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memetic archeology's avatar

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.

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Andrew Conner's avatar

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.

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