imipak wrote:
I will give astrology this: Some events and trends are roughly cyclic, and therefore you will be right more than half the time for more than half the population if you can produce a set of tables which map the cycles to observable, measurable cycles - such as stars and planets. Indeed, all evidence suggests that many ancient cultures associated planetary cycles with when to plant crops, predict tides and other such very simple, cyclic stuff.
There is no such evidence. At least, none to show any successful prediction, other than the expected coincidental cases - if I predict rain for tommorrow, I'll eventually be right, unless I live in the "Dry Valleys" (Antartica).
imipak wrote:
Can the planets predict human fate? Well, let's forget the planets for a moment. They're just acting as a gigantic, multiply-divided clock. That is all they act as. At some given instant in time, the planets are in the same position for everyone. If we are to believe that something is actually being predicted, then a wall clock should be just as good.
Actually, the wall clock is not quite as good. Its battery will run down. On the other hand, the amazingly "accurate" planetary clock is subject to perturbation by comets, and so on. Visits by planetary sized objects from the Oort belt will occur, from time to time, which will mess up the whole business quite a lot.
imipak wrote:
But here is where it gets interesting. The clock does eventually reset. The progressions of both planets and stars eventually return to their original position. This means that someone born in the same place, at the same point in the overarching progression, should have an identical birthchart (no matter how precise you insist on place and time to be) and therefore an identical forecast throughout their life - if that's all you're using.
See above. The planets and stars NEVER return to their original position. Not in 10^9999999 years. Not once. Not even remotely. Not even the sun/moon/earth triplet.
imipak wrote:
Now, not all astrologers use the same methodologies or indeed on the same premise of what it is they are doing. Some factor in the birthcharts of the person's parents. Others look for harmonics of various orders - some to the third degree, others to the thirtieth, all with different opinions on what is indicated by each.
Good point. Essentially, they make it up as they go along.
imipak wrote:
Nonetheless, the basic premise does not make sense to me. The basic premise of the original concept (cyclic events can be predicted from other similar-length cycles) does make sense, and I believe that many who appear to be highly "intuitive" or have amazingly accurate "gut feelings" about such cyclic events may well be tuned into other cycles that can be used to intuit when things will happen.
Fallacies. 1) That there are any cyclic events. 2) That two decoupled, approximately cyclic events should have identical "periods". 3) That intuition will "predict the future", in the sense you are implying. Certainly, if I step off a cliff, my intuition that it will soon hurt is an accurate prediction of the future (unless Superman happens by).
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