Zarathustra's Astrology Thread, or, Where An INTJ (Foolishly) Defends Astrology

[Zarathustra]

Zarathustra defends his Ni.

Says the faithful materialist.

 

[Zarathustra]

One time, another INTJ I know, also with a lot of interest in astrology, told me my very detailed astrological reading. I was so pissed off that I , well, got pretty pissed off, as it was distrubingly accurate.

Yeah, it can be like that.

There's some stuff in mine that is rather bothersome.

I would prefer for these things not to be true, but all signs point to them being true.

Btw, Oro, I have not mentioned yet, but your experiment with your colleagues intrigued me.

I definitely want to do something similar with my group of friends (~8-10 people) who have known each other for 20-25 years.

I've done it with just the quick descriptions (sun sign, rising sign, moon sign) of a number of my friends, and they're so obvious it's ridiculous.

 

[redacted]

If it's so accurate, why aren't there good correlational studies out there?

Also, you should do my reading thing; I'm curious.

 

[Zarathustra]

If it's so accurate, why aren't there good correlational studies out there?

Such studies would be impossible.

I covered this with Sim in the other thread.

Unfortunately, it was mangled by CzeCze.

 

[Zarathustra]

There are some "star twins" studies that supposedly falsify it, but they are so easy to explain away, they are more-or-less irrelevant.

One study I have actually heard of, by a mathematician, showed that there was a statistically significantly higher presence of Mars in the natal charts of the world's best athletes, but I don't know the details of the study well enough to give it enough credence.

Not that I would be closed off to an intelligently-designed study on the matter, but I think the possibility of one is highly unlikely, and largely antithetical to the entire purpose of astrology.

 

[redacted]

I don't understand why they would be impossible. Seems relatively easy actually.

 

[Zarathustra]

That's cuz you don't understand astrology.

 

[redacted]

That's cuz you don't understand astrology.

Explain to me why you couldn't do a survey based study -- people read a bunch of profiles and pick the one they think matches them. See if they have a better than chance probability of guessing their own.

 

[Zarathustra]

Explain to me why you couldn't do a survey based study -- people read a bunch of profiles and pick the one they think matches them. See if they have a better than chance probability of guessing their own.

Interesting idea, actually.

Somewhat similar to the one I've thought of.

I still suspect there'd be a lot of problems, though.

I have not let this cat out of the bag yet, but, what I posted for Saturned, that's only part of a natal profile.

I've decided to separate a natal profile into three parts (aspects, signs, and houses), and post just one at a time.

A full natal profile is really long, and to get someone to read through many of them, and actually do a good job, is a little bit specious.

You could break it down into smaller pieces (like I said: sun, moon, and rising signs only), and see what happens.

If you were gunna try to do this, that would make it the most manageable way.

It would still not be perfect, but you could see what happens.

I suppose if it's better than chance, that means something.

*

My idea is similar, but smaller.

I just want to get my group of friends, most of whom have known each other for most of our lives, and print out the same three things (none of which were included in the stuff I posted for Saturned), and see if we can figure out amongst ourselves which one belongs to whom. Imagine if 8-10 people working together were able to actually assign each one correctly to each individual.

That would be meaningful in my opinion.

*

One other issue I haven't mentioned yet with your construction, that wouldn't be as much of a problem with my group one, is that yours would depend, to an extent, on each individual having an accurate understanding of themselves, which, well, often times tends not to be the case. This would certainly seem to detract from the "scientific" nature of the study.

Also, I think that one needs to understand how to read an astrological chart to begin with, in order to do a good job, so the people would have to be trained in that regard, but, at the same time, would have to not already know what their chart is like -- cuz someone who's studied astrology is already gunna know how to identify on a piece of paper which one has their actual sun, moon, and rising signs (among other things, possibly), and you don't want this to skew the results to the positive. There's sort of an inherent conflict there, cuz you want the people to know how to read an astrological chart, but, you might say, one doesn't know how to read an astrological chart until one has actually had the experience of reading their own astrological chart. It's an odd rub.

(I'd never thought of this experiment before, so I'm kinda just coming up with issues as I go.)

Still, I think you present an interesting idea.

 

[redacted]

My idea is similar, but smaller.

I just want to get my group of friends, most of whom have known each other for most of our lives, and print out the same three things (none of which were included in the stuff I posted for Saturned), and see if we can figure out amongst ourselves which one belongs to whom. Imagine if 8-10 people working together were able to actually assign each one correctly to each individual.

That would be meaningful in my opinion.

It might be meaningful, but it wouldn't be statistically valid. Also, you should have each person guess the profiles of everyone else without referring to each other. Then you have a sample size of 8-10 instead of 1.

One other issue I haven't mentioned yet with your construction, that wouldn't be as much of a problem with my group one, is that yours would depend, to an extent, on each individual having an accurate understanding of themselves, which, well, often times tends not to be the case. This would certainly seem to detract from the "scientific" nature of the study.

It's definitely true that people don't have entirely accurate understandings of themselves. We're already in a bit of a hand-wavey framework when we're talking about personality theories...

Luckily, it doesn't matter here as long as we assume that people have a better than chance understanding of themselves. The study would be correlational anyway. (It would make the correlation less pronounced, but it couldn't reduce it to chance.)

Also, I think that one needs to understand how to read an astrological chart to begin with, in order to do a good job, so the people would have to be trained in that regard, but, at the same time, would have to not already know what their chart is like -- cuz someone who's studied astrology is already gunna know how to identify on a piece of paper which one has their actual sun, moon, and rising signs (among other things, possibly), and you don't want this to skew the results to the positive. There's sort of an inherent conflict there, cuz you want the people to know how to read an astrological chart, but, you might say, one doesn't know how to read an astrological chart until one has actually had the experience of reading their own astrological chart. It's an odd rub.

Is there really no way to format the chart so it's written out in paragraph form?

Anyway, I didn't think too seriously about the scientific test thing and I came up with one... I'm sure many people out there have come up with way better tests than that. So why haven't we seen this kind of data yet? I'm gonna bet it's because people can't do better than chance.

 

[Zarathustra]

It might be meaningful, but it wouldn't be statistically valid.

Yeah, I just don't really care.

In fact, and I will expand upon this later, a large part of all this is a wholesale rejection of the scientific method's approach to the truth.

I don't give a fuck if "science" wouldn't see the results of my experiment as a "valid" conclusion; if I were to do it, and we got all of the profiles right, that's fucking saying something, regardless of how "science" feels about it.

Also, you should have each person guess the profiles of everyone else without referring to each other. Then you have a sample size of 8-10 instead of 1.

I understand that you could do it that way, but that's not how I'm interested in doing it.

A large part of the reason is that I don't think many people understand how to interpret these things (I would bet that, of all my friends, I'm probably the only one who does). Furthermore, different people have different views of others, often largely based on their highly subjective interpretations; I think by working in a group, these factors could be mitigated to some degree.

It's definitely true that people don't have entirely accurate understandings of themselves. We're already in a bit of a hand-wavey framework when we're talking about personality theories...

Luckily, it doesn't matter here as long as we assume that people have a better than chance understanding of themselves. The study would be correlational anyway. (It would make the correlation less pronounced, but it couldn't reduce it to chance.)

Agreed.

Is there really no way to format the chart so it's written out in paragraph form?

You could, but then you'd be sacrificing the integrity of the study.

A rising sign has a very specific meaning. Therefore, one needs to understand what a rising sign means, in order to understand how their rising sign will play itself out in their life. Same goes for the sun sign. Same goes for the moon sign. Same goes for all of the planets and the signs they fall under. Same goes for all of the signs. Same goes for the ways in which the various planets aspect one another. You need to have an understanding of things, and be told what you're reading, in order to interpret it correctly.

To be completely honest, just writing down the stuff I did for Saturned, for example, doesn't really provide Saturned with that much understanding. It's just words on a page to her. Not until you understand why the person wrote those words, which can only come from understanding how astrology works, do those words really start to make much sense, to become meaningful.

This is why it's difficult to conduct any of these kinds of experiments: the people who are interpreting them must know how to interpret them in the first place, and this only really comes from having taken up astrology and given it the benefit of the doubt, to some degree, enough times and over an extended-enough period, so as to actually develop an accurate understanding of how astrology works from the inside.

Anyway, I didn't think too seriously about the scientific test thing and I came up with one...

See how many others you can come up with.

We can discuss the pro's and con's of them here.

I'm sure many people out there have come up with way better tests than that. So why haven't we seen this kind of data yet? I'm gonna bet it's because people can't do better than chance.

I would suggest some alternate possibilities:

• People who understand astrology from the inside might not be all that interested in these kinds of tests. They might not be good at devising them, they might not have the funding/resources to put them together, and, quite frankly, they might just not even care. Just being real, these people probably often times aren't the scientific type. Of people with an interest in astrology, I'm assuming I'm a bit more on the scientific side than most. And, even then, I have philosophical and practical reasons as to why I don't think trying to scientifically test astrology will be that effective or meaningful.
  
  
• People who don't understand astrology from the inside will usually: 1) have a poor understanding of how astrology actually works, and thus have a poor understanding of the ways in which the setups for the experiments are dffecting the results in potentially damaging ways; and 2) will often tend to be astrology skeptics who really don't care about getting to the truth of the matter, and thus putting together the best experiments possible, but who really just want to "disprove astrology once and for all". I'm sure these studies exist, and you can find them, but I would bet my money that I would readily find problems with most of them.

 

[redacted]

Yeah, I just don't really care.

In fact, and I will expand upon this later, a large part of all this is a wholesale rejection of the scientific method's approach to the truth.

I don't give a fuck if "science" wouldn't see the results of my experiment as a "valid" conclusion; if I were to do it, and we got all of the profiles right, that's fucking saying something, regardless of how "science" feels about it.

This mentality is a pretty huge mistake IMO. A positive result can either be chance or your hypothesis being correct. You can't distinguish between these possibilities without using statistics -- the idea of confidence intervals is incredibly important here.

Rejecting statistics detracts from your credibility. It's math! Why would you argue with math?

I understand that you could do it that way, but that's not how I'm interested in doing it.

A large part of the reason is that I don't think many people understand how to interpret these things (I would bet that, of all my friends, I'm probably the only one who does). Furthermore, different people have different views of others, often largely based on their highly subjective interpretations; I think by working in a group, these factors could be mitigated to some degree.

They would also be mitigated by analyzing 8-10 samples instead of 1. But I hear ya... The only problem here is the one I mentioned above...

How would you know if you got your results by chance or because your hypothesis is correct? (You need a bigger sample size.)

You could, but then you'd be sacrificing the integrity of the study.

A rising sign has a very specific meaning. Therefore, one needs to understand what a rising sign means, in order to understand how their rising sign will play itself out in their life. Same goes for the sun sign. Same goes for the moon sign. Same goes for all of the planets and the signs they fall under. Same goes for all of the signs. Same goes for the ways in which the various planets aspect one another. You need to have an understanding of things, and be told what you're reading, in order to interpret it correctly.

Why can't you just include what a rising sun means in sentence form? If it's understandable, it can be written...

To be completely honest, just writing down the stuff I did for Saturned, for example, doesn't really provide Saturned with that much understanding. It's just words on a page to her. Not until you understand why the person wrote those words, which can only come from understanding how astrology works, do those words really start to make much sense, to become meaningful.

This is why it's difficult to conduct any of these kinds of experiments: the people who are interpreting them must know how to interpret them in the first place, and this only really comes from having taken up astrology and given it the benefit of the doubt, to some degree, enough times and over an extended-enough period, so as to actually develop an accurate understanding of how astrology works from the inside.

I don't really understand. Astrologers give readings, yes? Why not have them write the readings instead of saying them out loud. They'll do a bunch of 'em, then have subjects read a few each (with their own included). If they are right more than the percentage that their profile takes up in the set of profiles they see, points go to astrology. If astrology can gain points with a positive expected value over a statistically valid sample, that would mean something.

I would suggest some alternate possibilities:

[*]People who understand astrology from the inside might not be all that interested in these kinds of tests. They might not be good at devising them, they might not have the funding/resources to put them together, and, quite frankly, they might just not even care. Just being real, these people probably often times aren't the scientific type. Of people with an interest in astrology, I'm assuming I'm a bit more on the scientific side than most. And, even then, I have philosophical and practical reasons as to why I don't think trying to scientifically test astrology will be that effective or meaningful.

I find it impossible to believe that no one with a rudimentary understanding of scientific testing also understands astrology. There are millions of astrology enthusiasts out there. Some of them must've cared enough and understood enough to try out some tests.

[*]People who don't understand astrology from the inside will usually: 1) have a poor understanding of how astrology actually works, and thus have a poor understanding of the ways in which the setups for the experiments are dffecting the results in potentially damaging ways; and 2) will often tend to be astrology skeptics who really don't care about getting to the truth of the matter, and thus putting together the best experiments possible, but who really just want to "disprove astrology once and for all". I'm sure these studies exist, and you can find them, but I would bet my money that I would readily find problems with most of them.

Don't you think you're basically doing the same thing? You're defending astrology and trying to figure out ways to invalidate testing techniques that could provide counter-evidence. It seems like you're complaining about the bias of these skeptics by just being biased in the same way.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Anything that can be learned can be explained in a way that others can understand. If you can understand something, you can explain it. This is how we learn anything at all.

Furthermore, would should never be required to believe something before they can understand it. You should understand something before you should believe it.

I think Zarathustra's responses here are lacking on these requirements and subsequently I find them suspiciously evasive.

 

[Tiltyred]

This thread is making me happy. Zarathustra preaching Tarnas. It's better than Christmas. Rock on!

 

[MacGuffin]

...and the INTPs regain the upper hand.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

I think it's more NFs.....(infp, infjs....etc)

 

[MacGuffin]

I think it's more NFs.....(infp, infjs....etc)

lol no

 

[Zarathustra]

...and the INTPs regain the upper hand.

lol no

(just wait)

 

[redacted]

I think it's more NFs.....(infp, infjs....etc)

yeah we've been rocking it

 

[chickpea]

anyone good at synastry?