Theoretical Astrology

I'm really not sure where to post this, as there isn't really a forum to discuss this sort of matter. Research and Development seems to be the best place, because research needs to start with an idea, right? Since my questions are theoretical, there can't really be any testing... but... eh, whatever.

So, I got into Astrology about ten years ago and didn't really progress any further than learning the signs, and a few of the major aspects. Relying mostly on Linda Goodman's Relationship signs for my thoughts and study. Most of the things, like the different types of astrology, orbs, meanings, etc while I find very interesting, gets extremely confusing very quickly.

What I found most interesting were the questions that I came up with from the very beginning. So I'd like to share some of my questions and thoughts with you... and maybe find some more questions and thoughts on some of the more theoretical applications of Astrology.

First:

The first question, I'm sure most people have already come up with:
If I was born on a different planet, what would my chart look like?

Sure, right now, space travel/being born on other worlds/living on other worlds is far in the future... but it might be helpful to start looking at the question to get an idea of what future generations might expect.

If I were born on Mars, and lived on Mars my entire life... would Mars be the center of my chart, and Earth a planet effecting my chart?
If Earth is a planet effecting my chart, what are it's characteristics?
Would an Astrologer instead draw a line from where I was born on the other planet, to a spot on Earth to determine how to draw my chart?
How would that line be determined?

Second:

Do the planets really effect us, or is it just the background pattern of the universe (rounding chaos), and we simply use the planets and placements to determine where in the pattern we are in that pattern?
Because of Astrology's bad name in Science, how can a person afford to research it legitimately to find the answer to the previous question? - (The answer I came up with was, prove it works in a way that there can be no doubt, see Proving Astrology for more info).

Third:

There can be no question that the planets and forces move in a very specific manner. It can be charted, and this pattern repeats. An example would be, you'll never find an Ares (sun) with a Libra Mercury, it just doesn't work like that.

How adaptable is our psyche to the changes in these patterns?

Say we had the technology to travel in time. I shoot a laser beam at you, and poof, your back in 1901.
How much of a shock would it be to us, simply because we were removed from the natural progression of the pattern, and placed in the progress of a different pattern?
One minute your dealing with Saturn in Libra, and the next your dealing with Saturn in Capricorn.
Would it be less stressful, less of a shock if you revisited a time that your chart had already experienced? Like sending you back to a time that existed in your life?

Fourth:

If we could artificially generate the effects that Astrology relates, say in a small room, containing it... what would happen if we moved the pattern back? What would happen if we moved the pattern forward?
Would we see the past in that room?
Would we see the future?
Or would nothing visible happen?
If we were in the room when that happened, would we travel in time?
Would we age rapidly?
Would we get younger suddenly?
Or would nothing happen?

I don't know why... everyone else in the books I've read, on forums, and pretty much anywhere seem so focused on Astrology itself. How "this" effects "this", what "this" means... it just seems really odd to me that there aren't at least some people focusing more on the why's, and how's, and the what happens if's. They seem distracted by the almost overwhelming difficulty of the task that needs to take place, or afraid of being treated as a martyr... so instead they focus on the other things, because that brings more immediate satisfaction.

Astrologers seems so brow beat into accepting that everyone else considers this an occultic science. Or they themselves like to ascribe mysticism to it... I don't understand that. I just don't.

Astrology works. It really does. It can be so incredibly helpful... especially in the near future. The world needs a change, and Astrology can do that. Bringing it from the underworld, the back alleys, and whispers, to the forefront of the science community Can-Change-The-World-As-We-Know-It. For the better, and for the worse.

After many years in this, and related fields (such as bioenergetic medicine and homeopathy), all I can say is: good luck to you in your efforts. There HAVE BEEN objective attempts to determine the how and why (mechanisms of action) in astrology (and homeopathy and many other fields of this type); and there is literature available on these investigations. Let me say that even the best of this type of work has been ignored by the mainstream-when all possibility of chance and error have been swept away (as in a few of these investigations), and results remain, then the mainstream simply plops these results into the "artifact" category, and forgets about them because they have been classified as "artifacts".

But, maybe it will be different for you! Best wishes!

Rayek said:

I'm really not sure where to post this, as there isn't really a forum to discuss this sort of matter. Research and Development seems to be the best place, because research needs to start with an idea, right? Since my questions are theoretical, there can't really be any testing... but... eh, whatever.

Click to expand...

Given the kinds of questions you're asking you might like my article After Symbolism, which deals with such issues, including a causal account of how something like astrology could even be possible, a sketch of the kind of astrology (motivations, not external events are timed by transits, "astrological" events are caused by us rather than happen to us, etc.) licensed by this account and suggested by empirical research, and descriptions of several promising lines of research.

So, I got into Astrology about ten years ago and didn't really progress any further than learning the signs, and a few of the major aspects. Relying mostly on Linda Goodman's Relationship signs for my thoughts and study. Most of the things, like the different types of astrology, orbs, meanings, etc while I find very interesting, gets extremely confusing very quickly.

Click to expand...

One of Francis Bacon's most perceptive insights was: "Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion." If we have a wrong idea, and it can be shown to be wrong, we can correct, improve or replace it. But if we're confronted with a blizzard of ideas with no way of differentiating between fact and fancy we're simply lost at sea. We don't know where to begin to bring order out of chaos. There is an unwitting point, however, to astrology's reign of confusion. With enough factors, with enough techniques, with enough elasticity of meaning and logic, virtually any chart can be made to "explain" virtually any eventuality and astrology will always seem to "work for me" despite its paucity of empirical content. No field can progress unless it exists in the meantime, and it exists in the meantime only if we think it already works, so for much of its history a way for it to seem to work even in the absence of established facts was a necessity. But that way of thinking, which is instilled in each astrologer by the very process of learning to do astrology, is now holding us back from a more powerful and rapid form of development.

What I found most interesting were the questions that I came up with from the very beginning. So I'd like to share some of my questions and thoughts with you... and maybe find some more questions and thoughts on some of the more theoretical applications of Astrology.

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Some of our earliest questions are the most perceptive. Part of what we learn, when we learn how to do astrology by following examples (i.e. paradigms in Kuhn's original meaning of the term), is how not to see some of the things that bothered us when we were neophytes. The student assumes that the problem is hers, that it's her inexperience causing the confusion, and when she eventually becomes unconfused or unbothered she doesn't realize that it's largely because she's "learned" how not to see some of the things that troubled her at first.

The first question, I'm sure most people have already come up with:
If I was born on a different planet, what would my chart look like?

Sure, right now, space travel/being born on other worlds/living on other worlds is far in the future... but it might be helpful to start looking at the question to get an idea of what future generations might expect.

If I were born on Mars, and lived on Mars my entire life... would Mars be the center of my chart, and Earth a planet effecting my chart?
If Earth is a planet effecting my chart, what are it's characteristics?
Would an Astrologer instead draw a line from where I was born on the other planet, to a spot on Earth to determine how to draw my chart?
How would that line be determined?

Click to expand...

The first question is, Could you be born on Mars? to which I have no answer. I don't know if there are subtle temporal effects the lack of which might make it impossible to carry a baby to term in a Martian environment. But if you simply posit a person being on Mars, by whatever means, I am pretty sure of this. The clocks that time you, physiologically and psychologically at various temporal wavelengths, have evolved here on earth, and in recent years chronobiologists have established pretty conclusively that these clocks are internal. It is the internal circadian clock, not the sun's position at various times of day, that determines when we're sleepy or alert, active or quiescent, and a host of other factors including body temperature that change according to a 24-hour rhythm. What the sun does, besides being the temporal template for the evolution of 24-hour processes, is reset the clock once a day. The internal clock isn't exactly 24 hours and would gradually drift out of alignment with the sun if not reset daily.

On Mars we might either adapt to the martian day, about 24 hours and 40 minutes long, or our various inner rhythms would simply free-run at their normal evolved intervals. I'm not sure how the diminished sunlight would affect its ability to reset the circadian clock. It might need to be supplemented. As for Mars rhythms, Jupiter rhythms, etc. I suspect they will continue as before, since in each case the rhythm itself is internal rather than external and is thus taken with us wherever we go. In the absence of actual instances this is all, of course, mere speculation.

My hypothesis is that Mars, Jupiter et al also have served as temporal templates for the evolution of biological (including psychological) processes that correspond to their periodicities, that in each case the planet resets the clock at some point in its cycle, and that (more speculatively) it's the clock, not the planet at its current point in space, that determines the timing of the various developments in the cycle, including the turning points when characteristic motivational patterns come to the forefront, causing us to want to make changes.

Do the planets really effect us, or is it just the background pattern of the universe (rounding chaos), and we simply use the planets and placements to determine where in the pattern we are in that pattern?
Because of Astrology's bad name in Science, how can a person afford to research it legitimately to find the answer to the previous question? - (The answer I came up with was, prove it works in a way that there can be no doubt, see Proving Astrology for more info).

Click to expand...

I think life on earth has used the planets, which are the largest and most stable sources of "time" in our cosmic neighborhood, as temporal templates around which to organize its constituent processes. Hence the planets themselves cause nothing, nor is each's physical make-up or name a clue to its supposed inherent meaning.

There can be no question that the planets and forces move in a very specific manner. It can be charted, and this pattern repeats. An example would be, you'll never find an Ares (sun) with a Libra Mercury, it just doesn't work like that.

How adaptable is our psyche to the changes in these patterns?

Say we had the technology to travel in time. I shoot a laser beam at you, and poof, your back in 1901.
How much of a shock would it be to us, simply because we were removed from the natural progression of the pattern, and placed in the progress of a different pattern?
One minute your dealing with Saturn in Libra, and the next your dealing with Saturn in Capricorn.
Would it be less stressful, less of a shock if you revisited a time that your chart had already experienced? Like sending you back to a time that existed in your life?

Click to expand...

Surprisingly, perhaps, I sort of grok what you're getting at here, but don't have the time at this time to do it justice (I don't write fast). It's actually a pretty deep question, one that I've considered in other contexts. You have a wicked imagination.

If we could artificially generate the effects that Astrology relates, say in a small room, containing it... what would happen if we moved the pattern back? What would happen if we moved the pattern forward?
Would we see the past in that room?
Would we see the future?
Or would nothing visible happen?
If we were in the room when that happened, would we travel in time?
Would we age rapidly?
Would we get younger suddenly?
Or would nothing happen?

Click to expand...

This, too, is something I'll try to address at another time. From what I've already written it might be evident that I don't see "the astrological effect" as the sort of thing that could in principle "be" in a room or any other physical location, but that doesn't mean your thought experiment is barren. You've asked some thoughtful, imaginative questions which I'll return to if I can find time. (Busy co-authoring a book.)

I don't know why... everyone else in the books I've read, on forums, and pretty much anywhere seem so focused on Astrology itself. How "this" effects "this", what "this" means... it just seems really odd to me that there aren't at least some people focusing more on the why's, and how's, and the what happens if's. They seem distracted by the almost overwhelming difficulty of the task that needs to take place, or afraid of being treated as a martyr... so instead they focus on the other things, because that brings more immediate satisfaction.

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Most people are less interested in the why of something than in just using it. There are people -- I'm one of them -- interested in the why's and how's and from time to time a "heavy" discussion will break out in a group normally preoccupied with more mundane concerns, but they don't happen everyday and you don't meet people like that very often. That being said, hi.

Astrologers seems so brow beat into accepting that everyone else considers this an occultic science. Or they themselves like to ascribe mysticism to it... I don't understand that. I just don't.

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Astrology has been inherently implausible to the educated "class" since the second half of the seventeenth century. That's when it began its precipitous decline. The change is due, I believe, to the Uranus/Neptune conjunction at midcentury. The Newtonian world-machine, which was created one Saturn cycle later, supplanted a reality-picture in which astrology played a central and plausible role. Living in the modern world we can't be totally oblivious to current accepted notions about reality and causation, so it's natural to feel defensive in the company of those who don't see how something like astrology could work. With respect to astrology as understood by the overwhelming majority of astrologers, I don't see how it could work, either.

However, unlike debunkers who "know" it doesn't work, and astrologers who "know" it does, I'm driven to imagine/discover what it would have to be like in order to work. So many astrological researchers seem to think astrology will be accepted only in the wake of a revolution in science, after which it will make sense that astrology as we understand it actually works. This is the tail wagging the dog. Rather than a revolution in science, what we need is a revolution in astrology, so that it becomes knowledge of a kind of order that actually exists in the world and can be understood in post-Newtonian terms.

Astrology works. It really does. It can be so incredibly helpful... especially in the near future. The world needs a change, and Astrology can do that. Bringing it from the underworld, the back alleys, and whispers, to the forefront of the science community Can-Change-The-World-As-We-Know-It. For the better, and for the worse.

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Careful there. I suggest that you, me and everyone else here was predisposed to believe in astrology from the beginning, that there is something about the kind of order it posits that attracts us, just as a chemical or physical or biological approach to understanding reality attracts certain other individuals. They may think that they accept the validity of the science they study based on the evidence offered in their textbooks, but that is as much a myth as the skeptic of astrology who, being open-minded, checks it out and ends up being "convinced against my will." We believe in astrology because we want to, but that doesn't mean we can't make the astrology we believe in something that's more believable than what we started with. And I believe that the more plausible astrology that results from such a process will, in the final analysis, still give us much of what attracted us to the older astrology in the first place.

Rayek said:

...........What I found most interesting were the questions that I came up with from the very beginning. So I'd like to share some of my questions and thoughts with you... and maybe find some more questions and thoughts on some of the more theoretical applications of Astrology.

First:
The first question, I'm sure most people have already come up with:
If I was born on a different planet, what would my chart look like?
............Sure, right now, space travel/being born on other worlds/living on other worlds is far in the future... but it might be helpful to start looking at the question to get an idea of what future generations might expect......If I were born on Mars, and lived on Mars my entire life... would Mars be the center of my chart, and Earth a planet effecting my chart?
If Earth is a planet effecting my chart, what are it's characteristics?
Would an Astrologer instead draw a line from where I was born on the other planet, to a spot on Earth to determine how to draw my chart?
How would that line be determined?

Click to expand...

You would need to draw a Mars centred chart. Here's a link to an article re: Mars centred charts/Planet centred charts that you may find interesting http://www.skyviewzone.com/articles/article4sc.htm

spock said:

Given the kinds of questions you're asking you might like my article After Symbolism, which deals with such issues, including a causal account of how something like astrology could even be possible, a sketch of the kind of astrology (motivations, not external events are timed by transits, "astrological" events are caused by us rather than happen to us, etc.) licensed by this account and suggested by empirical research, and descriptions of several promising lines of research.

Click to expand...

I like the way you think, really I do. It's difficult to find people with a willingness to have an open mind and the ability to actually absorb another persons point of view without immediately agreeing with or discrediting what they are saying.

I read your article, and while I found it interesting... I also found it to be a very difficult read. It read like a text book, which I'm sure you were going for, but the whole time I was reading it I couldn't help but feel as if you were trying to say something that could have been put much simpler with greater impact.

I translated it as you were making a nature vs nurture argument. No, that's not quite right... a nature vs environment/nurture argument into how people should be viewing astrology. Nature in this case being the "planets/signs" your born with as well as the current transits effecting you vs environment/nurture, how you were raised and the people/objects you are around and how they influence your nature. Hence why it is more viable to find out the individuals patterns in the past rather than base a reading solely on the traditional way of doing things.

That isn't quite what you're saying, more of a warped version of it. Either way, it's getting bookmarked so I can go back through it someday.

I call Astrology - Rounding Chaos. And I came by this term after running across the third picture from this web page in a book. http://mrflip.com/teach/lessons/newton/NewtonsFractals.html

Something about that picture calls to me and places itself in the Astrology category of my mind, like it's relevant and I don't know why. You take a chaotic system and try to apply a pattern to it, you can get basins that are relatively easy to define but the boundaries become an infinite fractal pattern. Positive/Negative, Leader/Organizer/Communicator, Fire/Earth/Air/Water, 12 houses/signs, orbs/degrees. Every step seems to be trying to round the chaos into more and more basins of understanding, but what it really comes down to is, it's still chaos... and basically what Astrology is trying to do is round chaos.

Unlike most science, which attempts to break down chaos from the starting point of it's smallest denominator. Astrology is breaking down chaos from the other end of the spectrum, starting from chaos and breaking it in two... then three, then four, then 12, then 360.

This idea isn't quite right, but I think the idea might be enough to lead someone to what is right.

I remember being fascinated when reading in Mundane Astrology, European natives different pelvises to people born in North America - and the grandchildren of European settlers to America had pelvises of the American kind. In only two generations, something had the skeletal structure being passed down the ancestral line had changed to that which is natural to the new part of the Earth. The authors were suggesting that perhaps each part of the Earth has a different energy that affects the beings that are born there, irrespective of planetary pattens, etc.

If people were born on another planet, and then they had children, how might they differ in shape? Would people born on Mars have large foreheads (Mars) as has been imagined in many a sci-fi film? We'd lose our beloved Moon by being born on Mars, because the Moon would just be in the same part of the chart as the Earth. But we'd have two Moons in its place - so I wonder what affect that would have?

Uranus rotates on an axis that is fairly parallel to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, so the planets would always fall near the MC, or the IC, I think???

why does astrology work - resources
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showpost.php?p=291766&postcount=12
http://www.magicalmiracles.com/astrology.htm
http://www.thedreamtime.com/Astrology/Why-Astrology-Works.html
http://www.thegreenduck.com/ka/astwork.shtml
http://www.islandnet.com/~licht/why_astrology.htm
http://www.miscellaneoustalk.com/misc/does-astrology-work/
http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2010/09/does-astrology-really-work-how/

charmvirgo said:

Our being, which goes beyond just physical, is encoded in our DNA, and we originated on Earth, which is why we are subject to geocentric influences even if living on other planets. In order to create the DNA in the first place, Earth is only able to create life as we know it because it is exactly the right temperature, the right size, the right distance from the Sun, has the right astmosphere, the right type of core, etc, etc.

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DNA changes based on our surroundings, so would it not stand to reason that if it is encoded in our DNA, should we migrate and live on another hospitable world... this aspect would also change?

EDIT: It has been pointed out that this information is false. I was thinking of genetics not DNA. Sorry.

miquar said:

I remember being fascinated when reading in Mundane Astrology, European natives different pelvises to people born in North America - and the grandchildren of European settlers to America had pelvises of the American kind. In only two generations, something had the skeletal structure being passed down the ancestral line had changed to that which is natural to the new part of the Earth. The authors were suggesting that perhaps each part of the Earth has a different energy that affects the beings that are born there, irrespective of planetary pattens, etc.

If people were born on another planet, and then they had children, how might they differ in shape? Would people born on Mars have large foreheads (Mars) as has been imagined in many a sci-fi film? We'd lose our beloved Moon by being born on Mars, because the Moon would just be in the same part of the chart as the Earth. But we'd have two Moons in its place - so I wonder what affect that would have?

Uranus rotates on an axis that is fairly parallel to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, so the planets would always fall near the MC, or the IC, I think???

Click to expand...

I'm actually of two minds about this. Part of me wants to say, "Yes! Yes! Yes! People born on Mars would have huge foreheads and be born with a Mars centric chart. That would be awesome!"

The other part of me wants to say that Astrology is just the study of the background pattern of the universe. To get an accurate chart, it would still be Earth centric... drawing a line from where a person was born to Earth because it's easier to use the accumulated data from Earth than to figure out spacial coordinates in the universe and working from there to determine the current part of the pattern that one is being influenced by.

astrologer50 said:

why does astrology work - resources
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showpost.php?p=291766&postcount=12

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Wish it wasn't just a list of books.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.magicalmiracles.com/astrology.htm

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Based in Multiverse theory. I've seen a lot of interesting thoughts come from Multiverse theory, but nothing to do with Astrology... until now. Kind of reminds me when a lot of Astrologers were pointing to Electromagnatism as the reason why Astrology works, except this one is much cooler. I unfortunately don't find it really credible... at least not in my universe.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.thedreamtime.com/Astrology/Why-Astrology-Works.html

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I honestly hate to say this, but monkeys throwing food at a newspaper taped to the wall had better stock predictions than the guy who uses Astrology as his tool of anylsis. It's difficult to look at anything else on this page as accurate information when the third sentence is false.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.thegreenduck.com/ka/astwork.shtml

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I cringe when I see the terms "metaphysical" and "synchronisity". But I rather enjoyed this one. It doesn't actually explain HOW astrology works, not from a scientific standpoint, but it did provide a nice analogy and a warm fuzzy feeling.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.islandnet.com/~licht/why_astrology.htm

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Well put together, well thought out... but I still think it is foolish to deny the ability to scientifically explain astrology. Relying on sychronisity as the answer still seems sort of like giving up. Like the church denying that the Earth is round because they don't believe it and they don't have evidence to support it. It just... seems like giving up because finding the answer is too hard. I come from the mindset that given enough time and information, everything can be explained by science.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.miscellaneoustalk.com/misc/does-astrology-work/

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Just gives a few various interpretations of the more popular reasons why people think it works. Interesting, but already covered by your previous links.

astrologer50 said:

http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2010/09/does-astrology-really-work-how/

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Doesn't explain anything, other than people have questions on how it works. The writers answer to that is, why yes, it does work. ??


But since this is a theoretical astrological discussion... I'm curious.... Since you're theoretically focusing on the "How does Astrology Work"... how do you think it works?



Personally, I think we're all in a giant AI generated universe. The people who created the program understood that in order to recreate intelligence one must start from the smallest denominator and work it's way out. Astrology is the parameters set to the program to get it to run and continue evolving.

Or that's one thought.

Rayek said:

I'm actually of two minds about this. Part of me wants to say, "Yes! Yes! Yes! People born on Mars would have huge foreheads and be born with a Mars centric chart. That would be awesome!"

The other part of me wants to say that Astrology is just the study of the background pattern of the universe. To get an accurate chart, it would still be Earth centric... drawing a line from where a person was born to Earth because it's easier to use the accumulated data from Earth than to figure out spacial coordinates in the universe and working from there to determine the current part of the pattern that one is being influenced by.

Click to expand...

Hi. If you were born on Mars, then Mars would be at the centre of the chart, and the House positions would be based on where the rational horizon and meridian (except Equal House system, etc) of the birth place on Mars crossed the plane of Mars' orbit around the Sun. The zodiac itself would be on a different plane to our zodiac on Earth. Earth on the Martian native would just be another inner planet that clung to the Sun throughout the year, as Mercury and Venus do for us. I'm sure that within a couple of generations of conception, pregnancy and birth, that we would see physiological differences compared to their terrestrial ancestors!

I think the Moon being replaced with two moons could reflect some emotional upheaval - perhaps a kind of instinctual schizophrenia. I think that maybe this would be the biggest adjustment of a life form that evolved on Earth to being gestated, born and raised on Mars.

Rayek said:

DNA changes based on our surroundings, so would it not stand to reason that if it is encoded in our DNA, should we migrate and live on another hospitable world... this aspect would also change?

Click to expand...

Where did you hear this? It's a central tenet of molecular biology that DNA does not change based on our surroundings. That's long-discredited Lamarckian evolution, in which for instance the giraffe stretching its neck to reach tasty leaves lengthens it, and then passes on this lengthened neck (via its DNA) to its progeny. Maybe you're thinking of the phenotype, the individual's actual observed properties, which is strongly influenced by its genotype (its genetic makeup, or DNA) but also subtly by environmental factors. For instance, if two people have identical genotypes but one is malnourished while growing up, she'll be shorter than her genetic twin. But being malnourished doesn't affect our DNA and neither would living on Mars. Almost certainly we'd have to function on a 24-hour schedule or suffer physiological consequences, which if we deviated far enough might even include death.

As to whether our descendents would evolve in time to become, in essence, a native species on whatever planet we migrated to, I think it might take a very long time. The evolution of the 24-hour earth clock predates our species by many millions of years. We've merely inherited it, so in a way the difference would be bigger than that between us and dogs, or perhaps even us and worms. I don't know how long it would take for a Martian clock to evolve via genetic mutations and natural selection, but I suspect it would be tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. Of course I could be completely wrong and it might take only a few hundred years, as unlikely as that seems.

spock said:

Where did you hear this? It's a central tenet of molecular biology that DNA does not change based on our surroundings. That's long-discredited Lamarckian evolution, in which for instance the giraffe stretching its neck to reach tasty leaves lengthens it, and then passes on this lengthened neck (via its DNA) to its progeny. Maybe you're thinking of the phenotype, the individual's actual observed properties, which is strongly influenced by its genotype (it's genetic makeup, or DNA) but also subtly by environmental factors. For instance, if two people have identical genotypes but one is malnourished while growing up, she'll be shorter than her genetic twin. But being malnourished doesn't affect our DNA and neither would living on Mars. Almost certainly we'd have to function on a 24-hour schedule or suffer physiological consequences, which if we deviated far enough might even include death.

As to whether our descendents would evolve in time to become, in essence, a native species on whatever planet we migrated to, I think it might take a very long time. The evolution of the 24-hour earth clock predates our species by many millions of years. We've merely inherited it, so in a way the difference would be bigger than that between us and dogs, or perhaps even us and worms. I don't know how long it would take for a Martian clock to evolve via genetic mutations and natural selection, but I suspect it would be tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. Of course I could be completely wrong and it might take only a few hundred years, as unlikely as that seems.

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You're right.

I think I was thinking genetics... the various evolutions of physical attributes does not change the base DNA. Urgh! I hate spreading false information.

btw, hello from Northern Indiana.

Hi spock. I hear what you're saying and I'm sure its scientifically valid, but I'd be curious whether the way that DNA multiplies itself in a gestating foetus is in any way dependent upon it being on earth. We have no other perspective than terrestrial genetic inheritance. Presumably the pelvis size is considered a genetic attribute, and yet in the example given in Mundane Astrology, it took only two generations for the pelvis shape/size of the offspring of European settlers to North America to be like that of the native North Americans rather than that of their genetic ancestors. Don't know what you think of this - there could be holes in it???

miquar said:

Hi spock. I hear what you're saying and I'm sure its scientifically valid, but I'd be curious whether the way that DNA multiplies itself in a gestating foetus is in any way dependent upon it being on earth. We have no other perspective than terrestrial genetic inheritance. Presumably the pelvis size is considered a genetic attribute, and yet in the example given in Mundane Astrology, it took only two generations for the pelvis shape/size of the offspring of European settlers to North America to be like that of the native North Americans rather than that of their genetic ancestors. Don't know what you think of this - there could be holes in it???

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A change in gravity due to being on Mars might affect cell division, for instance by slowing it or speeding it up in ways (most likely) deleterious to the developing foetus, and it might even increase the possibility of copying errors. Such errors, however, would normally affect the viability of the foetus, resulting in miscarriage, or if full term in the birth of a child with serious genetic abnormalities. These errors are not part of the evolutionary process. Errors (i.e. mutations) in germ cells that produce sperm and eggs are, but are usually fatal unless the mutated gene is recessive. Only a small percentage of mutations are beneficial or neutral, but they don't directly drive evolution. They become part of the genetic stock available for recombination. It's recombination of genes that provides the variation that nature "selects" from via "survival of the fittest."

A change in environment cannot in any known way change DNA except in the longterm sense of favoring offspring who have combinations of genes (and hence characteristics) that are a better fit for that environment. But variability isn't caused by the environment. It's part of the process of random gene recombination in sexual reproduction. The environment merely "selects" between more favorable and less favorable (in the context of that environment) variants and in that way "determines" which genes and characteristics are dominant in the population.

However, environmental changes can cause phenotypic changes almost immediately, because genetic make-up interacts with the environment in determining the actual physical (and perhaps mental) make-up of the individual, that is, his or her phenotype. With regards to the pelvic changes you mention my first thought is, is this really a fact? More often than not it isn't. Too many times I've struggled trying to explain some odd fact only to discover, down the road, that it wasn't a fact at all. But if we grant, for the sake of argument, that these pelvic changes actually occurred, I'd suspect a systematic environmental difference that had a systematic effect on how the genetic make-up expressed. It might be something as simple as better nutrition, or poorer nutrition, or simply different foods, than in the Old World. It might be some other subtle but pervasive difference. If this is a fact, and I don't consider that a given, I strongly suspect it's directly the difference in envronments, not a difference in genetic make-up due to the difference in environments, that accounts for the pelvic differences. Can you provide a source for this fact?

Rayek said:

I read your article, and while I found it interesting... I also found it to be a very difficult read. It read like a text book, which I'm sure you were going for, but the whole time I was reading it I couldn't help but feel as if you were trying to say something that could have been put much simpler with greater impact.

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Textbooks are pretty simple. If they seem difficult it's because they cram a lot of information into a relatively small space. My article might seem like a textbook in that sense but that wasn't what I was after. If it was it would have been easier to be clear, because for the person reading the textbook the facts are not in doubt. She's studying the textbook in order to learn "what we know." But After Symbolism is an extended argument, in which "what we know" is part of what's at issue. To make it simpler would require the reader to accept, at least "for the sake of argument," assertions I'd otherwise feel compelled to defend in depth (which I think is where much of the difficulty you perceive comes in), assertions most astrologers are not only unwilling to accept, even hypothetically, but are actively hostile towards (and often towards me for making them). I'm not sanguine about the ability of anyone familiar with astrology being able to accept such assertions even hypothetically, but for the sake of simplicity I'll nonetheless proceed on that basis.

Astrologers trying to explain "why astrology works" are in a position analogous to that of a person who thinks a cow really can jump over the moon and tries earnestly to explain how. You can't explain what isn't so. I believe that astrology as presently constituted doesn't work. It only seems to. (I'll leave out for the time being, again for the sake of simplicity, why I think this is so.) Hence we need to look for answers to two entertwined questions. One, how is it that something like astrology can work? Two, what does that something have to be like in order to work that way? An explanation of how it is that astrology can work might require us to realize that the astrology that works that way is different in important ways from the astrology we learned. A good way to approach these questions is to define astrology simply as correspondences between the heavens and life on earth. That doesn't require us to commit to a particular set of factors, interpretations, and rules, in which the acknowledgment of invalidity would be tantamount to abandoning astrology. Rather, it frees us to discover what we can reasonably believe that can still be considered "astrology", even if not the astrology handed down to us that we're familiar and comfortable with.

The predictability of external events not only contradicts free will as we understand it, it also hasn't been demonstrated as a fact. The predictability of motivations, however, doesn't contradict free will, and not only is there evidence, including the work of preeminent cognitive developmental psychologists Jean Piaget and L.S. Vygotsky, that it's a fact, it's also possible to conceive how it can be a fact. We know, thanks to advances in chronobiology within the last twenty years, not only that earth creatures have internal circadian, circatidal and circannual clocks that time various biological (including psychological) rhythms, we also know the cellular molecular feedback mechanism by which the circadian clock keeps time and thereby times the various processes in a 24-hour day, and the molecular means by which light at sunrise and sunset resets the clock to keep it in phase with external daylight and darkness. My hypothesis is that there are also clocks and hence rhythms corresponding to the periods of Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn et al, and that all of these clocks are products of evolution. Evolution, not anything inherent in the planets themselves, is the source of the effects of the rhythms associated with them. We may not currently know the means by which organisms have interacted with planets and evolved these clocks/rhythms, but at least it's an imaginable possibility, an alternative to simply assuming that transiting Jupiter conjoining natal Venus magically corresponds to marriage with absolutely no idea of how that's possible, of how we get from heavenly configuration to terrestrial "I do".

Since discoverable rhythms appear to correspond to planetary periods and to whole number (especially fourths) divisions of them, transits, especially hard-angle transits (i.e. conjunctions, squares and oppositions), are the starting point for an astrology that actually exists in nature and is an expression of natural order. Transits understood this way, however, predict not external events but rather characteristic recurrent motivational states of mind. Understanding these states of mind doesn't mean we can predict a specific event outcome, but it is possible to know the range of outcomes a given mental state can underpin. Hence Mars transiting conjunct, square or opposite its natal place might coincide with an apartment change, a rearrangement of furniture, a different route to work, a different shift or work schedule, patronizing a different grocery or department store or bank, starting a new diet or exercise regimen, or beginning or ending a physical relationship, each of which is a change in daily routine. None is specifically predicted by the transit, and more often than not nothing specific occurs. What the transit actually predicts, I think, is an increased awareness of and often discomfort with this facet of our existence, which we feel a need to do something about. That doesn't mean we will do something about whatever's bothering us, but if we don't we might well wish, the next time this rhythm comes to the forefront, that we had. Similar developments often coincide with Mars transiting conjunct, square or opposite the nonagesimal (NG), but for a different reason. We simply get around to doing these things rather than putting them off due to inertia. We get our butts in gear. Jupiter and Saturn transits similarly correspond to characteristic mental states, and there is a comparable difference between each planet's transits to its natal place and transits to the NG, but this is covered, along with much else, in After Symbolism, so I'll stop here.

Is that simpler?

I translated it as you were making a nature vs nurture argument. No, that's not quite right... a nature vs environment/nurture argument into how people should be viewing astrology. Nature in this case being the "planets/signs" your born with as well as the current transits effecting you vs environment/nurture, how you were raised and the people/objects you are around and how they influence your nature. Hence why it is more viable to find out the individuals patterns in the past rather than base a reading solely on the traditional way of doing things.

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While nature vs environment/nurture isn't irrelevant I was actually making a methodological point. Astrologers normally deal with isolated events, each explained differently, not with a set of events associated with the same or similar configuration. But if I cite a single event in someone's life and associate it with transiting Saturn square natal Mercury, how do I know that's so? How do I know some other configuration isn't relevant? How do I know any configuration at all is relevant? How do I know the Saturn/Mercury configuration isn't relevant to some other development, perhaps something I didn't notice or think of? But if I can see a sequence of developments in Freud's life which strike me as in some sense "the same thing," and if they coincide with Saturn closing square (1875-76), conjunct (1882-83), opening square (1889-90), opposite (1896-97), closing square (1905), conjunct (1912), etc. natal Mercury, and if I can then analyze these developments and see what "it" is that's the same each time (doubt or uncertainty regarding his beliefs about how things work that made possible new insights), I can then say that this apparent mindset and related developments regularly and thus predictably coincided with transiting Saturn hard-angle natal Mercury. If I can see similar even if not identical sequences in other lives, yet nonetheless see how in a broader sense all are instances of "the same thing," I can then offer a general account of the effects of this cycle. Rather than accepting handed-down notions of what Saturn transiting Mercury ought to mean we can look for evidence of regularity per se and then describe, not interpret, what recurs at the relevant intervals and times.

This particular case study, by the way, is covered in more detail in an article titled Life Changes: Transit Cycles and Astrological Theory at the website A Place in Space. I have four articles there, each of which covers one of the facets dealt with in After Symbolism, which is a more comprehensive statement of my approach to astrology because that's what the site owner wanted. Each of those four articles is a more focused treatment of a single subject and therefore might be easier to digest.

That isn't quite what you're saying, more of a warped version of it. Either way, it's getting bookmarked so I can go back through it someday.

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Hope I haven't overwhelmed you. And hello from the other end of the state.

Saying that the planets have anything to do with astrology other than they are like the hands of a clock is akin to saying Spring is caused by Venus being on the horizon. Yes?

spock said:

Hope I haven't overwhelmed you.

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Not overwhelmed in the slightest.

Let me try again...

I understand that you are saying Astrology isn't caused by anything (ie, the planets, or a "force") rather it's an evolved biological pattern?

Now, let me explain. I have very little background in the study of astrology. The area that I find the most fascinating isn't the current state of the planets and how they effect us, but the individual charts and the synastry between people.

To me, in a persons chart, a conjunction means simply that: The planets work together. A square means: Attempting to do two different things in a way that causes problems for the other. A Opposition means: Attempting to do the same thing in the exact opposite way. A trine and sextile are relatively good. Any other aspect is foreign to me at this time.

The meanings of planets and signs are also broken down in this way. For example. Mars - Aries - Masculine - Leader - Fire, any description deeper than that is going too deep into "word science" (as opposed to "number science") which has yet to be perfected.

So, that is the primary focus of my questions and the background that my questions start from.

- We are born with certain "characteristic recurrent motivational states of mind"
I think that is the defining point of your post and article? The rest of it is simply to explain how this is different from the regular astrologers view point, why you believe this is so, and giving various examples of how it works? (Oh PLEASE tell me I got it this time!) lol

If that is a correct assumption of your point, it sits perfectly fine with me. My belief is that there is a background pattern in the universe (as described by astrology). One being true does not automatically assume the other to be false. Even with traditional Astrology, it doesn't seem that either are mutually exclusive. And I find your thoughts intriguing.


I understand how your idea relates to current transits influencing a person, but I am unsure on how it relates to the creation of a person's chart.

Where you lose me, is in the understanding on how your assumption relates to birth charts. I think... I think I'm having a hard time understanding, if we are born with these clocks, how do we know when our clocks start? And, why does the "when the clocks start" have an effect on our internal workings, thought processes and how we react to the rest of the (looking for a better term here but can only find) turn of the clock.

Also, using your system, synastry becomes a slight problem for me. If we are born with these clocks, how does synastry fit into the grand scheme?

As I typed my questions, I started to have answers form, but am interested in your thoughts.

These concepts are very similar to the extensive work of Gauquellin and his associates, who eventually developed a system called "neo-astrology"; there is at least one recent thread on the Gauquellin work (I contributed to that thread) here on AW, and it might be of interest. The "neo-astrology", based on extensive statistical research, is basically a type of planetocentric aspectology; houses and signs (and constellations and stars) have been eliminated (as Kepler did several hundred years ago in the elaboration of his astrological method), and also the Sun and Mercury (and the outers) are rejected from consideration, everything in the "neo-astrological" approach concentrating on aspects involving Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I personally don't have any interest in these concepts (Gauqellin, Kepler), not that I necessarily dispute them, but rather that I am very satisfied with the eclectic whole system model I use in obtaining a high degree of accuracy in both analysis and predicition, from astrological data.

spock said:

Can you provide a source for this fact?

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Hi Spock. I no longer have a copy of Mundane Astrology (Harvey and Campion) so I can't tell you the source of the study. If anyone has this book perhaps they could look in the section which asks whether different parts of the Earth have different energies, and post the name of the study that is used as a source for citing the changes in the pelvises of ancestors of settlers to North America? Thanks.