Astrology Doesn't Work
Critical rationalism strikes again
If anyone gives me a theory that explains astrology really well, I will take my words back and make a solid effort at promoting that theory.
Today’s post will be short and brutal. I’m getting back in the saddle after a long pause, and I want to feel the fresh air of stating a point clearly and boldly, and astrology is one of those long-nagging topics that annoy the hell out of me. Today, I choose violence. This post is dedicated to all those who claim that astrology “works” in a similar sense to how physics works. I have no qualms about it being used for various sorts of introspection, narrative (de)construction, and such. But let’s not confuse scientific models with esoteric bullshit.
Most people who try to dismantle the shaky edifice of astrology point out the lack of statistical evidence… and fail. While being a solid piece of counter-evidence, the lack of data doesn’t disprove anything. After all, everybody has their confirmation bias up and running. I personally know people who are professionally into astrology (sorry guys, you know there are no hard feelings; Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas) and they have stated many times they would have valued their own experience above any data from statistical research. Probably that has something to do with the complexity of statistics, probably with a vastly different epistemological landscape in general but anyway, I suggest looking in a different direction.
A much better measure for a wannabe predictive model is whether it provides a good explanation for a given aspect of the world. Surprise, surprise—astrology does not explain its own works. Not in a meaningful way. There are certainly wild esoteric theories but I have not encountered any that would display a concise mechanistic interpretation of how celestial bodies relate to people’s lives and human history.
If anyone gives me a theory that explains astrology really well, I will take my words back and make a solid effort at promoting that theory. Simplicity and completeness will be the acceptance criteria. It should cover everything astrology would allow under the assumptions of that model, and it should be in the ELI5 format (so please, no books or 3-hour videos). I’m making this promise having almost absolute certainty that no one can find or discover a decent explanation for how astrology should work.
Now, the dessert. I should make this one a highlight in my critrat standup one day. Some people who believe in astrology… also believe in the many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here comes a complication. When a universe splits in two, the differences between these two universes only exist inside the entanglement bubble. The speed with which the bubble inflates is limited to the speed of light. Thus, the remote planets and stars are guaranteed to be unaffected and precisely in the same state in both worlds. But the histories within the bubble are different. This leads to a contradiction, and that’s how we can prove that the MWI and astrology are definitely incompatible. Skeletor will return next week with more disturbing facts.
The best and easiest start to test wether astrology "works" is to look into the many predictive techniques. For that you need an exact (within 10min) birth time. There is a technique called zodiacal releasing, that is in most cases quite intriguing.
There is a plethora of good theories, why we are able to meaningfully correlate rhythms in nature with events of our lifes, as individuals and societies.
My favorite way to look at it is fairly simple. It is not so much about cause and effect as it is about analogy or synchronicity. I think it is very possible that biological systems on a micro level are influenced by the same harmonic patterns/laws that also govern the movement of celestial bodies. It is not a question of cause and effect but rather of universal principles of our reality that constrain what is happening randomly. The argument that there is not yet physical paradigm that allows for celestial bodies to influence our consciousness is a straw man. Nobody would claim a clock makes time pass. Rather the clock is a means of observing time, i.e. pattern matching. Astrology is a complex, transcultural, ancient and very lindy language for describing qualitative aspects of time, i.e. how seasonality and natural cycles influence us as human beings.
ELI5:A winter child is imprinted with very different first impressions than a summer child.
I will not put more time into this now, as I am not certain yet of your level of true interest and earnestness. But a very good start would be for you to publicly post your birth day, place and time and see if someone can intrigue you enough to reserach further.
It am still doubting wether you truly grasp the complexity of real astrology as a craft that involves not only the position of the sun in the tropical zodiac but at least 9 other factors that together form a complex multidimensional chart of a person's life.
I don't follow or know much about astrology, and my strong assumption is that if you designed an experiment that the median rationalist would approve, astrology wouldn't pass. However, my model is that "Astrology doesn't work" is malformed — it's like saying "Christianity doesn't work", where 'work' has a loaded meaning.
You may think that 'work' means: "Astrology is unable to predict character traits or the future in a manner better than chance." I'm sure many people would disagree (and thus believe that it can), but my guess is that more people would prefer a definition of 'work' closer to: "Astrology presents a framework to understand ourselves and our place in this universe."
This definition makes fewer scientific claims, and is closer to what many people who affirmatively believe "Christianity works" would be comfortable aligning with.