What does Astrology mean?

[gandalftw]

I withdraw my comment.

Edited March 4, 2017 by gandalftw

[TheMastersSon]

I remember the numbers, if you're inferring otherwise. Also several others in that group of people are still very much around today, so I'm not the only one who's telling this story.

Edited March 4, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[montky]

@benkelly33

an interesting question and thanks for asking.

I don't understand why you'd hyperlink to that site though - did anyone else have issue with webcertificates for that hyperlink?

 

 

 

Astrology was the spiritualist contemplation of asterisms, and the assigning of values and superstitions to those asterisms.

C Sagan and D Dennett talk about that at length and far more eloquently than I.

It was useful in the formation of regularized calendars, rudimentary forms of navigation, and the support of Astronomy in the ancient world.

it is still a powerful component of many people's beliefs... and where no-one does any harm, that is their own prerogative.

Astrology did historically lead to some harms; ostensibly, in medieval europe, the middle east and south american civilizations which held Astrological beliefs... see J Campbells' "Hero of a Thousand Faces".

 

Astrology is not to be confused with Astronomy or Astrophysics etc,

which by contrast, are the studies of and navigation by stars and the study of space.

 

 

 

If you were to hypothetically ask me, what do I reflect on Astrology as a means of discerning truth in the universe etc?

I would hypothetically answer with a citation of S Hawking in his "Philosophy is Dead" speech hehe.

it may still be a vehicle of belief, though it is very far from where science is, and what science is.

Astrology ostensibly is sternly limited in its predictive power to accurately model the present, let alone past or futures.

 

Astrology is at best, the chaos theory approach to things. the butterfly effect, and trying to reconcile the vast with the micro.

Macroscale events with the Microcosm, as Deepak Chopra was to have said in "War of the Worldviews".

[Fkemman11]

There are many things or events in this life and throughout history that cannot be explained by any science. This is not my belief- this is a fact. If I were to theorize about it then I would say that there are forces in our vast universe that do have some imperceptible influence over our lives and our planet. Anyone who suggests this is impossible is foolish. After all man only has 5 senses. To think that there is nothing more for mankind to learn about ourselves or the universe in which we live is a testament to ones arrogance and severe lack of vision.

 

If every inventor or scientist had listened to nay-sayers in history then our world would not be nearly as advanced as it is today. So a word to the wise....always try to keep an open mind. Because something as large and possibly infinite as our universe or something as small and seemingly simple as a Bumble Bee can escape the understanding of even the most learned scholar- if their mouths are always open with their eyes shut tight. :geek:

[RatB0Y68]

Asserting the existence of these mysterious undiscovered forces (such as the influence of the stars in Astrology) based on the fact that we don't know everything about the universe is fallacious. Specifically, it is an argument from ignorance. Given that you assert that it is foolish to believe that is impossible also suggests an appeal to incredulity.

 

There may well be other forces in addition to gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak force, but until evidence of these new forces are presented, there is no reason to accept their existence. Refusing to accept a hypothesis without evidence is the default position but it is tentative. If you provide evidence, hard data for these mysterious unkown aspects of the universe, then you will give people a reason to accept them. Concordantly, if you give me no reason to believe you, then I have... no reason to believe you. Mere technical plausibility is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

 

To use your example of the naysayers and the inventors: Everyone of those inventors and scientist had to provide evidence for the veracity of their theories and inventions. If and when they did, slowly but surely the naysayers had to modify their views accordingly (not always gladly or easily to be sure).

[gandalftw]

I withdraw my comment.

Edited March 7, 2017 by gandalftw

[Fkemman11]

Asserting the existence of these mysterious undiscovered forces (such as the influence of the stars in Astrology) based on the fact that we don't know everything about the universe is fallacious. Specifically, it is an argument from ignorance. Given that you assert that it is foolish to believe that is impossible also suggests an appeal to incredulity.

 

There may well be other forces in addition to gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak force, but until evidence of these new forces are presented, there is no reason to accept their existence. Refusing to accept a hypothesis without evidence is the default position but it is tentative. If you provide evidence, hard data for these mysterious unkown aspects of the universe, then you will give people a reason to accept them. Concordantly, if you give me no reason to believe you, then I have... no reason to believe you. Mere technical plausibility is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

 

To use your example of the naysayers and the inventors: Everyone of those inventors and scientist had to provide evidence for the veracity of their theories and inventions. If and when they did, slowly but surely the naysayers had to modify their views accordingly (not always gladly or easily to be sure).

 

Do you think everyone and everything is just going to offer up evidence to accommodate your need for "proof". It seems evident to me that you are not very old. I will say again that it is incredibly arrogant and foolish to think that something cannot exist unless there is proof or a satisfactory explanation for it. I have lived long enough to know that there are some things in life that defy ANY reasonable explanation. There are also many times that people will need to make decisions with little or no facts or "proof" to guide them.

 

For instance, I recently had a car worked on by a mechanic I do not know. 5 months after his shop "fixed" my car I had the same problem with it. Now when I took it back he tried to tell me that something else was wrong and that I needed to pay more money to get it fixed.....again. Now in this situation am I supposed to rely on facts to understand that he is ripping me off? No. Because I cannot look at the problem and see for myself. So I have to trust my instincts in the matter and they tell me he is a dirty, lying bastard trying to squeeze more money out of me. Maybe this is not the best way to explain.

 

The difference between you and I is that I am willing to believe some things until they are proven false whereas you seem to believe nothing until it is proven true beyond any shadow of doubt. I think you might find it hard in life to always need empirical evidence before you might be convinced of somethings meaning or existence. :geek:

[RatB0Y68]

The burden of proof is always, unfailingly, on the person making a claim to knowledge. If you or anyone else claims to know of the existence of some previously unknown mysterious force (or anything else), you must provide evidence. If you can't show it, you don't know it. When you provide evidence for something, my job is then to falsify the evidence; to show that it isn't proper evidence, scrutinse the data and point out flaws or inconsistencies. Or to find and consult experts in the relevant fields who can do the job for me.

 

'Do you think everyone and everything is just going to offer up evidence to accommodate your need for "proof"' : If they make a claim to knowledge about something, then yes, they had better show me some evidence. Neither you or they get to demand that I believe it unconditionally, or simply because 'it might be true'. If it is an extraordinary claim, then it requires extraordinary evidence. If you assert something without evidence, I can and will dismiss it without evidence.

 

'It seems evident to me that you are not very old': Not an argument, and condescending to boot. Simply being older doesn't automatically make you an authority in any case. Nor does it exempt you, or me, or anyone else from the burden of proof.

 

'I will say again that it is incredibly arrogant and foolish to think that something cannot exist unless there is proof or a satisfactory explanation for it.': Objection - This is a distortion of my position. To clarify: If I reject your claim, that is not logically equivalent to automatically accepting the counter claim. Furthermore, non belief in something does not always mean you consider it impossible; I may not say that X cannot exist but rather that it simply does not, or that there is no justification to think it does.

For example:

 

I show to you a jar filled with coins that I found under the bed, I haven't counted them, but I feel confident and assert there are an even number of coins in the jar. You could then ask me: 'How do you know that if you have not counted?' and then reject my claim. Imagine then if I retorted 'Oh? You doubt my claim to an even number of coins? So then you believe that there are an odd number of coins in the jar?' I would submit that the answer is no, that is absurd and binary thinking. Why? Because you can just as justifiably reject the claim to an odd number of coins, as there is also no proof for it whatsoever.

 

In this example, you can avoid being steamrollered into accepting either claim (odd or even) as both are unjustified with evidence, the coins in the jar having not been counted. It is important to note that given how we classify numbers, it must either be odd or even. One of the claims must logically be true. Rejecting both claims does not necessarily mean you think both are impossible, just that neither have been justified, so it is unsound to simply assume one over the other.

 

I would also like to draw attention to your mechanic story, and offer a possible solution regarding evidence. One possible solution would simply be to get a second opinion, something that already exists in the medical profession. Ideally, find another mechanic (or two or three) that you trust more and consult their advice. If multiple different mechanics with different practices and perceptions come up with the same specific diagnosis about your vehicle, it is more likely they know what they are talking about. Concordantly, it would also allow you to get better deals (You likely knew this, but it must be said for a complete argument). In short: shop around, they are likely not in conspiracy with one another.

 

You do raise a valid point: You are not a mechanic, so how do you know that they are lying or misinformed? I am not an engineer, how do I know the plane will not crash? My answers would be that there are checks and balances in place to ensure the majority of these specialists are held to proper standards of practise, not out of altruism but self interest for all parties involved. Additionally, no one specialist has a monopoly on their services, or the access to vital information. There are other mechanics, engineers, doctors, scientists who can either provide corroborrating evidence for their diagnosis, or scrutinise and dismantle a dishonest specialist's claim. Again, self interest can reliably sort this out; you don't want to be shafted by a dodgy tradesman, an honest tradesman doesn't want his reputation tarnished and would like you as a repeat customer.

 

'The difference between you and I is that I am willing to believe some things until they are proven false whereas you seem to believe nothing until it is proven true beyond any shadow of doubt.': Believing something is true until proven otherwise is a complete reversal of the burden of proof. In law this would be expressed as 'Guilty until proven Innocent', a practise that would lead to mass injustice and incarceration of innocents.

 

In Science, we would have to cram textbooks and encyclopedias with literally tonnes of unverified hypotheses and claims, simply because we haven't gotten round to examining the claim yet, or haven't found a method to test it.

Think of it this way, how many claims about some aspect of reality can you think of? Hundreds? Thousands even. Those are just the tiniest fraction of unverified questions and assertions about reality. There may well be countless others that we haven't even begun to formulate yet. We aren't born believing all these claims by default, even now we cannot accept them all as true by default, as we don't even know the questions.

 

The biggest problem with believing things are true until proven false is that it is incoherent as a position; it is logically impossible to directly prove a negative using inductive reasoning and empirical evidence. A good example of this would be Carl Sagan's thought experiment: 'The Dragon in my Garage' which illustrates the problem with unfalsifiable hypotheses and burden of proof better than I ever could. I would conclude that believing something as true till proven otherwise is putting unfair, unreasonable and unjustifiable burden on others who doubt your claim, often with dire consequences. It is also practically unfeasible, given the virtually unending number of possible claims to make about reality. Finally, given one cannot prove a negative, believing a claim as true by default completely derails critical inquiry, as doubters are saddled with the impossible task of trying to disprove an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

 

EDIT:

 

'There are many things or events in this life and throughout history that cannot be explained by any science. This is not my belief- this is a fact.'

'I have lived long enough to know that there are some things in life that defy ANY reasonable explanation.'

 

I have been thinking over your statements, I have come to an unfortunate conclusion:

When you said these things, you were effectively drawing a line in the sand, saying 'I know that these things cannot be known' based on nothing more than your subjective personal experiences, as demonstrated by your 2nd statement.

Saying that a thing defies ANY reasonable explanation, or that it cannot be explained by any science is semantically indistinguishable from saying that is impossible to explain. Here's the problem: calling something impossible to explain based on only your own life experiences is fallacious, an glaring appeal to personal incredulity. Just because you or anyone else cannot perceive an explanation for something, or a method for explaining it does not necessarily mean there isn't one. The most intellectually sound thing one could say is that for some things, an explanation or body of evidence has not been found.

 

If an explanation is one found one day for a phenomenon, or a coherent and compelling body of evidence compiled for it, then one finally has ample justification for positing its existence and properties, not before. Arbitrary declarations from you, me or anyone else regarding the upper limits of knowledge based on subjective, biased personal experiences shouldn't need to even be considered.

Edited March 7, 2017 by RatB0Y68

[Fkemman11]

@ RatBOY68 There is no burden of proof if I don't care whether you believe me or not.....and I don't. :happy:

[RatB0Y68]

All well and good, it's when you or someone else makes a claim to knowledge and demands others acceptance that there is, inexorably, a burden of proof. Attempting to declare yourself exempt from it makes you guilty of the same arrogance of which you accused me.

 

Beliefs are mental states that you either possess or don't possess based on the information your mind has percieved and processed. They aren't really a matter of choice. You can't realistically get up one day and decide for that day that you will believe in ultra capitalism, then decide the next day to believe in socialism etc.

 

Knowledge is defined in philosophy as a justified and true belief. Using this definition, I will make my point: One can believe anything one likes, merely having that belief isn't subject to a need for evidence. The demand for evidence comes when you make the active decision to say: "I assert that my belief is justified, true and that you must accept it." No amount of protesting, posturing or special pleading will allow a claimant to escape that requirement. Not to mention the absurdity of such a declaration. Imagine a lawyer in court trying that slithering evasion, or a scientist smugly proclaiming themselves above the need for peer review. I envision that neither would survive with their career or credibilty intact.

 

TLDR: You hold whatever beliefs you damn well please; no one, least of all me, is going to support hauling you before a tribunal and systematically auditing every apprehension about the world that passively exists in your head. It's what you actively claim to be true that requires proof.

 

Addendum:

 

'There are many things or events in this life and throughout history that cannot be explained by any science. This is not my belief- this is a fact.'

'I have lived long enough to know that there are some things in life that defy ANY reasonable explanation.'

 

Make no mistake, you have made claims to knowledge. Extraordinary claims even.

 

"...that cannot be explained by any science.": Note the choice of language here, it is not inconsequential. You said that these things cannot be explained ie. that we are incapable of explaining or that it is impossible to explain them. In epistemic terms, this is a significant assertion.

 

If instead you had said:

 

"There are many things or events in this life and throughout history that have not been explained by any science" then this would be a vastly different claim, despite the slight difference in choice of words. In this case you would not be saying that such explanations can't exist, merely that they have not as of yet been discovered.

 

Such a claim could be taken at face value without the need for special scrutiny given the voluminous and obvious evidence for it, but you did not make that claim; you said there are things that cannot have an explanation, not merely that they do not. You are drawing a line in the sand, putting upper limits on what can or can't be known, and you have given no justification for doing so.

 

IF you presume to enter a discussion and boldly assert such an extraordinary claim without the slightest drop of evidence, as if it were some unquestionable wisdom, then that is pretentious to say the least.

The fact that you then nonchalantly laugh off any notions of an obligation towards proof, simply because you don't care whether or not your claim is accepted invites the question of why you even bother making the claim in the first place other than for pontification.

Edited March 10, 2017 by RatB0Y68