4 ms·

Which is not the point of OP's question.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Thank you. Why did ancient people look up at the skies and try to make sense of it..they created charts and tried to figure out their paths. A lot of astrological concepts are certainly archetypes but if you strip all that down, at the core is an attempt to understand the traffic patterns of celestial bodies and it’s impact on us. I do see the impact of weather and climate and lunar cycles in my farm and plant growth cycles. One cannot work the soil and in nature and deny that there is some kind of thread that connects earth and the skies. Someone long time ago suggested that it affects human behaviors and motivations. Romantically I can say that we are made of water and stardust and hence of course, they affect us..but surely it can also be conveyed mathematically? That’s what I want to learn about..I am no mathematician..and that’s why any tools or thought process or module I can adopt to make sense of it will be enormously helpful to my learning.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Quite. Can't really help you on how to analyse a pattern from it. First figure out how to represent what's in all those assorted books without bringing your own skew or bias in how you're assembling it. I'm stone cold on modern astrology, I suspect it more likely the season you were born and spent first three months (i.e. freezing cold or nice and warm) influences more than Mars or Libra. At the same time there was a lot of awareness of science and medicine far further back than you might think, often buried or silenced behind religious policy or dogma, and it was a rather different beast back then. It wasn't specific predictions until much later (well at least how I understand fromt he histories I;ve read). Seasonal patterns and growth cycles have been known since, well, Stonehenge -- hopefully those aren't too controversial too. :) I see the question has been flagged. Perhaps it might be better to think of how to ask the analysis question generically enough to get past the HN "woo mumbo jumbo" reaction, like "how do I analyse patterns in a vague data set from multiple, potentially contradicting ancient texts" or some such. or s/astrology/astronomy/ and resubmit. :)
mytailorisrich 7y ago
Well, you brought it up... Anyway, I believe it is related to OP's question (and so are my other comments). If (s)he wants to see if astrology is a 'predictive science', make predictions, and analyse them to find and interpret any patterns (s)he has to give serious thoughts about what sort of predictions can be made and how (which I think is key since 'predictions' really are whatever the astrologer 'interprets'...), how to analyse the results and what significance any patterns might have. As such (s)he cannot simply brush anything deemed 'inconvenient' under the carpet.
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  Good point, but it is irrelevant to selecting the right tools to document, analyze, record and map. Astrology can say that your left eyelid will twitch on the seventh day of the waxing moon and it still is a data point.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  But astrology has changed dramatically though, which I was trying to avoid getting into an argument about. I haven't studied or read up on it, but have read a lot of history, particularly of Medieval times and earlier. For hundreds of years it was inseparable from astronomy. Astronomers making predictions, astrologers identifying events in the year or night sky, diligently recording eclipses and comets. The terms were interchangeable. For centuries they were the same thing, thus there probably is valid science potentially in some of those writings, much as chemist and alchemist were at one time the same thing. Alchemists figured out many chemical reactions, or purified real drugs long before we separated them out into chemistry and mystical hogwash. Just as religion were once connected with scholarship and education (and astrology) too. So I suspect if there is any grain of predictive basis it would be astronomical or meteorological in nature rather than the vanishingly unlikely finding a life partner third week of next month or next Tuesday being particularly lucky. shrug
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    It hasn't changed. Astrology uses actual astronomical observations and predictions about the movement of planets, which is scientific (astronomy), and uses them to make predictions about events on Earth, the behaviour of people, or whatnot, which isn't. That was the case then, it's still the case now. The difference is that we now know what is fact and what is fiction so that astrology is relegated to harmless issues... Astrology to decide medical treatments is no longer tolerated or legal, but to decide who to date still is.

Thank you. Why did ancient people look up at the skies and try to make sense of it..they created charts and tried to figure out their paths. A lot of astrological concepts are certainly archetypes but if you strip all that down, at the core is an attempt to understand the traffic patterns of celestial bodies and it’s impact on us. I do see the impact of weather and climate and lunar cycles in my farm and plant growth cycles. One cannot work the soil and in nature and deny that there is some kind of thread that connects earth and the skies. Someone long time ago suggested that it affects human behaviors and motivations. Romantically I can say that we are made of water and stardust and hence of course, they affect us..but surely it can also be conveyed mathematically? That’s what I want to learn about..I am no mathematician..and that’s why any tools or thought process or module I can adopt to make sense of it will be enormously helpful to my learning.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Quite. Can't really help you on how to analyse a pattern from it. First figure out how to represent what's in all those assorted books without bringing your own skew or bias in how you're assembling it. I'm stone cold on modern astrology, I suspect it more likely the season you were born and spent first three months (i.e. freezing cold or nice and warm) influences more than Mars or Libra. At the same time there was a lot of awareness of science and medicine far further back than you might think, often buried or silenced behind religious policy or dogma, and it was a rather different beast back then. It wasn't specific predictions until much later (well at least how I understand fromt he histories I;ve read). Seasonal patterns and growth cycles have been known since, well, Stonehenge -- hopefully those aren't too controversial too. :) I see the question has been flagged. Perhaps it might be better to think of how to ask the analysis question generically enough to get past the HN "woo mumbo jumbo" reaction, like "how do I analyse patterns in a vague data set from multiple, potentially contradicting ancient texts" or some such. or s/astrology/astronomy/ and resubmit. :)

mytailorisrich 7y ago

Well, you brought it up... Anyway, I believe it is related to OP's question (and so are my other comments). If (s)he wants to see if astrology is a 'predictive science', make predictions, and analyse them to find and interpret any patterns (s)he has to give serious thoughts about what sort of predictions can be made and how (which I think is key since 'predictions' really are whatever the astrologer 'interprets'...), how to analyse the results and what significance any patterns might have. As such (s)he cannot simply brush anything deemed 'inconvenient' under the carpet.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Good point, but it is irrelevant to selecting the right tools to document, analyze, record and map. Astrology can say that your left eyelid will twitch on the seventh day of the waxing moon and it still is a data point.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
But astrology has changed dramatically though, which I was trying to avoid getting into an argument about. I haven't studied or read up on it, but have read a lot of history, particularly of Medieval times and earlier. For hundreds of years it was inseparable from astronomy. Astronomers making predictions, astrologers identifying events in the year or night sky, diligently recording eclipses and comets. The terms were interchangeable. For centuries they were the same thing, thus there probably is valid science potentially in some of those writings, much as chemist and alchemist were at one time the same thing. Alchemists figured out many chemical reactions, or purified real drugs long before we separated them out into chemistry and mystical hogwash. Just as religion were once connected with scholarship and education (and astrology) too. So I suspect if there is any grain of predictive basis it would be astronomical or meteorological in nature rather than the vanishingly unlikely finding a life partner third week of next month or next Tuesday being particularly lucky. shrug
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  It hasn't changed. Astrology uses actual astronomical observations and predictions about the movement of planets, which is scientific (astronomy), and uses them to make predictions about events on Earth, the behaviour of people, or whatnot, which isn't. That was the case then, it's still the case now. The difference is that we now know what is fact and what is fiction so that astrology is relegated to harmless issues... Astrology to decide medical treatments is no longer tolerated or legal, but to decide who to date still is.