12-17-2020, 04:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-17-2020, 05:35 PM by Eric the Green.)
Bob Butler throws out astrology as an example of an ideology or value held to despite it having no "objective truth". It is usually very hard to get through to folks who have this notion, which itself is an ideological or value held despite any evidence.
If astrology is held either to be objective truth never to be questioned, or as a falsehood never to be considered, in either case that is just another dogma like Christian fundamentalism, free-market fundamentalism, conspiracy theory, xenophobia, fundamentalist marxism, or whatever the value or rigid ideology it may be.
It is not longer correct to hold that science does not allow for astrology to be valid. Quantum entanglement theory has proven spooky action at a distance.
This does not by any means prove that any or all claims by astrologers are valid. First of all, astrology deals with human beings and their character and fortune. This is a subject that traditional physical science cannot penetrate. The intellect is characterized by an inability to comprehend life. Consciousness is beyond its ability to encompass. The more alive an object of study is, the less it can be understood by empirical, rational science. The more alive an object of study is, the more its behavior is spontaneous and free and thus cannot be predicted.
Which means that no scientific predictions, either by biology, psychology, sociology, or astrology/esoteric knowledge, and be fully valid, but only valid within a range of uncertainty. The more alive the object is, the greater the uncertainty. The doctrine of efficient cause and effect declines in its validity the more alive an object of study is. Instead, synchronicity and events that "go with" each other become more-often the standard.
Nevertheless, some empirical verification can be made about these subjects, if any claim is made by them about objects of study. Many astrologers just work from the rules and traditions of astrology, although they may be based on past experience or theory. Myself, I prefer that my descriptions and predictions using astrology have an empirical basis as well as on theory and traditions. Such verification of claims made by astrology or other life sciences cannot have the reliability of those sciences on which engineering is based. The objects of those sciences are only barely conscious or alive, not enough to affect the predictions more than the uncertainty principle might allow for. You cannot raise a building or a bridge or put a man on the moon by using astrology. So I do not claim such a level of "objective truth" for my claims. They have some validity and use for prediction if there is a pattern of correspondence of past events to predictions, to some degree. But absolute certainty cannot be gained about astrological predictions. And the Strauss and Howe generations and turnings theory is in much the same boat.
It's interesting though that I mentioned putting a man on the moon. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, Jupiter and Uranus, the planets of flight, adventure and invention, were exactly aligned-- to the minute of arc. Not only that, but the Moon itself was also exactly aligned with them at this moment. What were the chances of that?
This is what esoteric doctrines call "a sign." The solar system was aligned with the human Moon Landing. Was this conjunction the efficient cause of the landing? No. But it showed some kind of connection with the cosmos for this cosmically-significant event. It upheld the philosophy that all things and all beings are connected, even especially the planets of our solar system and Planet Earth and its Moon and their cycles.
What gives planets their meaning in astrology? A clue is provided by the fact that if you go back a million years from today on Earth, there could not have been planets in the sky that indicated human flight or inventions, or many other human activities and ideas, because such did not exist yet. As humanity evolved through the phases indicated by the planets in planetary dynamics, they discovered and began to embody the meaning of those planets, each in turn. There is something about the planets that indicates their meaning, but mostly it was humans and their discoveries about life through their physical and social evolution in phases that endowed the planets with their meanings.
http://philosopherswheel.com/planetarydynamics.html
If astrology is held either to be objective truth never to be questioned, or as a falsehood never to be considered, in either case that is just another dogma like Christian fundamentalism, free-market fundamentalism, conspiracy theory, xenophobia, fundamentalist marxism, or whatever the value or rigid ideology it may be.
It is not longer correct to hold that science does not allow for astrology to be valid. Quantum entanglement theory has proven spooky action at a distance.
This does not by any means prove that any or all claims by astrologers are valid. First of all, astrology deals with human beings and their character and fortune. This is a subject that traditional physical science cannot penetrate. The intellect is characterized by an inability to comprehend life. Consciousness is beyond its ability to encompass. The more alive an object of study is, the less it can be understood by empirical, rational science. The more alive an object of study is, the more its behavior is spontaneous and free and thus cannot be predicted.
Which means that no scientific predictions, either by biology, psychology, sociology, or astrology/esoteric knowledge, and be fully valid, but only valid within a range of uncertainty. The more alive the object is, the greater the uncertainty. The doctrine of efficient cause and effect declines in its validity the more alive an object of study is. Instead, synchronicity and events that "go with" each other become more-often the standard.
Nevertheless, some empirical verification can be made about these subjects, if any claim is made by them about objects of study. Many astrologers just work from the rules and traditions of astrology, although they may be based on past experience or theory. Myself, I prefer that my descriptions and predictions using astrology have an empirical basis as well as on theory and traditions. Such verification of claims made by astrology or other life sciences cannot have the reliability of those sciences on which engineering is based. The objects of those sciences are only barely conscious or alive, not enough to affect the predictions more than the uncertainty principle might allow for. You cannot raise a building or a bridge or put a man on the moon by using astrology. So I do not claim such a level of "objective truth" for my claims. They have some validity and use for prediction if there is a pattern of correspondence of past events to predictions, to some degree. But absolute certainty cannot be gained about astrological predictions. And the Strauss and Howe generations and turnings theory is in much the same boat.
It's interesting though that I mentioned putting a man on the moon. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, Jupiter and Uranus, the planets of flight, adventure and invention, were exactly aligned-- to the minute of arc. Not only that, but the Moon itself was also exactly aligned with them at this moment. What were the chances of that?
This is what esoteric doctrines call "a sign." The solar system was aligned with the human Moon Landing. Was this conjunction the efficient cause of the landing? No. But it showed some kind of connection with the cosmos for this cosmically-significant event. It upheld the philosophy that all things and all beings are connected, even especially the planets of our solar system and Planet Earth and its Moon and their cycles.
What gives planets their meaning in astrology? A clue is provided by the fact that if you go back a million years from today on Earth, there could not have been planets in the sky that indicated human flight or inventions, or many other human activities and ideas, because such did not exist yet. As humanity evolved through the phases indicated by the planets in planetary dynamics, they discovered and began to embody the meaning of those planets, each in turn. There is something about the planets that indicates their meaning, but mostly it was humans and their discoveries about life through their physical and social evolution in phases that endowed the planets with their meanings.
http://philosopherswheel.com/planetarydynamics.html