From: casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE)
Subject: Re: Did Nostradamus predict the end of communism?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 12:23:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.100402.13107@tfs.com>, ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes...
>>, so if you want to test it, forget the symbolism and instead
>>deal with the real objects which are being symbolized
> 
>I'll have a quart of Justice and a pound of Truth, please . . .

You want a little Reality to go with that?

>>for a person to accept it (or reject it) based on its accuracy, or else it
>>is totally divorced from reality, and you accept it (or reject it) on faith
>>solely because you think it is a cute (ugly) abstract idea.
> 
>>From listening to people here, most of them seem to think they believe in
>>astrology because it has something to do with reality.
> 
>I doubt that anyone who uses astrology does so with it producing no
>meaningful results for them. This means at least they believe there
>to be significance in it. You can challenge whether their assessment
>is 'true', but I'd like to know how you're going to define a method
>to (in)validate their perception in reference to intangibles.

To the extent astrology, psychology, counseling, etc. help people to think
about their life and work to make themselves happier, I can believe they have
positive effects.  That is not the question.  The question is "Do the positions
of the planets, etc. have anything to do with personality and important events?"
Or is astrology just a complicated system for attaching random and unneeded
baggage to an otherwise useful process of character analysis?

>>Ergo, one can and should check whether this is indeed the case.
> 
>Seems to me the issue here is not whether they believe it but whether
>you do.

Huh?  If you were using a flawed tool to make important decisions and judgements
wouldn't you want to know?  Some of those judgements might be made about me...
suppose a prospective employer runs my horoscope and decides he doesn't like
it?   There are lots of reasons to check the veracity of astrological
techniques.  Astrologers should be leading the charge.

>Tell you what, Mr. Skeptic, do you credence psychic phenomena?

What psychic phenomena?  In general, unless I am shown very persuasive evidence,
assembled under tightly controlled circumstances, no, I do not believe
psychic phenomena are the result of paranormal psychic activity.

>Do you understand the mechanism through which you are attracted to or
>have affection for other people?

I believe I understand it well enough.  Not at the level of the individual
synapse though.  I think a convincing case can be made that emotions have a
biochemical origin.

>What opinion do you have about why so many people care about whether god
>exists or what the nature of god or the universe is?

What does this really have to do with anything?  I am an atheist.  I do however
care myself about whether god exists.  I have no evidence it does.  If you
hear from him, ask him to call me, OK?

>Would you like to be convinced, or are you playing Devil's Advocate?

I am not looking to be convinced for the sake of being convinced.  I would
like to know the way the world operates.  If the planets influence human
behavior, I would like to know that.  If they don't I would like to know that
too.  The evidence I have so far points unambiguously toward the latter.

>Read part two of Barbara Watters' "Horary Astrology and the Judgement
>Of Events", Valhalla Press. Look at the analysis she provides to reach
>the conclusions that she did. Even if she presents there every single
>successful case she ever dealt with, she did some masterful things in
>the real world using Astrology and a very keen mind.

Since I do not have access to extensive English books here in Geneva, I'll have
to pass on that.  Perhaps you could summarize what you think are important
points made by the book.  I am curious, though, as to whether she is predicting
future events or explaining past events after the fact.  "It's tough to make
predictions, especially about the future," as Yogi Berra said.

>Get your chart read by two or three different astrologers, and cooperate
>fairly with them. Any professional astrologer should (in my opinion at
>least) agree that you can tape-record the reading. Look at what they say
>about you and compare it with what you know. Moreover, compare the
>differences in the readings you get - not so much in whether they agree
>about a specific point, but their focus and their approach.

That they would arrive at similar conclusions after applying the accepted
procedures of Western astrology seems obvious.  I have in fact looked over my
own chart.  Half the stuff fits (in various degrees, of course), half doesn't.

Actually quite a few tests of this type have been done.  Character delineation
by chart analysis usually performs at the level of random chance.

>Unless you believe that Psychology is bunk and that Psychologists do no
>useful work in the world, consider that any two therapists will treat you
>differently because they are human. Your experience with the astrologers
>will be identical because they are doing very nearly the same thing with
>you.

I don't see what this paragraph has to do with astrology.  Of course they will
treat me differently.  But are they telling me anything useful based on the
stars, or merely practicing amateur psychology with some random and/or vague
elements thrown in?

>If you wanna argue, let's keep arguing. If you wanna learn (true or false),
>YOU check it out. Direct experience, right?

Well, the net is for discussion.  I agree we're probably not going to settle
anything.  But again we come back to the point: is it possible to reproducibly
test astrology or not?  Having my own chart read by three astrologers is not
the way.

I'd still like to follow up the idea of checking whether retrograde Mercury
really has all the terrible effects I heard about here for a month.  Do you or
don't you agree this is one avenue for testing one specific, well-defined
tenet of astrology or not?  Perhaps interested parties could collaborate and
actually do the study.  Direct experience; direct, documented, reproducible
experience.


Dave

Newsgroups: alt.astrology