or social science, because of lack of proof, fails.
I never said that Astrology is akin to a social science "because it lacks proof". Astrology is better tied to the social sciences because of its subject matter, its methodology, and the nature of the tools it uses. The subject-matter of Astrology is a person, a life, a question, an event... all these are symbolic constructs, not physical entities. The methods astrologers use to deal with these are qualitative: metaphor and analogy, analytic induction, statements and construction of meaning, symbol manipulation... and the tools used (zodiacal signs, houses, radix charts, abstract and discrete coordinates, transits, progressions, etc.) are cultural inventions that do not exist in the natural or physical world or in the sky. These are the field of anthropology, linguistics, and semiotics.
What you list above is theories or models that are operationalized in terms of well- known physical laws. No such operationalization exists in Astrology, only a simple postulate (e.g."the planets and the stars are the cause of what happens on earth" or "astrology studies the correlation between celestial and earth events") with nothing in between but a simple and powerful metaphor.
Furthermore, even though the stars and planets send their rays to us
all the time, astrologers never study these because nobody knows what is there to study nor how to model their effect or interaction with us. Instead of looking at real organisms the astrologer refers everything to the flat unidimensional coordinates of an artificially frozen instant of time long ago in the past (the radix, the birth chart) that is taken AS IF it were a real entity. This is a purely metaphoric and cultural convention that has nothing to do with natural science.
I would never state that the Jupiter in the sky is different from the Jupiter in the natal chart
You evidently are not familiar with the effects of latitude in an astrological chart. In the case of Jupiter these effects are not very notable, but in the cases of Venus and the Moon they can be dramatic. Additionally, Jupiter in a natal chart is a mere abstraction of something that happened a long time ago, it doesn't belong to the natural world like the Jupiter that can be seen in the sky, it exists only in the imagination. Therefore something like a simple astrological transit is physically impossible. Astrology does not provide tools to model how this Jupiter at the moment of your birth affects
you, it can only model how it affects a set of abstract coordinates that are taken AS IF if it were you. This is not natural science.
I still do not quite know where you are coming from...
That's understandable, but you can check my previous posts in this section of the forum where I explain a little bit better, e.g.
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5304
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5210
Juan