Does making a prophecy changes the outcome?

petosiris

Banned
What does your distinction rely on? Aren’t biblical prophets making claims about the soul’s future after death? I’m interested in how it relates to the OP’s question which is about how people take in prediction more generally. It could equally have applied to a bookie’s analysis of super bowl odds, as to an astrological prediction about an exam.

I was responding to david's comment. But psychologists don't mean oracles of God speaking in the context of self-fulfilling prophecy either. But judging from the words in the OP including oracle and prophecy on an astrology board, I think he claims that astrology is a prophetic practice that can only come from God (I've heard some astrologers claim to have the mind of G-d). Or maybe he meant it metaphorically?

As for the promised future life in the Bible, that is unconditional, as God made an oath and an unbreakable covenant with Abraham and his descendants.
 
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petosiris

Banned
But it’s true, when you give a reading you don’t know how people are going to take it (except by virtue of what you saw in their chart). They might think it’s a life sentence.

The Arabic copyists of Dorotheus made sure to include <if God, who is exalted, so wills> in hundreds of passages of the surviving work, thereby expressing their belief that none of the written is unconditional in relation to God, probably because the earth and the heavens are part of creation/natural.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
An encouraging prediction with informed astrological backing MAY provide the motivation to make that prediction a reality. In that sense, it's possibly self-fulfilling.

A medical prediction of impending death can also be self-fulfilling for someone with absolute faith in the medical industry.
 

petosiris

Banned
An encouraging prediction with informed astrological backing MAY provide the motivation to make that prediction a reality. In that sense, it's possibly self-fulfilling.

A medical prediction of impending death can also be self-fulfilling for someone with absolute faith in the medical industry.

Encouraging predictions are nice, but false unrealistic predictions can become discouraging later on. Traditional astrology is capable of both in spectacular ways.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
Encouraging predictions are nice, but false unrealistic predictions can become discouraging later on. Traditional astrology is capable of both in spectacular ways.

Behavioral psychology can predict future behavior based on past behavioral patterns, unless something occurs that changes the known pattern.
 

Mohammad690

Well-known member
Thank you all for participating in this heated debate.

Some points I observed so far or want to mention:

1. For the past couple of months, I was filled with underlying anger and it seems that even when I start a thread, I infuse it with my current mental state — anger. (I am in an Aries profection year) This is wholly interesting, as I consider astrology to be chiefly a study of «*beginnings*».

2. I used the term «*prophecy*» to mean any kind of prediction through divinatory means, be it astrology, palmistry, I ching, tarot cards and what not. I work with the presumption that the logic of divination is akin to the logic of the unconsciousness; i. e. Symbolism and Correspondences, instead of Cause and Effect, which is the logic of the consciousness. While God is above all, and figuratively speaking can override everything. As a Muslim, I use the phrase «*God willing*» when I do predictions.

3. It is an interesting point to claim that some predictions are sure to come true, and others are conditional. Should I start another thread for it or we can discuss it here?

4. Also, this all brings us back to the fundamental issue of «*how astrology works?*». Do you know any thread on this forum dedicated to that? There must be.

5. In posing the original question, I was not referring to self-fulfilling prophecy, because they are not prophesies in the strict sense.

6. Quantum Physics holds that the act of «*observing*» changes the nature of the experiment. To crudely simplify, when you observe a photon, it is a particle. When you don’t observe it, it is a wave. How this finding translates to our acts as astrologers, when we consult the chart.

Thank you.
 

david starling

Well-known member
Thank you all for participating in this heated debate.

Some points I observed so far or want to mention:

1. For the past couple of months, I was filled with underlying anger and it seems that even when I start a thread, I infuse it with my current mental state — anger. (I am in an Aries profection year) This is wholly interesting, as I consider astrology to be chiefly a study of «*beginnings*».

2. I used the term «*prophecy*» to mean any kind of prediction through divinatory means, be it astrology, palmistry, I ching, tarot cards and what not. I work with the presumption that the logic of divination is akin to the logic of the unconsciousness; i. e. Symbolism and Correspondences, instead of Cause and Effect, which is the logic of the consciousness. While God is above all, and figuratively speaking can override everything. As a Muslim, I use the phrase «*God willing*» when I do predictions.

3. It is an interesting point to claim that some predictions are sure to come true, and others are conditional. Should I start another thread for it or we can discuss it here?

4. Also, this all brings us back to the fundamental issue of «*how astrology works?*». Do you know any thread on this forum dedicated to that? There must be.

5. In posing the original question, I was not referring to self-fulfilling prophecy, because they are not prophesies in the strict sense.

6. Quantum Physics holds that the act of «*observing*» changes the nature of the experiment. To crudely simplify, when you observe a photon, it is a particle. When you don’t observe it, it is a wave. How this finding translates to our acts as astrologers, when we consult the chart.

Thank you.

Any Virgo in your Chart? :biggrin:
Where's your Merc? Mine's in [tropical] Pisces, Peto's is in Libra.....not sure about passiflora.

I like that last observation. Food for thought.

I had actually considered mentioning Heisenberg, but I didn't see the connection you were able to make to the Uncertainty Principle regarding a Chart-reading.
 
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Mohammad690

Well-known member
Any Virgo in your Chart? :biggrin:
Where's your Merc? Mine's in [tropical] Pisces, Peto's is in Libra.....not sure about passiflora.

I like that last observation. Food for thought.

I had actually considered mentioning Heisenberg, but I didn't see the connection you were able to make to the Uncertainty Principle regarding a Chart-reading.

My PoF is in Virgo. Mercury in Sagittarius. :smile:

Honestly, it was the Quantum Physics connection that prompted me to ask this question.

Our own consciousness has to figure somewhere in the equation, right?
 

Mohammad690

Well-known member
No one was angry or heated. Now that you have mentioned your own anger, I wonder if we were angry :D
Is it like that?
What do you mean, “self-fulfilling prophecy is not prophecy”? In your original example you used a self-denying prophecy.

Anger has a way of simmering in the background, doesn’t it? Usually when I feel self-righteous, I get angry easily. Specially regarding what happens on the news.

Regarding self-fulfilling prophecy, what I mean is that there is a prophecy that «*would be true*» if nothing to the contrary, including its observation happened. But what is usually understood by self-fulfilling prophecy is a statement that would not necessarily come true if you don’t believe in it. I don’t know if I did make myself clear or not.
 

Mohammad690

Well-known member
None of us were angry or heated - I thought, and still do, that we were all in a good mood. I was teasing you about the effect of prediction.

You said “consciousness has to figure in there somewhere.”
That is *precisely* what happens with self-fulfilling prophecy as well as self-denying prophecy. Consciousness affects the outcome.
Some predictions are more settled than others. Determinism applies here. There is a huge range of events that is not settled which people attempt to change the course of events via their response.

Take a look at media predictions. They don’t have the supernatural truth claims of astrology, but you can use them as a proxy as it allows you to expand the spectrum of responses beyond one individual. The media says “Bernie can’t win the election.” What does that prediction mean? It certainly doesn’t mean he can’t win the popular vote, people love his policy when exposed to it without knowing whose they are. It means they want everyone to know that though the people may be for him, the media will not let it happen. That is how centrist self-fulfilling prophecy works, for example. If you repeat something enough time, even lies, people start to believe it. Prophecy affects both belief and behavior.

A self denying prophecy works the other direction to affect people’s behavior. “You’ll never be able to do that.” It might work to motivate some people to do things they wouldn’t even have wanted to, simply because they were challenged. Or in your original example, they take something for granted - and lose it.

Let’s consider it this way:

If I look at tomorrow’s chart and predict it to be a sunny day, would my act of predicting, affect the outcome, either positively or negatively?
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Let’s consider it this way:
If I look at tomorrow’s chart
and predict it to be a sunny day, would my act of predicting, affect the outcome,
either positively or negatively?
Lets consider it this way :smile:

If everyone living in a particular area
looks at tomorrows chart
and
some predict a sunny day
but
others predict a cloudy day
then the outcome
cannot have been "correctly prophesied by everyone"
and also
unclear their predictions influence the weather
 

Mohammad690

Well-known member
You have to compare apples to apples, or have a good reason for making apples analogous to oranges. Weather is a different kind of prediction from individual astrological predictions. I would suggest you start close to the original matter and then carefully spread out from there to see how far you can go.

I never suggested that I am talking about a natal chart. I used the word prophecy. A prophecy can be about a volcano. No?

Please refer to my point about Quantum Physics. It is much closer to what I am asking.

The purest form of this question is something like this:

When you look at a chart or tarot cards or whatever and predict something, be it a marriage, election, weather, or a market turning point, does your act of «*looking into the future*» or prediction, in any way changes what would have happened?

To reiterate my point about Quantum Physics:

Before you observe an electron, it doesn’t exist in a certain place with a certain speed. It exists «*as a probability wave*» — a range of possibilities.
But the moment you observe it, that probability wave collapses and you pin that electron to a certain speed and place in spacetime continuum.

My question is that when we «*observe*» the future through our readings, do we shrink the range of possibilities in a similar fashion? (Regardless of whether the prediction is true or false)
 

Mohammad690

Well-known member
Lets consider it this way :smile:

If everyone living in a particular area
looks at tomorrows chart
and
some predict a sunny day
but
others predict a cloudy day
then the outcome
cannot have been "correctly prophesied by everyone"
and also
unclear their predictions influence the weather

Exactly.

That’s why I permitted in the premise of my question that the prophecy can be either right or wrong.

This question is a «*development*» on the Zen Koan which says: «*if a tree falls in the forrest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound*».
 

petosiris

Banned
Lets consider it this way :smile:

If everyone living in a particular area
looks at tomorrows chart
and
some predict a sunny day
but
others predict a cloudy day
then the outcome
cannot have been "correctly prophesied by everyone"
and also
unclear their predictions influence the weather

True, because the weather is not affected by cognitive biases like self-fulfilling prophecy. That prediction is either true or false regardless of individual factors. :smile:

The Israelites would stone to death a false prophet guilty of just one false prophetic prediction - Deut. 18:20. :smile:
 
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