Comment by a_subsystem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_subsystem | Hacker News Reader

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"That the celestial bodies are not always reliable became evident when no astrologer was able to predict that on March 30, 1981, at 2:27 p.m., EST, President Reagan would be shot in the chest during an assassination attempt.", "Unfortunately, her occupations had precluded her from doing this."

Quigley wasn't his astrologer at the time. I believe she was either dismissed from his service, or had left for some other reason. She was called back to his service after the shooting.

"Today, people’s blind belief in the power of astrology to reveal the future strikes us as absurd, because our mental stance is radically different."

Blind belief in anything is absurd.

This guy seems to conflate pop astrologers / grifters with actual astrologers. The grifters will claim to be able to predict the future. Actual astrologers will claim to explain the fields of possibility that will present themselves to people using archetypal languages; this is what astrology 'actually is': a language of archetypes. It has been my experience that 100% of the time it is people who know very little about astrology (like the author of this article) who deride it as 'false'. But that's about as useful as saying chemistry or Swahili is false.

"the astrologer-physician predicted that Hamilton would live happily, but would be in danger of dying from cardiac disease", "he predicted a life of political as well as ecclesiastical power.", "he foretold that the young king was going to live a long life"

This... is not how astrology works at all. Grifter or just woefully uninformed.

We don't go around proclaiming that physics is trash because of Newton.

Predictions are falsifiable, which is why prediction-making astrology is easy to show as bullshit.

Your "real" astrology sound like it is vague enough to be non-falsifiable. But it is still bullshit, since celestial bodies does not affect the "fields of possibility" unless you are an astronaut.

And your 'proof' is where?

What needs to be proven is the claim that the stars _do_ influence anything, not the default position that they don't.

Proof of what? You can't prove or disprove an unfalsifiable claim.

"But it is still bullshit, since celestial bodies does not affect the "fields of possibility" unless you are an astronaut."

I imagined you could back up the claim if you were going to make it.

You can't prove a negative, as I'm sure you are aware. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim of an effect.

It would be beneficial to have an open mind to the possibility of there being an effect. It serves no purpose to say "I know" when in fact, one does not.

No scientist knows how quantum entanglement works, we don't know how light photosynthesizes in plants, but by some magic we're super-familiar with the macroscopic properties of planets enough to say they're dead rocks/gas?

I'm sure there are all kinds of things we don't know about the planets and universe. But astrologers make positive claims about particular effects on human life. These claims are unfounded.

The fact we don't know everything does not give anybody a free pass to just make up bullshit.

Can you present such a claim and your dispute?

Astrology is a tricky one. Any competent astrologer could look at a chart and say any number of objectively false things that are simultaneously true within a given field of archetypal possibility. It's ability to narrow the scope in this way is astounding, and also what makes it "true" even though most predictions might factually miss the mark.

Without a sophisticated understanding of the house system, no skeptic could possibly understand. I've given up trying to explain it. Those who know, know.

Without a sophisticated understanding of the house system, no skeptic could possibly understand.

There are over a dozen house systems. I prefer Placidus myself, but it seems like a meaningless statement.

https://www.horoscope.com/us/editorial/faqs/editorial-faq-ho....

I studied astrology in earnest in my teens and twenties and considered becoming an astrologer. I was a homemaker who wanted a divorce. It's a field with no governing body telling you who is a "qualified" astrologer and who isn't.

As far as I can tell: You don't get a college degree in it. There's no equivalent of a bar exam.

At least such seemed true last time I cared to look.

I was casting charts for friends and such. I also had done a lot of therapy.

One day, I realized my advice had gotten better because of all the therapy I had done, not because of astrology.

I knew the day I met her man the first time that he was not right. Casting a chart and telling her "It's a bad relationship." amounted to giving her my longstanding opinion of her relationship and using astrology as an excuse to do so, thus my opinion expressed elsewhere in comments here that astrologers were likely learned men giving good advice because they were educated and saying "the stars say so" to cover their butts.

I like astrology. I don't think it's useless.

I like it because it provides me a menu to choose from to sort my problems that I have as yet not found in any other school of thought.

"Ah, it's a Saturn influence. Saturn rules poverty and limitations. It also rules time and effort and hard work. I can accept my poverty and limitations or I can put in the time, effort and hard work to overcome them."

I like astrology, but at some point I made the conscious decision that if I was going to be paid for my professional advice, I would get a degree and call it "my professional opinion, based on thus and such" and not claim "the stars say so" as my way of washing my hands of personal responsibility for sometimes being wrong.

HN is probably the worst place possible to mock skeptics of astrology. Historically, admitting to belief in it was a good way to cut your throat.

I have no idea why this piece is on the front page. But maybe we can try to discuss the topic without skeptics suggesting people who believe in it are merely idiots and vice versa.

> it seems like a meaningless statement

To elaborate, I was using it to qualify my description of astrological truth vs concrete truth; without understanding the houses, and thus the archetypes at ones disposal for a given frame of reference, one can't understand how an incorrect prediction could simultaneously be true.

To give the simplest of examples: Astrologer predicts in 2033 that so and so is going to have a child, based upon Jupiter transiting the 5th house. So and so doesn't have a child, but rather publishes a book that they have been passionately working on. The prediction is concretely false, but if you understand the houses, it is actually true, since the 5th governs children and creative endeavors. One has "given birth" to a book. Roughly speaking, this is the primary mode of astrological prediction. It takes a certain fluidity of mind and some learning to grasp this sort of thing -- that is, archetypal thinking -- and one can't expect skeptics to equip themselves for such a task unless they are already so inclined.

I fully understand why the house system is a big deal to astrologers. For one thing, it's like half the chart. It dramatically enriches the amount of information you have to work with.

I've spent a lot of years toying with the idea of writing a blog that critiques astrology in a serious way. I've even made a few stabs at it.

But it seems like a pointless waste of time. People who believe in astrology wouldn't want to hear "You're wrong!" and people who think it's hoccum wouldn't bother to read it.

Understanding the house system can explain to other people who believe in astrology why astrologers sometimes make predictions that are so off the mark. It cannot explain to skeptics why astrologers think the stars empower them to predict anything.

And skeptics are not wrong to wonder that. Astrology has a poor track for prediction.

I don't personally think predicting extremely specific future events (like the birth of a child) is even a good use for astrology. And I'm someone who studied it in earnest and still thinks it has some merit, yet I spend less and less time on the topic.

> But maybe we can try to discuss the topic without skeptics suggesting people who believe in it are merely idiots and vice versa.

Why? All the rest of your comment was you explaining how you had come to realise there was no "there" there to believe in. So, congratulations on having stopped being an idiot, but why shouldn't we be allowed to point out that those who believe in idiocy are being idiots?

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