Showing posts with label standard theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label standard theory. Show all posts

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Separating astrological effects from anomalies

In a scientific exploration you might not have preconceptions, but you still make assumptions. For example you might be looking for relationships between the planets correlated to some world events like market prices and you don't care what relationships you find. There's still an assumption or hypothesis that you might find some.

What’s missing in exploration is not assumptions but theory, and this is intentional. Someone once saw something weird out there that just didn't make normal sense, and you’re going hunting for it and others like it. It doesn't bother you that it doesn't make sense.

The interesting findings you make, if they are consistent but without theory, are anomalies.

But all astrology, as it has been handed down to us with all its concepts, may be an anomaly, or maybe not. If we agree on mapping principles then we have paradigms and structure, and we can build theories, but of course these theories need to be reliable.

Let’s say we've found anomalies. Either they fit a theory (and are predictably reliable), or they are nothing.

If we don't think these anomalies we’ve found are nothing, because we've found a lot of them, then we'd better think of ways to show that the findings are reliable and predictable. Can we replicate? Can we compare to a control, either physical controls or simulated controls created by shifting the appropriate pieces of data? Can we rank the findings based on eminence, severity, affinity, etc. to see if there is a rule, mathematical function, or a constant that supports it?

If we have an astrological finding that is reliable and predictable (replicable, independent of controls, and co-varies in strength with known factors) then the finding is not an anomaly. It’s a "response," "species," "pattern" or "effect."

It is confusing to some people to say something is an "effect" when effects are taken to be direct and strong physical influences and not just statistical tendencies, and so they have problems with astrology. An effect is not the same as a theory because a theory needs to explain why the effect happens as a feature of nature.

What normally happens with unexpected effects is to embrace the weird by building theory that is consistent with our various effects and our original paradigmatic principles. The findings of these effects might never stop being weird but the effects would begin to make normal sense, at least to some people.

Astrological theory might be different than current standard physical theory, or it might be an extension of it. For example, if we live in a fractal universe, which implies patterns with a mathematical function, then we should have no problem considering such astrological concepts as synchronicity and cosmic symmetry. In a fractal universe, there could be some conceivable cause and effect relationship in astrology through the operation of fractal functionality, which may determine some behaviors, such as planetary movements, but only govern but not determine other behaviors, such as the lives of people as well as the lives of non-living and non-physical entities, which traditional astrology concerns itself with, but standard theory does not.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Why science rejects astrology

Modern science rejects astrology because astrology does not present a "causal mechanism" that the classical parts of Standard Theory would assume to operate between the celestial system and the individual. Science does not recognize the concept that astrology presents instead, which is the natural symmetry that occurs between inner and outer environments. As the ancient Hermetic maxim states: "As above, so below; as below, so above." The inner world of the individual is reflected in the symmetrical outer world of the celestial environment.

Empirical evidence of this type of symmetry is found in hologram fragments. Each fragment contains an image of the whole. Another example is the so-called "self-similarity" found in fractal geometries, where the same shapes or patterns are repeated at different scales within the fractal environment. Although they are not recognized as such, these are symmetries, and they fall into the category of what may be called "cosmic symmetry." The behaviors of microcosms are reflected in the behaviors of their macrocosms and vice versa. Within an environment, behaviors implement cosmic symmetry.

Although relatively inconspicuous compared to other symmetries, cosmic symmetry is nonetheless a feature that is found throughout nature, and this natural feature has gone unacknowledged by science for the past 400 years.