spock wrote:
I think many astrologers would like for astrology to be verified,
Well then this is in contradiction to your earlier post I quoted from:
"The "problem" is we astrologers apparently don't think our claims should be objectively verifiable"
Either astrologers do not think they should be verifiable, and this is a problem, or astrologers instead would
like astrology to be verified. I'm starting to lose track what your view is on this.
it's for our benefit, so we can be sure that we do have knowledge and aren't just fooling ourselves in the course of the process of "doing" astrology.
I am sure we can fine tune our methods and our astrology. I am not so convinced that the scientific paradigm is the right vehicle for it though. Let's take a simple form of astrology, and use horary as an example. Someone asks where their missing wallet is. Either you find the wallet or you do not. There is no 'almost finding it' to paraphrase Frawley. And when we don't find it, and we later see with hindsight where it is, we can take this into consideration and fine tune our processes. When we do find the wallet we can still learn from feedback from the querent. But let's take this through a scientific paradigm of not only double blind trials but also of course repeated experiment - can this actually be done!? Because I do not think it can. I do not think the mechanisms behind horary, whatever they may be, work that way.
We might also face similar problems with natal forecasting. If you predict a breakup, you cannot then repeat the experiment on the same data. THe moment has passed. Astrologers are in the business of examining the inherent qualities of time and those things which are borne from those individual moments. Unfortunately moments change and cannot be replicated. We cannot go back and rinse and repeat a transit - once it happens that's it. Sure the planet may make another transit at another time, but then time as changed and other planets may be in other places. I know you have stated that a transit should mean X and do so 100% of the time, the problem is that whilst you may think so, this is really not an astrological claim, though it may be your own claim. Traditionally inclined astrologers for example would need to take into context what varying time lords are indicating, what other planets are doing, because whilst you might like to isolate and test one planet at a time, there are no control subjects for which only one planet is in effect. THey all are. All the time.
So I don't mind us refining our technique and growing from there - this is something from which astrologers might benefit. I just don't think the scientific method is a suitable vehicle for that refinement.
The next issue is one of statistics. This is something we might gain some insight from. I have no problem with statistical evaluation of astrologer's claims. If people find that useful they shoudl go for it, and it may show some unusual patterns or unexpected patterns - like for example Gauqelin's research apparently favouring places immediately cadent from an angle.
But this doesn't mean we throw away the entire corpus of astrology until such time that statistics verify each individual thing, because so much of it is more abstract and philosophical and not easily rendered by statistical enquiry.
No, not the individual astrologer, but the methods themselves. That's the point of my Tyl and Rudhyar examples, not that the astrologers are deficient but that the methods they learned were and are.
Right, but who determines what is deficient? This is what I was asking? Deficient for who? You say this is so because astrologers
"cannot describe how we come to our conclusions". But why is this true? If I observe that an apple falls, and continues to fall and all the other apples also fall, is it not enough for me to say "apples fall" - without having to discover the intricacies of gravitational effects and perhaps perturbations and fluctations through the globe etc.? You later cite using statistics to verify things, but statistics tells us absolutely zilch as to
why a phenomenon happens. Similarly astrological claims are, often explicitly, agnostic about
why a phenomenon happens, they simply observe that it does, and invite you to do the same.
The question is, does not having an explanation for 'why' a phenomenon happens suddenly prevent that phenomenon happening? Or does it remain observable without a theory as to how or why it is true?
As for who they're deficient for, they're deficient for us. If they weren't six competent astrologers rectifying the same person's unknown (to them) birth time would get the same answer.
Presumably 6 psychologists would arrive at the same conclusions using the same methods too. And 6 financial analysts would also arrive at the same conclusions regarding the market.
I wonder why this doesn't happen - or do we accept that when it comes to measuring a complexity of variables there is a degree of 'weighing up' of factors and individual discernment involved which amounts to difference of opinion? Of course in all cases one or none may be correct, but accuracy is surely another matter from methodology employed and questions of illegitimacy.
Whether it's a hard sell because it's wrong or because astrologers just have a hard time seeing it is another matter.
Right, I think it's a hard sell because it's not always a persuasive argument and seems, to me, to be at times riddled with problems and flaws in its approach and assumptions of its paradigms.
I've already argued that "it works for me" is misleading, and have given reasons why I think it's misleading, so simply reiterating "because they've witnessed that it works for them" without critiquing my argument about "the verbal games we unwittingly play that make it seem to us that 'astrology works for me'" is unresponsive.
Actually I did address this obliquely. I disagree with your notion that "it works for me" is be extension misleading, it may be misleading, but that is not to say that it therefore
is misleading. You have not, however, come up with a methodology that removes the possibility of misleading statements. This is my point. In my last reply to you I wanted to highlight how you yourself make ungrounded assumptions but then use these assumptions as the starting points for your investigations. Sure, it works for me might be misleading. But then so might the idea that the signs and houses are bogus but aspects are not, or that rulership is "clearly wrong" and base these clear objections on nothing other than the constraints of the philosophical paradigm you have about astrology. By all means critique that it works for me
may be misleading, but until we have some better test for astrology other than our own empiricism I don't think your arguments advance anything.
There is a reason you think that signs and planets are bogus and that rulerships are "clearly wrong" and so on - your personal philosophies and inherent assumptions based on them, and by proxy biases that are inherent in all of us. In the end then when you go to do astrology clearly you are only using what works for you, or, more specifically, what makes sense to you - ie, what best conforms to your own philosophical paradigm on how astrology can work and what it is useful for.
In addition, I don't think many of astrology's claims are ripe for scientific testing. I happen to think that for at least some branches of astrology, the astrologer is a part of the equation - I have horary in particular in mind here. I do not think it's important that astrologers use Regiomontanus or Placidus or whatever, and using one or the other can give different results. I just think it's important that they use one and stick with it. I think these idiosynchracies where the observer or participant is a part of the equation has yet to be properly accounted for with the current scientific paradigm. Perhaps in the future it will be better addressed and we can have these conversations again. Until then I think the implication from your posts, that we live in a mechanical universe where X gives rise to Y and will do so 100% of the time, it just not an accurate reflection of the cosmos that we exist within. And it's assumptions such as these, which are foundational to so many of your arguments, that I disagree with.
It is not that I haven't addressed your argument about "what works for me is misleading" it's just that you haven't come up with anything which I think is better. And until there is something incontrovertible, then I think it's an incredible hubris to ask someone to not believe their own eyes, their own experience because, bless them, they're only fooling themselves.
And the addition of "in the face of obvious adversity by weight of the fact that on the face of it astrology sounds ludicrous" only shows how much people will go against what seems reasonable if they want to believe in something strongly enough, albeit not without some discomfort or defensiveness.
Well that's certainly a non-sequitor conclusion. It may also be that the personal empirical evidence of astrology is so great that even though our rational minds cannot comprehend how such a thing can happen, we cannot deny that it does.
Certainly I came to astrology the hard way, by being incredibly skeptical of its claims. It is not that I desperately wanted astrology to work, in fact it was despite my desperately thinking it should fail. It's just that, if I was honest with myself, it did seem to have
something to it. I couldn't dismiss it. I had the same experience with horary. I used to cringe inwardly when people with real problems turned to horary - if they asked "where is my dog" they'd get the same answer as "where is my cat" I used to think, so what, their cat is with their dog?! It was ludicrous right? Right until I saw someone do it with uncanny accuracy did I think it. I am a doubting Thomas to the core, I need to put my finger in those holes before I'll believe in a miracle, but I'm open minded enough to know that I don't know everything about the universe and nor does the rest of humanity. So if I observe something to be true then I have to at least take it seriously enough to warrant further investigation.
I don't think people desperately want to believe in astrology so throw away their common sense. I think it's just the opposite.
I'm the one who's bothered by the lack of clearcut evidence that most of the meanings and methods I originally learned are actually valid.
Oh you're certainly not unique in this. I think the only place we would differ, for example, is the implication that astrologers
need to prove their methods (presumably to someone else?), whether we can extract that clear cut evidence, and how we might do it. I applaud that you think clearcut evidence can be taken for so many of astrology's claims, I just think it's almost naive to think so. Let's try our issue or rulership that you are so eager to state is "clearly false" - rather than state it, how would you go about finding clear cut evidence, presumably using a scientific method. Can you isolate other chart factors such that we can only examine a given planet, say Mars, and measure its qualitative influences through a natal chart, and repeat this in a double blind trial for hundreds of cases such that the evidence would be clear cut? If you can, more power to you, I cannot. We might get something which is statistically significant, but is this clear cut evidence?
I'm the one who's acutely aware of the ways in which we fool ourselves, who's analyzed the process by which astrology seemingly "works for me", which is a bell that can't be unrung.
You might be, but you're not the only one. I think most of us are well aware, perhaps even jaded, by ideas of the forer effect and so on.
In asking who cares you seem to have forgotten the context in which I made that statement, which was in opposition to astrologers who assume that someday science will have a revolution in the wake of which they will then see how it is that astrology can work the way we say it does, an understanding that we ourselves don't possess at the moment and likely never will.
Actually no, the context I read you as operating under was prefixed at the beginning of this paragraph: "The "problem" is we astrologers apparently don't think our claims should be objectively verifiable via procedures"
And presumably you do think we should. My point boils down to - why should we?
You concluded that: "But to the extent that we create a more viable astrology we'll be fulfilling our own imperative of maximizing our understanding, which is more important than what others think. "
So why mention science at all, and why highlight its 'present form' even thought you conclude that it's for our benefit, from the earlier statement acknowledging what science would or wouldn't accept, it seems that you at least have one eye on science's acceptance of astrology, not in its present form as you state, but perhaps in a more 'viable' form.