Well, maybe "Astrological standards" are just too weak. If the predictions astrology makes have to be vague, then they had better be very accurate, because otherwise it's virtually identical to astrology not working. Do that make sense to you?
They are weak. The problem is that people start with Astrological theory and then force the evidence to fit the theory. They behave in a highly similar fashion to Skeptics despite being the total opposite to Skeptics in one crucial fashion.
They decide what evidence is valid based upon a pre-established theory.
You're really happy with it? Because it seems unsatisfactory to me. Let's go over the results of your second reading with Godless Dave again.
Hits: 5
Misses: 4
Partial: 5
Now, that doesn't seem very impressive. I noticed that you rationalized some of the misses, like so:
I am happy with it because the misses all falsified what I merely read online and the hits confirm what I have previously observed.
As far as I am concerned, the need to constantly be right, is the source of most of Astrology's problems.
Because at any sign of weakness, the Skeptics descend and derive from a specific theoretical failiure the invalidity of all Astrology.
That's not necessarily true. You're saying that if he had a family, he might be protective of them just like the reading says. But you have no way of knowing that for sure, so this at best would have to count as an "unknown," not a hit. But personally, I think the prediction "You work particularly hard for the wellbeing of your family." tends to indicate someone to whom family is important, and since he doesn't have family, I would qualify this as more of a miss.
I never tried to make it as a hit. I merely tried to make it not a miss.
If he specifically says "BIG MISS," I take that to mean he is pretty sure, and I'm surprised you don't also.
I am actually torn between two possible Astrological explanations.
One is that Saturn/Mercury conjunction is still connecting to singing but this is invalidated by the opposition to Neptune which rules Music.
One is that the Saturn/Mercury conjunction's is a Neutral variable. Remember we derived the opposite conclusion specifically in opposition to the opposite claim that it would impede communication derived from the murky realms of theory.
Then you should have said that before, during his reading. Otherwise, you could simply be interpreting his chart in such a way to explain away your mistakes. Next time you make a reading, say things like this during the actual reading, or there's no way we can count them. So this still has to be counted as a definite miss.
Trouble is I got the claim not from experiance but from a third source. I had actually no idea what it did of my own, I got it from a third source. I therefore tend to trust despite myself the third source to have some basis for their own claim.
But good advice, I will try to determine in future what is solid and what is a 'bit of a stretch during the reading'.
You shouldn't judge someone based on their avatar. I don't know Godless Dave all that well, but if you asked me if he was a rebellious troublemaker simply based on his activity here, I would certainly say no. The best I can say based on his avatar is that he has a sense of humor. And besides that, you really can't judge a person's personality based on how they act on the internet at all.
Yes. However given that the Avatar itself expressed the outward image of a person, it may correspond to the 1st House in the Internet.
Again the 1st House is often hid behind the 12th House, which is our 'false image'. The 12th House is the house of masks.
So the Avatar could correspond to the 12th House rather than the 1st.
So, even not counting the ones for which he said "mostly a miss," and the guess about his family, it seems your reading still has 3 very solid misses, and only 5 very solid hits. That seems fairly poor for a reading in which most of the guesses are vague generalities that apply to most people. But you disagree, you were impressed with this reading. Then let me ask you: 1. can you understand why I am not impressed? 2. can you see why I think your standard of accuracy for astrology is much too low?
I perfectly understand why you are not impressed. I am not particularly impressed with myself.
My standard of accuracy for Astrology is much too low? Well I am not Astrology, I am an Astrologer.
Astrology is actually inhumanly complex and it very easy to make mistakes. I have made mistakes simply by failing to notice things I had already derived at before.
Slayer, I'd like to know the answer to this: how can astrology work, exactly ? I mean, Jupiter, for instance, and for all intents and purposes, exerts the same amount of force on every human being. Same for all the stars and planets. I'm trying to understand how it would work.
Since you are so polite I will give you an in depth response explaining how Astrology might work.
Astrology is not based upon differences in the quantity of force that each planet exerts on each person. It is based upon the spatial relationship made between the objects in alignment to the Earth of which the observer is a part or directly to the observer (the sidereal/tropical zodiac dispute in a nutshell).
Two objects aligned so that they are paralell or close together tend to merge their energies (or information if you like). In my case, since Jupiter and the Sun are close together (from Earth perspective) Jupiter and Sun tend to be 'confused' so that whatever reminds me of the Sun reminds me of Jupiter and vice versa.
The opposite is the case with Pluto. Because Pluto is on the opposite side of the earth to the Sun and Jupiter, then their energies do not merge much, they remain utterly distinct. As a result things that remind me of the energy of Pluto tend to be concieved of as distinct and oppositional to the Sun and Jupiter.
When we are born, the barrage of sensory distractions maybe or something else mean that our connection to the nexus of planets is broken to a large extent. Thus our internal world fossilizes to a certain degree, but not entirely creating the natal charts. We now percieve the planets influences as 'external' influences, while our own fossilised pre-natal state we percieve as 'internal' influences.
To consider the mechanism which is refered to as the planetery nexus, I mean that everything in the universe transfers information about itself to everything else, regarding it's spatial location and other properties.
The Earth and all the other planets orbit the Sun, a remote object. They do so based upon the mass of the Sun. If their mass were greater than the Sun, the Sun would orbit them. Therefore some sort of mathematical calculation is made using two sets of variables, but 'in' both objects.
The Sun evidently is capable of 'informing' other objects as to it's mass. But why stop there? Can the mass of an object really be seperated from it's other properties? No it can't. So everything about the Sun is known to the Earth and since we are part of the Earth, we would know what the Earth knows.
Slayer, do you realize that every supporter of nonsense uses this line of thinking ? What sort of failure, exactly, would be needed for you to understand that Astrology is bunk ?
What sort of failiure would be enough to convince the Chemist, the Physicist, the Biologist that their respective disciplines were bunk?
The only way to disprove all Astrology would be to demonstrate that the position of the planets was a Neutral variable that has no correlation to events on Earth. That is to kill the core hypothesis of Astrology.
Well, at least you read it. I'm glad you read this because I found it to be informative.
It is very worrying to know that James Randi actually knows something about Astrology itself. He isn't like your average Skeptic that based upon their comments knows next to nothing about the Astrology they disagrees with.
Does anyone know James Randis exact birth time? One of the things I noted about James Randi is how little his Horoscope is actually ultra-Skeptical. It's far milder than most of the charts of the people on this forum I've seen.
I guess the Sheep follow the Shepherd, but the Shepherd isn't a Sheep.
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Right. Please stick to the word "factors," then. Using the word "theory" for them is very confusing. But if you want to use the word theory for the overall idea of astrology, that makes more sense.
Astrology itself is only a theory if Biology, Chemistry or Physics are theories.
Astrology has theories. These are distinct from factors. Factors are observable phenonoma. Theories are claims made about the effects of Factors by Astrologers.
I see. Well, I'm not quite sure of the relevance of increased risk of having a car accident. Also, 13% is a fairly small difference. How did he get those stats again, exactly? (Anyone besides Slayer, please feel free to weigh in about this.)
Because it constitutes 'proof' of sorts that at least the location of Stars aren't Neutral factors. This validates the core hypothesis, which validates Astrology itself.
He got those stats from an insurance company I think and compared the total number of accidents by Tauros Suns, against the total % of the population than Tauros Suns make up, eliminated any non-statistically significant percentages that are within the range of chance and then arrived at the conclusion that 4 Sun Signs had an effect on one's ability to drive safely. All the others were eliminated as Neutral.
I am afraid I have left Astrology file at University but I remember what signs had an effect.
Tauros are the worst drivers.
Virgos are the second worst drivers.
Scorpios are the second best drivers.
Leos are the best drivers.
Astrologically I would explain it basically by saying that Tauros, by it's inflexible nature, tends to make people rather clumsy, due to the rigidity of the personality.
Virgo by it's focus on small details tends to miss the bigger picture, failing to see everything that's going on around them because they notice a small danger.
Scorpio by virtue of being the opposite of Tauros would be rather agile and tends to react quickly and flexibly.
Leo is the best because Leo's have a social 'Sixth sense' and a strong sense of responsability for other people. They are busy working out where everyone is and most importantly where THEY fit into the picture.
Nope. What are you talking about in regards to the planets, anyway? What does it mean, "have Mercury there"? Just curious.
Mercury is the planet that specifically governs writing, speech and communication with others. Mercury never goes more than 1 sign away from the Sun.
I freely admit I have no idea what you are, but I will guess you are a Scorpio anyhow.
Well, I would think not, because if you had known about it at the time, you may have dismissed all of it. Then let me ask you another question... I assume you know and understand what the Forer effect is now, correct? How do you know that what you seem to experience through astrology can't all be explained by this effect?
That is an invalid objection. The mere possibility of your experiances being wrong does not constitute a reason to dismiss something.
I know precisely how I don't fit my Sun Sign as well as how I do. The following are true.
Stubborn.
Routine Orientated.
Lives to Eat.
Unbothered by sameness in material surroundings and experiances.
Copes extremely poorly with change and sudden interruptions.
Tends to continue on the same course when it would perhaps be wiser to back down and consider other options.
Slow to respond.
The following are false (with precise Astrological explanations).
Practically orientated ideas (8th House Sun, 8th House opposes 2nd House which is of a materialistic, practical nature)
Slow moving (square Mars, gives an overdose of energy)
Well I would say it's just human nature, because everyone ultimately wants to be liked by other people, and therefore they will exaggerate various things that make them look more interesting. Can you understand why you saying it's because "everyone has a Jupiter" seems a bit silly to me, when there's already a natural explanation that makes more sense?
Also, if everyone has a "Jupiter" somewhere, doesn't this make predictions somewhat useless? What's the point if astrology says the same thing about everyone?
Everyone but me. I have no desire to exaggerate anything about myself to make myself interesting.
You misunderstood what I am saying though.
All I am saying is that Jupiter represents something that exists in everyone. A quality as it were.
This quality has effects. The primary effect of Jupiter is to make things bigger and better. From this effect come secondery effects. When combined with the Sun, which represents ego, Jupiter tends to make the ego 'bigger and better', which tends to make people arrogant. Arrogance is the tertiary effect.
Tell me again how astrology predicts that your characteristics associated with your "sun sign" are supposed to be exaggerated, and what that means. Does that mean your characteristics with that sun sign should be very close to 100% accurate? Is there any way for you to identify ahead of time which people should have "exaggerated" characteristics?
Because the effect of Jupiter is to increase, to make bigger, anything that enjoys a positive relationship to Jupiter (for instance is conjunct) will tend to be exaggerated for starters.
It is my personal observation that things in the 8th, 10th, 12th and 1st Houses tend to be exaggerated.
What enjoys a negative relationship with something (for instance is opposed) tends to be reduced.
If two things have a negative relationship, the stronger tends to increase at the expense of the latter. Ultimately a lot comes down to guessing what 'side' will come out on top.
Quite often planets will diminish and even 'kill' other planets in order to grow in power over the person, to a large extent this is the basis of our characters but since all the planets represent a fundermental part of us, the 'death' of any planet has rather evil effects.
People whose Jupiters are 'killed' become depressed for instance.
Lots of people have that tendency, though.
And we have to explain Astrologically why this is so on an individual basis.
I see. Do you know ahead of time if someone's Sun is "weak", before you read them? If so, then can you explain a bit about how astrology is useful for whom people the Sun is "weak?"
I don't read people based upon Sun Signs alone. The Sun is weak based upon the actual relationship between planets. If there are lot of planets in a hostile relationship to the Sun and they are very strong, the Sun will be weakened. As a result, the Sun Sign will become redundant, since the position of the Sun's key adversity is what really matters.
Anti-Solar and Solar people would have different traits based not upon the Signs the Sun is in BUT THE VERY NATURE OF THE SUN ITSELF!
People who will quietly put up with abuse from others. People who sacrifice themselves for something else they consider higher and better. The humble, the weak-willed, the self-sacrificing. None of these people would ever fit their Sun Signs.
I'm still waiting to find out how and why Jupiter is connected to clergymen. What was Jupiter's job before there were any clergymen Slayer?
Jupiter has nothing directly to do with clergymen. Instead Jupiter has to do with 'bigger things', that is the bigger questions or reality. The kind of stuff religion claims to answer.
Therefore Jupiter is assosiated with Clergymen, because Clergymen are assosiated with Religion. The reason Jupiter is associated with Religion is because Jupiter is assosiated with the kind of big questions that religion is concerned with.
This is because in essence Jupiter is something akin to "bigger" or "higher" or "above". I say akin, because it doesn't exactly correspond to any of these things but has it's own unique nature that does not care to comform itself to our language.
When a Christian is "born again", do they get a new sign?
What if someone found the lord at the exact moment that makes them a triple scorpio?
That could be trouble.
Since 'born again' people tend to avoid Astrologers like the plague, there is no way to verify whether the above is true.
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