I understand that the full chart contains a great number of data points and that many of the data conflict with each other. I just find "that's ok because we have contradictory elements to our personalities" kind of a convenient cop-out.
Well, you're not genuinely open to astrology, so do you really think I'd expect anything else?
I understand how, coming from the perspective of someone who's not open to astrology, and who wants to try and refute it, it can seem like a cop out, but, the fact of the matter is, if you understand how astrology supposedly works, this is just the effect yielded by the extremely complex methodology upon which the art is based.
Once again: actually knowing how it works helps...
We all express just about every sort of behavior at some point or another; if astrology isn't going to describe our average tendencies accurately it's hard to see the point.
The descriptions Ming has given you are boiler plate.
They're written for each individual data point in your astrological profile, not ad hoc and in light of all your other ones.
It's up to you to take those disparate pieces and find the balance between all of them to form the picture that is your overarching identity (MacabreCharade already made this point, and effectively so).
I imagine your argument lies in the complexity of interpreting such a multitude of potentially conflicting data and testing whether they describe a person accurately or not.
Numerous studies have been performed using partial charts and none have shown any patterns suggestive of supernatural accuracy...why doesn't this constitute scientific evidence? If the studies on parts of the charts don't turn up statistically above average accuracy, why should we expect that a larger study on the full chart would?
The point is that astrology doesn't make sense based on a partial chart.
You
have to take the whole chart.
Hence, my explanation the other day about why it's futile to try and fit MBTI and astrology into the same box. (I think you're starting to get that now.)
I thought of this today, and it's a dangerous argument to make, cuz it draws an analogy between MBTI and astrology (although, solely for demonstrative purposes, not cuz I actually want to equate the two), but I'll make it anyway:
Looking at just a sun sign is similar to saying that someone has Ni somewhere in their functional preferences.
It really doesn't tell you that much.
You have to add on the rising. And the moon.
Then you've got at least a bit clearer of a picture.
Mind you (as I say elsewhere in this post), you really need to look at all three of these in conjunction with one another, so, in that sense, if you wanted to simplify astrology into types, a much more effective way than taking just the 12 sun signs would be to take all three of these elements (sun, moon, and rising signs) into account in conjunction with one another.
This would yield something like 1728 "types" I believe...?
(just did 12^3 in my head, that might be a little bit off...)
So, yeah, as you can imagine, that is a bit more difficult to manage than just 12 sun signs (or 16 types)...
But, the fact of the matter is: that's not even close to the end of it.
That's still just
three data points out of a hundred or more, and all of these different data points are supposedly their own part of the overall caleidoscope that are the archetypal energies that will (supposedly) manifest in your life.
Now, I know you might want to use the "oh, that's so convenient" argument, but, honestly, Sim, that's just the effect of your coming from a close-minded point of view.
I'm not saying you've got to buy this shit. Personally, I take it all with a big ol' grain of salt. But I'm not closed to it either.
*Cue that Aristotle quote posted by PeaceBaby*
I'll grant you that it's possible that it might be true, in the same way it's possible that perhaps modern science has mistakenly discarded alchemy. There's always another level of "our perception could be misled by [x condition] and everything we think is true might not be", so I don't see any particular need to establish that it's "possible" it might be true. That's a given, right?
Did you read my explanation about how we can actually test whether something is gold or lead?