A New Astrology Paradigm

wardenclyffe said:
I have a co-worker who knows me well. She's into astrology big time. Although we work together closely, she did not know my astrological sign. One day she asked me what it was. I told her it was exactly the same as one twelfth of the rest of the population. She wasn't satisfied with that answer. I told her to guess. She knows me well enough that it should be easy to figure out based on my personality. It took her ten guesses to get it right. She still believes, though.QUOTE]

I can maybe one-up your co-worker. I had a girlfriend long ago who was also passionate about astrology. She was a Leo, and boy was she ever: Strong!! Dominant!! A natural leader!!! Roared from time to time, if I remember correctly.
Anyway she had been adopted as an infant, and was desperately anxious to
find out exactly where and when she was born. Eventually discovered that not only had she not been born in the local (Beverly, Mass.) hospital, but the date on her birth certificate was the date of her adoption. She was about six months older than she thought she was, and apparently her actually Sign told her she was meek, quiet, and shy. So after a few days brooding about the injustice of the stars she changed her personality completely to match her new sign, which made her a lot easier to get along with. Squeaked now and then instead of roaring, too.
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arthwollipot said:
Sorry, but you are doing exactly what you have defined as a strawman. "If it works one way it should work in reverse". Astrologers claim that it should not work in reverse. Strawman, by your definition.
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Not really. By that definition following any reductio ad absurdum, which is what I really did, would by your definition be "strawmanning."
 
Let me make a claim.

If you give me the date, time and location of when you were born, I will be able to determine the position of the sun relative to you at the time.

Now, if this really was possible, then it would have to work in reverse as well. So if you gave me the position of the sun relative to you at the time of your birth, I would have to be able to determine the exact time and location.

But since I can't do the latter, that means my original claim was false, too.

Right?

(By the way, I'm just rephrasing what SezMe explained in post #5. This thread really should have ended there.)
 
Mirrorglass said:
Let me make a claim.

If you give me the date, time and location of when you were born, I will be able to determine the position of the sun relative to you at the time.

Now, if this really was possible, then it would have to work in reverse as well. So if you gave me the position of the sun relative to you at the time of your birth, I would have to be able to determine the exact time and location.

But since I can't do the latter, that means my original claim was false, too.

Right?

(By the way, I'm just rephrasing what SezMe explained in post #5. This thread really should have ended there.)
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I agree. :)
 
fossilhound said:
Not really. By that definition following any reductio ad absurdum, which is what I really did, would by your definition be "strawmanning."
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Mmm, sometimes. Depends on the specific claim. If a reductio ad absurdum leads to a conclusion that the claimant never claims, then yes, it becomes a strawman. That's the case here, but it isn't necessarily so in every possible case.

Incidentally, the fact that such a reductio ad absurdum leads to a contradiction is a valid argument in my opinion. Just not the contradiction itself. But if you think about it hard enough, you could reductio almost any claim ad absurdum and make it lead to a contradiction.
 
Mirrorglass said:
So if you gave me the position of the sun relative to you at the time of your birth, I would have to be able to determine the exact time and location.
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And you aren't, but you can determine a set of times and locations that agree with that particular position of the sun.

Is it reasonable to expect something similar from astrologers?
 
MetalPig said:
And you aren't, but you can determine a set of times and locations that agree with that particular position of the sun.

Is it reasonable to expect something similar from astrologers?
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Well, if you tell me what you had for breakfast last tuesday, I can determine a set of twelve zodiac signs that agree with that.

More seriously; it depends. It's certainly possible to make an astrologer claim of gaining information from a zodiac sign that does not necessarily allow reversing the process in a meaningful way. You would have to ask the astrologer making the claim what exactly that claim is before you'd know.
 
arthwollipot said:
Mmm, sometimes. Depends on the specific claim. If a reductio ad absurdum leads to a conclusion that the claimant never claims, then yes, it becomes a strawman. That's the case here, but it isn't necessarily so in every possible case.

Incidentally, the fact that such a reductio ad absurdum leads to a contradiction is a valid argument in my opinion. Just not the contradiction itself. But if you think about it hard enough, you could reductio almost any claim ad absurdum and make it lead to a contradiction.
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Which is exactly the point of the reductio. I concluded an absurdity (I believe) which makes the thesis (astrological prediction) absurd. But we both made our points clearly enough, don't you think?
 
fossilhound said:
Which is exactly the point of the reductio. I concluded an absurdity (I believe) which makes the thesis (astrological prediction) absurd. But we both made our points clearly enough, don't you think?
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Oh, absolutely.

More generally, I'd like to make the point that the process of determining the positions of the planets at your time of birth is a scientific process. The ephemera were constructed by careful observation and measurement, and using the ephemera to calculate a natal chart is a process that involves absolutely no woo. Given a particular natal chart, an astrologer should be able to calculate a person's date and time of birth.

Where astrologers stumble is in attributing the positions to specific meanings in a person's life, and in interpreting those positions with specific meanings. You can't go from an interpretation back to the natal chart that produced that interpretation, because the interpretation is so loose and floppy.
 
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MetalPig said:
Well done. Most successful reverse astrologers are Pisces.
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Nice try, but no cigar. :D

There is an important lesson here to all lurkers. Remember that over the internet, it's surprisingly easy to find out stuff about you and consequently appear psychic. For fun, spread false information around you. That way the scammers give themselves away whenever they try to 'read' you.
 
Mirrorglass said:
Really? You agree that your idea about astrology necessarily being reversible was flawed, and your presentation of it constituted a strawman argument? Just making sure.
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No. You know that's not what I meant. Why the tone of acrimony? It's a logical induction that the train of astrological "logic" should flow in both directions.
 
I use this as an example of a reductio when teaching ILF to my 12th graders. I did reconsider whether I was strawmanning after the criticism, but after careful consideration I believe I am right. It's not strawmanning to follow a nonsense proposition to it's ultimate nonsense. The shotgun analogy above is appropriate. Even though the bb's scatter randomly, each bullet hole directs an investigator back to the firing location.
 
fossilhound said:
No. You know that's not what I meant. Why the tone of acrimony? It's a logical induction that the train of astrological "logic" should flow in both directions.
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No it isn't. It's been explained to you time and time again that it is possible for a model to produce accurate predictions from raw data, with those predictions in themselves not containing enough information to deduce what the original data was. You've been given examples, like a mathematical formula containing the sine function and the relative position of the sun, where this is the case. You have ignored them, for some reason, but that doesn't change the fact that you are wrong.

The tone of acrimony was because I considered your answer to be dishonest. Or did you truly believe that the point of my post was that it is impossible to determine the relative position of the sun to you at the moment of your birth, if I know the moment and the place?
 
I'd like to see a study of people's lives that were born at the same time, with objective data about there lives; best done after they had died; and have the data analyzed for whatever matches may or may not occur.

Shouldn't this be the data that an astrologist would want?
Perhaps there are some interesting 'over-laps' that we don't know about...like a preference for red cars, or something equally objective and mundane.

Does any one know of such an analysis?
Shouldn't be too difficult to do these days, with so much personal data available.

I used to enjoy reading my daily horoscope...a day late...to see how well it predicted what my day had actually been like. Reading it the same day can cause inadvertent confirmation or denial, depending on how you feel about astrology.
 
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