Yeah, my Dad recommends to get one of those sturdy desk mics in order to give the voice more "presence". But this happens to me sometimes, I don't know if I just didn't sleep well or what but sometimes I get this annoying lisp on my S's and this happened to be one of those days. Oh, well.
Clayton -
Oh, and to expand on the contributions of liberalism to astrology - I'll just quote Lew Rockwell at length:
Ludwig von Mises said that the great accomplishment of economists was to draw attention to the extreme limits on the power of government. His point was not merely that government should be limited, but that it is limited by the very structure of reality. It cannot make all people rich by its own initiative. It cannot provide universal housing, literacy, and health. It cannot raise wages across the board. It cannot ban products. Those who seek to accomplish economic ends such as these are choosing the wrong means. That is because there is something more powerful than government: namely economic law. And what is economic law? It is a force that operates within the structure of all societies everywhere that governs the production and allocation of material resources and time according to strict bounds of what is possible. Some things are just not possible. It just so happens that this includes most of the demands that are made by the public and pressure groups on the government. This was the great discovery of the modern science of economics. This was not known by the ancients. It was not known by the fathers of the early church. It was the discovery of the medieval schoolmen, and the insight was gradually elaborated upon and systematized over the centuries, culminating in the classical and Austrian traditions of thought. The power of government to do what we desire is strictly limited. Those who do not understand this point do not understand economics. And the economic teaching has a broader implication that concerns the organization of society itself. Government is not free to make and unmake society as it sees fit. It is not a tool we can use to fulfill our private dreams. Society is too complicated, too far reaching, too much a reflection of the free volition of individual actors, for government to be able to accomplish its ends. Most often, what government attempts to do — whether abolish poverty, end liquor consumption, or make all citizens literate and healthy — ends up backfiring and generating the exact opposite. [Emphasis added]
And what is economic law? It is a force that operates within the structure of all societies everywhere that governs the production and allocation of material resources and time according to strict bounds of what is possible. Some things are just not possible. It just so happens that this includes most of the demands that are made by the public and pressure groups on the government. This was the great discovery of the modern science of economics. This was not known by the ancients. It was not known by the fathers of the early church. It was the discovery of the medieval schoolmen, and the insight was gradually elaborated upon and systematized over the centuries, culminating in the classical and Austrian traditions of thought.
The power of government to do what we desire is strictly limited. Those who do not understand this point do not understand economics. And the economic teaching has a broader implication that concerns the organization of society itself. Government is not free to make and unmake society as it sees fit. It is not a tool we can use to fulfill our private dreams. Society is too complicated, too far reaching, too much a reflection of the free volition of individual actors, for government to be able to accomplish its ends. Most often, what government attempts to do — whether abolish poverty, end liquor consumption, or make all citizens literate and healthy — ends up backfiring and generating the exact opposite. [Emphasis added]
Astrological metaphysics, physics, psychology, medicine, etc. is so beautiful and compelling yet there is this huge, gaping hole surrounding the science of commerce, trade, exchange, markets, prices, etc. This is because there simply was no economic science to speak of before about 400-500 years ago. So, these are new insights, genuine insights, beautiful and compelling insights into human nature and the structure and harmoniousness of the social order. These insights are closely related to moral philosophy, as well, since what it means for something to be good or bad (think of economic "goods" and economic "bads") is integrally related to valuation, which is one of the foundation stones of economic science about which there reigned a great deal of confusion in all the ancient writings and was not really cleared up until a few centuries ago.
A couple more things that are missing from astrology are some basic ideas in liberal philosophy: in particular, scarcity and the mutual benefits of trade. In astrology, it's not clear whether the resources available to man are finite/scarce or infinite/abundant. A lot of religious language is plagued with this problem and I think this is symptomatic of its cerebral nature, unconnected with practical concerns. It's like the old debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. As soon as you unshackle yourself from the limits of physical causality, you are faced with the slippery-slope into infinitudes.
Another problem is that balance is key to astrological metaphysics... light is balanced by dark, good with evil, and so on. While this is beautiful and I think deeply reflective of the underlying of structure of the physical and psychological worlds, it leads to problems when applied to voluntary exchange. Voluntary exchange is rarely zero sum and theories of give-and-take based on the idea of "balance" lead immediately to grave economic fallacies.
This astrotheology stuff is not as crazy as it sounds. Here's a clear proof that at least some portions of the Bible - even portions that are believed to be very old - are astrological allegories. This is Joseph's dream foreshadowing the famine of Canaan when Joseph's family (including his parents, Jacob and Rachel) would be forced to go to Egypt where he would later be a vizier overseeing the sale of Egypt's grain stores.
Gen. 37:1ff And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.
And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.
Carl Sagan on astrology (critical):
This is a great place to start - I think Sagan captures the essential problem with popular astrology, the idea that the planets "care" about you or that your life was "mapped out" by their positions, etc.
However, I think this view misses the subtlety of serious astrological metaphysics. It goes back to systematic versus unsystematic knowledge, as I described in an earlier post. Astrology is a way of coping with unsystematic knowledge - not so that you don't have to find a way to systematize it into rigorous, scientific knowledge but, rather, so that it does not lie completely neglected and unconnected from the rest of human life and experience. We see the effects of the materialistic/reductionistic view of the soul, for example. We're just "gears and levers all the way down". Even if true - a methodological dualist might take materialism as his default hypothesis - it misses the point that there's no meaningful distinction between a system of gears and levers as fantastically complex as the human brain ... and an intangible soul (immortality is a separate question). Ideas, thoughts, motives, feelings, moods, plans, values, possessions, friendships, etc. etc. these are all intangible entities that exist only in our minds, only in our souls, so to speak. But the modernist view is that this is all the stuff of fairy tales until they can measure it on an oscilloscope or image it in an MRI machine. How ridiculous!
And the view of a universe that is mostly cold and distant, here promulgated by Sagan, is far from a settled question. This is a cosmological question, not a question of astrophysics, at least, it is an astrophysical question that has lain nearly dormant for going on a century since Kristian Birkelund first trekked to the Arctic Circle to observe the Aurora. We know that space is filled with plasma. We know that plasma is highly conductive. We know that the Sun sets off an enormous magnetic disturbance through the entire solar system on its 33-day rotational cycle. We know that any magnetic disturbance will cause charge separation in plasma (thus setting off electrical currents which set up magnetic fields as a result of charge flows). We know that plasma phenomena are scale invariant so that any plasma phenomena we create in the lab (e.g. "filaments" etc.) can scale up to arbitrarily large phenomena (e.g. galaxies, clusters, super-clusters, etc.) If the plasma cosmology view of the Universe is correct, then we are connected to everything much more deeply than Sagan acknowledges - and the influence of the planets may not be relegated simply to their gravitational influence.
Also, going back to the idea of culture as a repository of experimental knowledge regarding human nature, I think it is generally unwise to reject out-of-hand the human need for religious ritual, such as worship, prayer, etc. But without some kind of mystical context into which to place one's worship or prayers, where do you direct it? I think that sifting out the aspects of your knowledge and experience that simply escape systematization - what can be called the Absolute - provides a context for a proper sense of awe, that is, a sense of awe that does not interfere with a causal view of the world.
Another point in favor of astrology.
One of the practical uses I can immediately see in astrology is as a kind of "mnemonic map" of all human knowledge and the art of living. Extending this idea, astronomical events - including the regular phases of the moon, the equinoxes and solstices and the apsides, as well as eclipses, conjunctions and planetary transits through signs - are a universal mnemonic for the events in one's own life. I remember the Venus transit in early June of this year... the news headlines were blaring some crap about the Republican primary and some tax increase in California. I had to look up those headlines to even remember what they were. But I remembered thinking ot myself at the time, "That's not the news. The news is that Venus is transiting the Sun, something that happens only once in 240 years, you idiots. THAT is the news." And I'll remember the transit of Venus for the rest of my life so long as my memory is working. I've already forgotten the trifling political headlines of June 5, not even two months ago.
But going even further - the more that people pay attention to these events and mark them in their own lives, the more these events created a "shared mnemonic framework" by which we can correlate events in each other's lives and compare what was happening at this time or that time in our lives. "What were you doing when Venus transited the Sun?" These are historical events that smart people can't fiddle unlike, oh, I don't know, JFK's assassination, 9/11, at least some of the Moon missions, etc. etc.
lol, Clayton are you going hippy on us?
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
@vive: I know, huh!
But seriously, I think that liberal philosophy suffers from excessive left-brainedness. I'm certainly open to other ideas than astrology to accomplish the goals I set out in the opening of this thread. It's just that the more I read and study about astrology, the more I realize that there's no need to reinvent the wheel... we already have an ancient tradition that fits the bill perfectly once you incorporate a few of the recent (compared to astrology) insights regarding the subjective nature of value, mutual benefits from trade, comparative/absolute advantage, division-of-labor, self-regulation, self-enforcing contracts, etc. etc.
Well, all I can say is that I probably don't much agree with anything on this thread- and leave it at that.
The good thing is your probably being intellectually honest and put a lot of thought into this. If someone wants to offer a legit critique, to your thoughts it demands a lot of work and honest attention, otherwise it's just haterade from a lazy bones wanna be to someone who actually made an intellectual effort. So that's good.
oh,
unless you just ate brownies from some strange patchoulie smelling person - in which case everything you wrote ought be ignored by non "mind expanded" people.
Clayton,
I just want to make sure I'm reading you correctly. Are you saying that astrology should be used as a way to remember important events, history, and culture? This would be opposed to predicting the future. It seems that this is what you have been saying, but as vive pointed out, you use a lot of words , so I just want to make sure that I'm reading you accurately.
I think the non-rational element of liberalism has been staring us in the face: spontaneous order (what Hayek, coincidentally, referred to as cosmos): order that exists as a result of human action but not of human design, which also appears to have been designed. This process of cultural evolution was the origin of liberal morality and morality in general. Obviously spontaneous order can be discussed in relation to the market, but the concept can also be extended beyond human action to those things in nature which appear to be designed but are actually not: life in general (via biological evolution), groups of organisms (bee/ant hives, schools of fish, flocks of birds), and then still further to non-living things - the astronomical order you were discussing in your videos and the atoms which form the entire universe. This concept is not only the basis of the respect for property, but is also awe inspiring and counter-intuitive (like economics).
Perhaps some elements of Taoism can be drawn upon also (see Zhuangzi and Laozi).
But I think the reverance for spontaneous order strikes back to the heart of what we've been discussing in this thread. As I see it, the problem of modern morality is that people adhere to the dictates of the state in the same way that in former times people adhered to emergent norms. That is, the norms that arose out of a spontaneous, evolutionary process have been largely replaced with rules that have been designed (necessarily in a poor fashion) but which are treated as if they were spontaneous norms. This has led to a situation where people hold to a kind of designed justice, which to the jurist of old is an oxymoronic concept. To him, law emerged naturally - he was its discoverer, but not designer.
If you haven't read Hayek's The Fatal Conceit, I suggest you drop everything and turn your attention towards it!
Clayton, I've mentioned it once before, you should really read into Joseph Campbell (and further expand in Guenon, etc.) I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy his works. It'll shed some light on primordial wisdom in regards to religious themes, knowledge, and metaphysics while cutting out any Newage bullshit.
Though I don't know much on astrology in regards to my own religious reconstruction, 6th century Anglo-Saxons had no use for it....
@vive: Thanks for the respect - I don't expect everyone to agree with the direction I want to go with this. I understand there's a lot of danger of falling into irrationalism but I sincerely believe there is a lot that the classical liberal philosophy can benefit from a more holistic approach to the individual.
@gotlucky: No, I don't just mean explaining the past, I mean everything that is intangible, fuzzy, squishy, hunchy about the past, present or future. Let's take the oncoming "Aquarian Age", for example. Should a person feel good, bad or indifferent about it? Well, (Vedic) astrology suggests you should feel good about it because we are leaving the lowest Age, the Iron Age. Does it really matter whether this is factually true or false? I don't think it really does. How you choose to feel about an oncoming astrological future is a matter of personal taste but it still fits within that same mnemonic framework I've talked about before. It still provides a holistic framework for you to hang the progression of your life onto.
In a more literal sense, we can say that the night is evil, that winter is evil and that they are predictably so. See the arguments given above. So, the cycles that affect human life predictably bring conditions which are to man either evil or good depending on how he values them.
@Aristippus: I've read bits and pieces of it. I'll take another look as I definitely have respect for your perspective and input.
As an aside, are you concerned that, perhaps, astrological philosophy is incompatible with or antagonistic to the ideas of emergent order?
---
I want to underscore that what I have in mind is to capture the truly intangible aspects of human experience that lie outside of economic or any rigorous science - what I was calling the "mystical" which must necessarily always reside back of scientific/structured knowledge.
For example, what is the medical explanation for that body-enveloping good sensation that you get from stepping out the door in the early morning when the air ist still cold? Who knows. Who really cares? I can't imagine how explaining the mechanics of this sensation actually matters to any real world problems that need to be solved. Nevertheless, it's a very real part of the human experience.
The economist's view of these kinds of trivia is that they are just part of the value of something else. For example, you might value a house because it has a nice view. From the point-of-view of economic science, it really doesn't matter why you or anyone else values the property, all that matters is that you (and other) do value it, and that creates the potential for price-bidding which - as a result of bidding vis-a-vis similar or substitutable goods - causes a "market price" to emerge. But this rides roughshod over the subjective view of life where the little things really do often count the most. You can have a great vacation in Venice with expensive airfare, long flights, and so on... or you can just travel somewhere nearby and enjoy the same satisfaction you would have had from a trip to Venice, perhaps more. In other words, since the final end of all action is the individual's satisfaction (cessation of suffering), it really doesn't matter how you get that satisfaction. Getting it from little things like the fresh breeze in the morning or the feeling of grass under your feet can sometimes be just as effective as paying to have a nice dinner at a restaurant or some other sort of exchange-based luxury.
And I think this is where a lot of people balk at the "materialistic" view of economics. Bastiat says in Economic Harmonies, ch. 2:
From the general idea of sensation come the more definite ideas of pain, wants, desires, tastes, appetites, on the one hand; and, on the other, of pleasure, enjoyment, fulfillment, and well-being. Between these extremes is interposed a mean, and from the general idea of activity come the more definite ideas of pain, effort, fatigue, labor, and production. An analysis of sensation and activity shows one word common to both domains, the word pain. It is painful to experience certain sensations, and we can stop them only by an effort that we call taking pains. Thus, we are apprised that here below we have little else than the choice of two evils.
Between these extremes is interposed a mean, and from the general idea of activity come the more definite ideas of pain, effort, fatigue, labor, and production.
An analysis of sensation and activity shows one word common to both domains, the word pain. It is painful to experience certain sensations, and we can stop them only by an effort that we call taking pains. Thus, we are apprised that here below we have little else than the choice of two evils.
The whole enterprise of building capital, working hard, being industrious... it's not for everyone. Some people are content with the "small lot" in life, that is, to simply take the pleasures that can be had without taking so many pains in terms of labor. This is why I think that a "class society" is, actually, inevitable and that the abolition of classes is always a consequence of welfare society and a sure sign of egalitarianism. A healthy social order permits the individual to choose how much pains he wants to take in the search for greater material prosperity. A lot of people - rightly or wrongly - will choose less over more.
@Bert: I've looked the book over on Amazon and in my local bookstore a few times. My concern with this concept of a "hero with a thousand faces" is that it sounds like he's trying to say that the Christ narrative is universal, something that I am pretty sure is actually false. Perhaps you can allay my doubts on this point?
I'm really bad at exposition, but let me just say that this book
http://reluctant-messenger.com/tibetan-book-of-the-dead.htm
and these videos
have given me somewhat of an insight into what an afterlife might really be like and it's just got me interested. I've never tried psychedelics or read the Scripture in its entirety but I think just the way it's presented makes me intriqued.
Sorry if it doesn't really relate at all to the topic per say but I've just been intriqued by this lately as someone who doesn't see himself as spiritual.
Yes/no. He's not saying that the Christ narrative is universal, but the "hero's quest" (or monomyth) is universal. In the beginning of the book he acknowledges the differences and contrasts of the worlds religions and myths, and that the point of the book is geared towards the similiarities. I watched some lectures on Netflix and he explains this from a psychological perspective (highly influenced by Jung) that the function and projection of mythology/religion builds up and it's social structure starts with the individual and expands to family, community, and eventually outwards to government/state.* The Hero with a Thousand Faces contrasts with more historical based works of his like The Masks of God series. The Wiki page does a good job at explaining the monomyth, function of myth, and evolution of myth.
If you've ever read Jung you'll know Jung placed heavy emphasis on an understanding of comparitive mythology, religion, and folk culture for an understanding of dreams and one's psyche, as to where Jung used this to understanding dreams and expanding to problems like neurosis I think this is where Campbell picks up and instead uses the same idea to understand society as a whole, just not individuals on a pyschological basis.
*Edit: The projections are from the unconscious part of ourselves or psyche and expands on the individual outwards. Religion and mythology would be projections of the collective unconscious (there's a quote either by Campbell or Jung along the lines of "myths are public dreams"), just as one could view classic literature representing the culture and views of it's time (Beowulf, Faust, Huckleberry Finn, etc.)
Now, of course the Christian narrative being universal is false (even though Christianity finds itself to be a universalist religion), because even if one may find similiarities in myths, that does not find them in those worldviews of said religions. For example, in many myths there's tales of serpents. In some cultures good, and in some bad. The perception and view of the myth in regards to the worldview of those people can be drastically opposed to one another. Worldview is the key and core to any religion, but this would begin to lead into the metaphysics of religion of which is just more depth to a topic I don't want to carry that far in (something the likes of Rene Guenon focused on such as Eastern metaphysics). Campbell won't go much into worldview as much as he'll break down the psychological understanding and projection of various myths and rituals giving the "this is what it means, this is how your unconcsious reads it, this is how you personify it, and this is the final product" - sort of laying out a blueprint for religion. Though Campbell is not alone, he's just the most popular and damn amazing. Georges Dumézil, Mircea Eliade, René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, and many others all have their own approach around the same topic of religion, mythology, and metaphysics (Hilda Davidson being my favorite in regards to northern European mythology).
No, not necessarily: I haven't said much on the topic mostly out of igorance of it. The introspective element of what you've said about it is intriguing, however.
On the topic of spontaneous order, I mostly brought it up as a non-rational element of liberal philosophy, which could serve as a basis for ritual - since I thought this was something you wanted to incorporate into the 'First Church'. The concept of an unplanned order is an important part of Taoism, for example - a belief system with much ritual. From Wikipedia:
Taoist philosophy proposes that the universe works harmoniously according to its own ways. When someone exerts their will against the world, they disrupt that harmony. Taoism does not identify one's will as the root problem. Rather, it asserts that one must place their will in harmony with the natural universe. Thus, a potentially harmful interference is to be avoided, and in this way, goals can be achieved effortlessly. "By wu-wei, the sage seeks to come into harmony with the great Tao, which itself accomplishes by nonaction."
See also the Three Treasures, which one scholar has described as "abstention from aggressive war and capital punishment", "absolute simplicity of living", and "refusal to assert active authority". This brings me back to a link between the concept of spontaneous order and the Epicurean understanding of the good life that you described in your last post (and which I wholeheartedly endorse). Many people are preoccupied with the state of the world and at any juncture have a knee-jerk reaction of there being a need for some grand plan to save it, without the sense of order existing without such design. This also links back to Epicurus' exhortation to 'live unknown' instead of engaging in grand schemes that are ultimately fruitless.
I think that liberal philosophy suffers from excessive left-brainedness.
I can say with some confidence and even third rate expertise, this left/right brain, use only10% of brains type stuff is a myth. Unless you are using it as a metaphore for personality types - in which case it has its uses.
Also could you please clarify by what you mean on "irrationality"? Idon't know if I'm a big fan of the term - I don't like dichotomies all too much. Anyway, in some sense the radical subjectivism, the market process, etc could very well be seen as "irrational consequentialism" -and how the world functions in a "Dionysian" way.
Addendum:
If I had to guess, the right / left thing may have come about with a severe treatment for very severe cases of epilipsey where the corpus callosum (a bundle of fibers), which is what the brain uses for sending messages across hemispheres in the brain, is severed. Due tothe nature of the seizures, and the operation itself-it can produce some rather interesting side effects.
EDIT:
My hunch is probably wrong. According to a quick google search, the myth came from the 1800's due to symptom correlations with location of brain trauma
http://www.positscience.com/human-brain/facts-myths/brain-mythology
@vive: That's what I learned in Psych 101. However, astrology also associates a "left" and "right" with the mind, in the astrological sense of right as the "stronger, more preferable" and left as the "weaker, less preferable." For example, the Sun is right, the Moon is left, male is right, female is left, etc. etc. The discursive part of the mind is considered the left mind. The speculative, intangible aspect of the mind is considered the right mind.
Some more comments on an astrological versus "scientific" way of looking at one's life.
a) The character of your life is almost completely determined by when and where you were born (and to whom). So time, place and family are the 3 most important things in determining who you are and what your life will be. The idea of astrological "signs" is at least a useful metaphor in this regard. The configuration of the planets and the orientation of the Earth with respect to the Sun in the tropical year (including the ascendant sign) is a way to organize these facts into a mnemonic map.
And just like a book that has plot without setting will leave the reader lost and disoriented, so a life lived without being placed in its context is meandering, aimless. Every person with enough good fortune to afford even a rudimentary education should know where and when he is in the Universe and that starts not only with understanding his geography, the facts of the Earth itself but also where the Earth fits in the Solar System. Here is a chart I drew up depicting all the basic facts of the Solar System that I think should be known at a glance:
b) This is related to the second point which is that non-generalizable particulars constitute the vast majority of the "stuff of life." We can separate facts into "particulars" and "universals". Universals are generalizations of particulars, they are the "laws" or "rules" by which particulars are thought to be arranged/unfolding. And Universals are definitely a big part of your life - the laws of physics (or even the laws of economics), for example, constrain your every action at every moment. Nevertheless, most of the knowledge that you need about universals is already built-in and requires no further introspection on your part, whether you acquired it through innate knowledge, early development, or cultural habit.
But life is also a series of essentially "random" particulars. We can see this when thinking about business opportunities, for example. They arise mostly unpredictably and often the greatest opportunities a person stumbles across in his life will be things he would never have dreamed he would bumped into. But the "left mind" mentioned above looks down on these "mere random accidents" as trifling factors not worthy of a well-developed, structured, rigorous, scientific mind. They don't fit the left-mind's pre-planned layout of one's life. The right-mind, on the other hand, is the pattern-seeker, the superstitious, it sees significance in every detail no matter how trivial.
Of course, life requires a balance of these factors, not merely one or the other, but I think astrology provides an "interpretive context" or "mnemonic framework" within which to relate to the particulars in one's life in such a way as to be able to maintain that left-right balance. Without an interpretive framework to operate in, the right-mind is dangerous... it leads to neurosis and schizophrenia. I think this is why moderns are afraid of the right-mind. Science, at least, is safe. It will not lead to insantiy. An overly scientific approach to life might make you dull and rote but at least it won't make you crazy.
On the topic of spontaneous order, I mostly brought it up as a non-rational element of liberal philosophy, which could serve as a basis for ritual - since I thought this was something you wanted to incorporate into the 'First Church'. The concept of an unplanned order is an important part of Taoism, for example - a belief system with much ritual.
Cool - I think that we definitely need to inculcate a sense of spontaneous order within ourselves because it really is not intuitive. Human history is nothing if not a record of what you call the "knee jerk" reaction to resort to central-planning measures. Cf sacrificing to the rain gods to end a drought, etc. etc.
Many people are preoccupied with the state of the world and at any juncture have a knee-jerk reaction of there being a need for some grand plan to save it, without the sense of order existing without such design. This also links back to Epicurus' exhortation to 'live unknown' instead of engaging in grand schemes that are ultimately fruitless.
Yes, the left-mind is the expression of the ego, the expansive sense of cosmic importance. It's the part that wants to make a name for oneself, to make others see our importance and grandeur. The right-mind is introspective and unconcerned with the external world one way or the other. It's the part that just wants to curl up in a cave and take a nap and let the rest of the world do what it may. Needless to say, there is precious little place for right-minded living in the modern, "developed" world.
Clayton: Perks: Hear my voice for the first time ever!
Perks: Hear my voice for the first time ever!
Suits you, word
Fascinating lecture on precisely the subject I am most primarily interested in:
He basically presents a view of the soul that is modeled after the Aristotelian view of potential and actual self, where the potential self is what the individual would be if he were self-actualized, whereas the actual self is what he really is. On this view of soul, he argues that the goal or purpose of living is to achieve self-actualization by reducing the distance between the actual and potential self and that all suitable means to the attainment of this end are, therefore, moral.
Liberty, he argues, is not freedom from all constraints (a common theme in liberal philosophy), nor is the goal to escape the bonds of the physical world (contra Christianity and Plotinus and Porphyry which he quotes), rather, liberty is achieved at that point where the actual soul has fully attained the potential soul and the individual is "here", that is, completely and totally present, while remaining connected to his higher (mystical) origin, and actively participates in the creation (I assume he means of reality).
This reminds me of the almost anti-climactic moment in Buddha's life where he attains Buddhahood in the face of the armies of Mara, the Tempter. Sitting under the Buddha tree in Lotus pose, he simply reaches down and touches the Earth, and the Earth shakes - Mara retreats and vanishes. Buddha, in this myth, has attained Buddhahood, that is, he has attained the full expression of the potential soul. So powerful is he in this state that the Earth itself shakes at the mere touch of his finger.
Epicurean philosophy takes a more realist/pragmatic view of self-actualization, arguing (as the liberal philosophers would later echo) that self-actualization is permanently elusive - Epicurus's ataraxia, unlike the Nirvana of Buddhahood, cannot be attained. The lecturer here leaves the question open and I think we can safely leave the question open without being guilty of superstition. There's no reason we have to close the matter - unless you intend to fully attain absolute, mystical self-realization, what difference does it make whether it's actually possible, or not? Everyone agrees that it must at least be fantastically difficult to attain, else everyone would be attaining it easily.
I am most partial to the Epicurean view. On this view, I think of satisfaction not as a point but as a direction on a compass. You can be moving toward it or away from it, but you never get to it, at least, not so long as you are a human being. Morality, then, is simply the compass, it's that thing that tells you whether you are moving towards your own satisfaction (self-actualization) or away from it. Wandering without a compass is a failure to exercise moral discipline (the virtues) and comes with its own natural punishment. Intentionally moving away from one's own satisfaction is pathological.
The need to have a moral compass and to consult it was brought about by Man's trek out of Paradise after the Fall... that is, the effects of the Agricultural Revolution on the suitability of the human brain for living in an environment completely unlike that in which his brain evolved (the African savanna).
But this all fits well within an astrological context in terms of connecting it to all the "intangibles" of one's life that simply lie outside of any real, methodical science such as economics, sociology, physics or psychology. Satisfaction is holistic, that is, it is a result of the combination of all causes impinging on the self, including one's past and even one's future (think about how true negative expectations or false positive expectations lead to suffering, for example). So, only a truly holistic picture of life can function as the "moral compass". The problem is - as Aristippus has noted above - that what it is to be human is more complex than the human brain can contemplate. This isn't surprising since we didn't evolve to comprehend what it is to be human - we evolved to comprehend and respond naturally to our environment in a manner suitable for our survival and reproduction, without the need to engage in intensive introspection and consultation of a moral compass.
PS: On the misuse of astrology, I think it is fascinating to look at the clear evidence that astrological symbolism has been in many places "encrypted" into the Bible and Christian doctrine and that the uses to which this has been put are clearly evil - insiders understand that the message being taught is actually a reference to the heavens, where the uninitiated labor under the false impression that there is a literal God, literal Jesus, etc. who are demanding his acquiescence and obedience, and so on. What more evil of a use could astrological knowledge be put to?
OK, coming down to the meat of astrology - the 12 signs of the Zodiac and their mystical connection of the heavenly bodies with the life of the human being (and, from thence, other things).
1) We begin by noting that the day/night cycle, the progression of the seasons and the orbit of the Moon are determinative of many cycles in living things. This is uncontroversial. The Earth determines the day/night cycle by its rotation (something the Ancients did not know), the Sun determines the annual cycle in the Seasons by virtue of the Earth's tilt and revolution about the Sun and the Moon determines the tides and may have other, less well understood influences on the Earth through its interchange with the Earth's magnetic field as well as charge exchange between the bodies*.
2) The idea that the planets also have effects on life on Earth is simply an extension of the first point. Excluding purported astrological "evidence" of the influence of the planets on Earthly affairs, I am not aware of any scientific (measurable) evidence that the planets have an influence, as do the Sun and the Moon. That said, we know that the planets all influence the Sun and each other (including Earth) at least gravitationally. The configuration of the planets affects the behavior of the Sun and affects the orbits of the Earth and the Moon, as well. So, at least through these mediate connections, we know that the planets do, in fact, affect events on Earth**.
3) Given that all the heavenly bodies have an influence on Earthly events whether large and immdiate, as in the case of the Sun and Moon, or small and mediate, as in the case of the planets, the configuration of the planets is significant, that is, their effect cannot be completely neglected on the strictest view of causality.
4) There are a variety of identifiable human dispositions or personality types. These types are not determinative of behavior but they are characteristic and they are recognizable. Every individual is as unique as a snowflake - that is to say, every snowflake has six sides (at least, most of them do). In other words, there is commonality and diversity in the human mind.
5) Unlike physiological variation which can be measured and characterized in terms of its geometric or topological form or other observable characteristics, psychological variation is not amenable to any simple categorization. It is inherently problematic. If we say "he is an outgoing person" what do we really mean by that? Do we mean that if you counted the number of words spoken in an average day by this individual, it would exceed the population average? Even if it were true, this isn't really what we have in mind. We mean something more intangible about his forwardness, willingness to enter into potentially awkward social situations, and so on.
Hence, there is nothing to "grab hold of" in describing the variation of human minds. But this variation is actually the most significant variation within human beings. Sure, there are races, there are tall people, short people, strong people, weak people, people with a tendency to keep more weight and some to keep less. And so on. This kind of variation constitutes the bulk of what biologists primarily study in other animals but it is actually pretty insignificant in humans. What really matters is how you think, your values (choice of ends), what kinds of attitudes you have, how you act (plan and apply means), your stances towards other people, etc.
6) The Zodiacal metaphor of the human mind begins where astrology begins - with day and night. Like the day and night, there are male and female minds. There are positive, active minds and there are negative, passive minds.
Next, the metaphor moves into the seasons which begin in Aries. It begins there because Spring equinox*** is the beginning of life on Earth. It is when seeds spring from the ground and the barren winter of death is over. Hence, the Arian mind is the mentality of the first. (e.g. the characteristic independence/self-assuredness of the firstborn). It is the most tempestuous (like Spring rains). In addition, the sign of Aries breaks the equilibrium of the equinox... this is why it is symbolized by the god of War, Mars/Aries (strife). It is a time of new beginnings, which can be taken in a positive (growth) or negative (destruction) light.
The next sign to consider is not the sign after Aries but 3 signs later - Cancer. Just as Aries starts the new cycle of life, Cancer changes from the warm and wet spring to a hot and dry summer. Like Aries, Cancer is active, creative and foremost because it changes the season (though not quite as much because Aries is the head of the entire Zodiac). Cancer is the beginning of shorter days, so it is reductive, unlike Aries in which the day continues increasing in length.
The next sign to consider is Libra, the counter-point to Aries. It is at the vernal equinox. Like Aries and Cancer, it is a sign of change. Like Aries, it breaks the equilibrium of an equinox and this gives the sign a striving quality (though less than Aries). Aries and Libra together form the "hinges" or "cardinal points" of the celestial sphere.
The last sign in this series is Capricorn. It is also a sign of change, the sign that ushers in Winter. The Sun dies in Capricorn, to be raised again in Aries. So Capricorn has elements of activity/change/creativity like the other signs mentioned, but it is also a sign of finality/closure, which may explain why it is symbolized by a dualistic creature (goat/fish).
The 4 signs I have mentioned form what is termed a quadruplicity, of which there are three: Cardinal (creative/initiatory), Fixed (sustaining, dependable) and Mutable (flexible, adaptable to change, preparatory). The three aspects form a trinity in that they express beginning, middle and end but of one process/thing, therefore, triune. Aries (cardinal) is the beginning of Spring. Taurus (fixed) is the middle of Spring. And Gemini (mutable) is the end of Spring, the ushering in of Summer. As you go around the Zodiac starting from Aries, simply mark this pattern - cardinal, fixed, mutable - and you will have all the quadruplicities.
7) The qualities of the Seasons were also related to the classical elements by the Ancients - Spring is warm and wet, so it is of the element Air; Summer is hot and dry, so it is of the element Fire; Autumn is cold and dry, so it is of the element Earth; Winter is cold and wet, so it is of the element Water. Heat and wetness are aspects of life, so they are positive, male. Dryness and cold are aspects of death, so they are negative, female. Hence, Spring and Summer are positive (male) seasons and Autumn and Winter are negative (female) seasons, just as they Day (ruled by the Sun) is male and the Night (ruled by the Moon) is female.
The signs of the Zodiac are not affiliated with the elements in the order of seasons but, rather, by a more metaphorical assocation. The repeating pattern is Fire (+), Earth (-), Air (+) and Water (-). I find this association less aesthetic (and less persuasive) than the others but I'm withholding judgment until I study the issue more.
The elements are independently assigned psychological characteristics - Fire with the fiery temperaments, Water with the cooling/diminutive temperaments, Earth with the grounded/practical temperaments and Air with the spiritual/mental temperaments. Association of an element with a sign imparts that quality to the sign, in addition to the other qualities it derives by virtue of its position in the Zodiac.
8) The essential personality characteristics of the signs, then, follow primarily from the nature of the Sun and Moon (male/female, positive/negative) and the qualities of the seasons and the motion of the Sun through the seasons. The classical elements also contribute to this model of the human spirit/psyche by virtue of their immanental characteristics (that is, that we have direct experience with them). These are the grossest and least changeable facts of human experience, so it is reasonable to imagine that the human soul is in some way oriented around them.
In the case of the qualities that are acquired from the motion of the Sun through the seasons themselves, I think we can entertain a more literal association. Spring really is a new beginning, so it is not completely unreasonable to argue that there is some kind of "strife" or "unbalancing" associated with entering the world in springtime. Infancy is the most formative point in your life. I don't see how this is unreasonable or inconsistent with any other aspect of scientific knowledge.
In the case of the qualities imparted by the Elements, I think we have to take a firmly metaphorical stance. I will address this more in point 10 below
9) In the Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy acknowledges the dominant role of genetics in determining the gross characteristics of things - seeds of different species planted at the same time will still bring forth their several plants in accordance with their nature. But between seeds of the same kind, he argues, the time of planting makes a difference. Of course, with modern genetics, we must extend the reach of the DNA and grant it more role in determining even a lot of the variation between living things of the same species. However, for the reasons I gave above, we cannot rule out the influence of the planets, though it may be small and mediate.
10) Returning to the issue of the Zodiac as a metaphor of the human soul/psyche ("As above, so below"), I want to note that I think we have to see the entire Zodiac in all of us. You spend 3/4ths of a year in your mother's womb and for much of that, you are well enough developed that you could survive outside of it. If the planets are influencing us at the moment of birth, clearly, they must be influencing us before birth, as well.
It is my view that the Zodiac, as a metaphorical map of the variation in human minds, is a map of all of us not each of us. It is a systematic, reasonable and aesthetic way of mapping out a "state space", if you will, in which we can meaningfully speak of different personality types. The individual undoubtedly expresses different minds at different times, thus, it cannot be the case that an individual is literally "Aries" or literally "Cancer" to the exclusion of all others.
11) The Sun, as a metaphor of self ("Know thyself"), is rightfully placed at the center of the astrological cosmology. Astrology is egoistic. The planets are arranged in prominence in order of their distance from the Sun and the "houses" of astrology are likewise arranged from 1-12 in descending order outward from the Sun, that is, the self. This is useful as an organizing principle in arranging one's own thoughts about oneself and one's relationship to the rest of society and the natural environment. It is an aesthetic and persuasive metaphor, in my opinion.
12) Astrology encompasses a great deal more than just the basic "sun sign astrology" discussed here. A full horoscope encompasses the influence of all the planets - based on the location of each in respect to the signs at the time. The meanings and influence of conjunctions, comets, meteor showers, unique astronomical events, etc. all fall within the umbrella of astrology. The further we get away from the real effects of astronomical objects on conditions on Earth, the more metaphorical I think it all necessarily becomes.
In conclusion, I think that astrology provides an egoistic, partly literal and partly metaphorical map of the variety of human mind. This map is a map of all of us, not each of us, so the validity of saying that "I'm Aries and the stars are why I have a fiery temperament" is probably very low. But, at the same time, thinking about all the different ways that your possible minds can be expressed, as well as the ways in which they are usually expressed (temperament) is definitely useful and the Zodiac provides a powerful map that is suitable for this kind of self-reflection. It is a pscyhological mirror made of metaphor.
The mapping of the constellations to myth and "stories in the sky" fills out the psychological skeleton of the Zodiac - we see revenge, envy, passion, and all the "basic archetypes" of human relationships played out in a drama in the stars. Learning these myths and their corresponding constellations, if nothing else, will at least give you a powerful command of the features of the night sky through the seasons, allowing you to appreciate the stars in a much more meaningful way than "Wow, that's purdy." In other words, astrology helps you make this part of the the world yours. How many billions of people have lived their entire lives, not knowing the details of the night sky? What a waste of beauty and drama, available free of charge, right above our heads.
*Plasma cosmology posits that the Moon continually faces the Earth because the electrical charge on that side of the Moon is opposite to the Earth's charge. This makes more sense to me than that the Moon was set rotating about its axis at precisely the right speed so as to keep its one face toward Earth even as it orbits the Earth. Consider the effect of lunar libration, for example... if the Moon is merely gravitationally linked to Earth, shouldn't that wobble cause a shift in the side facing Earth over time?? Consider that the same side of the Moon has been facing Earth for at least centuries.
**Plasma cosmology, again, posits a much stronger connection between the heavenly bodies in the solar system, namely, that there is a continual electro-magnetic exchange occurring between the Sun, the planets and their satellites which has a significant impact on all the bodies. While elements of this cosmological theory are, indeed, part of mainstream astrophysics their net effects are usually simply "neglected" as being too tiny to bother mucking up gravitational equations with - this kind of factor is also known as "decimal dust".
***Equi nox, "equal night"... the day and night are of equal length.
Steven Pinker talks here about Intuitive theories of physics embedded in language. Elsewhere, he has discussed intuitive theories of other subjects - psychology, social behavior, etc. This is in line with the evolutionary psychological view of the human mind, which is that we have specialized "modules" that contain operative theories of our environment along many different dimensions.
Neglecting the accuracy/validity of these theories (sometimes, though infrequently, they are contrary-to-fact), we can think of them as a somewhat scattered, built-in library of scientific knowledge. Some of this knowledge has been formalized but I think we can safely say that the vast majority of our "built-in theories of the world around us" are actually not formalized by any science.
If we think of these mental theories as atomic entities in analogy to chemical elements, astrology can be thought of as a kind of "memetic alchemy". By making reasonable, aesthetically compelling connections between "unrelated" disciplines, the ideas we have can be recombined in systematic ways. If nothing else, this provides a "combinatoric space" in which to operate so we understand a) how many combinations there are to deal with and b) whether all the combinations have yet already been covered. Dan Dennett talks here (sorry, don't have time to locate the timestamp at the moment) about different ways that memes are recombined in people's minds and particularly notes Bach's use of folk melodies as an example of "conscious/artificial selection" in the realm of memes. I see astrology as an art of methodical, memetic recombination of the intangible, intuitive theories of the world that exist in our heads, whether or not they are or even can be formalized.
Human ends are the primary concern of human beings (by definition) so the bulk of our "intuitive theories" regard the selection and attainment of ends. The fundamentally subjective nature of ends and our attitudes regarding whether our chosen means have succeeded in attaining our ends creates a permanent obstacle to formalization of the selection of ends and means. It is inherently an art, not a science.
The formalized sciences are so useful precisely because they are not concerned with ends. But this makes them liable to absurdity, that is, total disconnection from human ends. Consider the Large Hadron Collider, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that is purported to be answering the "final questions" in physics, which from the point-of-view of practical applications is no more useful than medieval arguments between theologians over the filioque (conducted in the Latin, which today is called "Calculus", of course). These clerical "intermediaries" to the truth form a de facto clergy who dictate to the rest of us the "rules of reality" which we have no choice but to accept because we can't even read the language they speak. And just like modern money with all its flash-bang experts and voodoo economists, modern physics has become detached from human ends and is mostly unintelligible and inaccessible to the individual. It, indeed, is rigorous but much of it is pointless rigor.
By starting with the self, astrology (or, at least, astro-liberalism... wink, wink) starts with the end (satisfaction, actualization of the will) which makes it constantly grounded in meaning, meaning to oneself. What it lacks in rigor, it makes up in the removal of intellectual intermediaries and connectedness to human ends.
*Humans are notoriously bad at reasoning about economic issues. I speculate that perhaps this is because We didn't need an intuitive theory of economics in the ancestral environment because how our actions affected others was presumed to be their concern... they'll complain if they don't like something.
Meaning is a category of valuation and is primary in determining context of an event. For example, consider the meaning of a TSA pat-down - it depends on who you are. For the victim of sexual assault, it means something much different than for someone who is indifferent to being touched by a stranger. This kind of meaning is mostly subjective because there is little if any objective correlative to it. The same situation with different meanings can and often does look exactly the same to an outside observer.
But meaning is not assigned solely by subconscious factors, it is also assigned consciously whenever we choose (valuate). This kind of meaning at least has the potential to have an objective correlate (whatever was the result of the act of choosing - this is the basis of "catallactics"). But - most of the time - meaning is merely a feeling, a subjective disposition towards something.
Religious beliefs can act as a context for the conscious attribution of meaning. Note that science is no less a function of meaning. Studying patterns where there aren't any (one definition of religion/superstition) is no more irrational than studying patterns where there are. That is, it is only meaning (as it relates to purposes, ends, goals) which differentiates between superstition and science.
But whenever the conscious attribution of meaning does serve one's ends, it is not irrational even if the attribution is not causal, that is, unscientific. For example, if a planetary alignment occurs and you take this as a "good omen", this is neither irrational nor scientific. It is not irrational because the subjective disposition which you have chosen to associate with the planetary alignment serves your ends, that is, it satisfies you. And it is not scientific for obvious reasons... there is no causal theory or even a route to an eventual causal theory.
Superstitions can be thought of as "random guesses on things that might lead to individual satisfaction." For example, let's say someone says "don't leave the fireworks in the car overnight, the cold will make them hard to light". Scientifically, this is simply false. Unless the temperature is getting way down where it could actually alter the chemical bonds in the fireworks, it will not have the slightest effect on their performance. But let's say the superstitious recommendation just happened to be true. "Don't wash your cotton in hot water, it will shrink." The basis for this superstition may be no more sound - in terms of the causal theory in the mind of the individual who first invented it - than the false recommendation on fireworks. Nevertheless, it happens to be true.
In the large majority of subjective factors affecting human happiness, there simply is no causal theory available at all and we have no line-of-sight to a causal theory ever coming into existence. So, any recommendation in this department is necessarily superstitious in the sense that it cannot be based or connected to a causal theory beyond subjective, anecdotal correlations. "When I wear bright colors, I feel happier. Try it." Who knows, maybe it really does work. We'll never really know until people try it and it either works out or doesn't work out.
My contention is that astrology provides a basis for systematic experimentation (what I'm calling memetic alchemy) on these kinds of correlates of subjective disposition.
OK, so given that we agree that subjective meaning is a category of valuation and that religious meaning can be unscientific (without being false) and rational (serving one's interests), why astrology? Why not just stick with the religions that are already out there? For example, if you're from the Middle East, why not just be Muslim? Or if from the US, why not just be Christian?
I'm not going to argue that people should not follow their native (or adopted) religion - religious belief (like meaning) is a personal choice. The question I'm interested in is not that of personal choice but whether most religions actually serve the interests of their adherents. I have argued that the monopolization of the major religions by States has resulted in their corruption, that is, that they have been reoriented from serving the religious needs of their clients to being just another part of the apparatus of control. So, if an individual is particularly interested in looking for a religious context (a discipline/tradition that attempts to meet the religious needs of individuals) that has been almost entirely free of corruption by the State, astrology is it.
And that leads me to the most interesting part - astrology is to religion what gold is to money. Fiat money is defined by the government to be whatever it says it is. So it is inflated to oblivion. But the government can't just wish gold into existence. It is "there" in the Earth and can only be appropriated through digging. State religion is defined by the State's priests to be whatever they say it is. We can predict praxeologically that it will be twisted around to suit the purposes of the State. But the stars are "up there" and the major cycles affecting the Earth are just "there". Knowledge of the stars and the major cycles is solely the result of "digging" up their astronomical truths. There is no room for fiddling the basic ideas of astrology.
A lot of this is very interesting, but I think I'm missing the point of astrology. I know that you have touched on that a little, but I'm just not seeing the point. I can see the point of studying philosophers from thousands of years ago, as even if they were flawed, many of them still had great ideas. You usually mention Epicurus, but this time I will mention Hillel:
The comparative response to the challenge of a Gentile who asked that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot, illustrates the character differences between Shammai and Hillel. Shammai dismissed the man. Hillel chided the man for his behavior, but in a constructive way: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn" (Shab. 31a). Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish moral law. (Lev. xix. 18).
Even though there are sections of the Torah that do not actually support this, we can see that the Jews (through various Rabbis and the Talmud) steered the religion towards this viewpoint. So while the text itself may be flawed, the people interpreting it largely tried to make it make sense. And take capital punishment in Judaism too:
Capital punishment in classical sources The harshness of the death penalty indicated the seriousness of the crime. Jewish philosophers argue that the whole point of corporal punishment was to serve as a reminder to the community of the severe nature of certain acts. This is why, in Jewish law, the death penalty is more of a principle than a practice. The numerous references to a death penalty in the Torah underscore the severity of the sin rather than the expectation of death. This is bolstered by the standards of proof required for application of the death penalty, which has always been extremely stringent (Babylonian Talmud Makkoth 7b). Because the standards of proof were so high, it was well-nigh impossible to inflict the death penalty. The Mishnah (tractate Makkoth 1:10) outlines the views of several prominent first-century CE Rabbis on the subject: A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel. According to the Talmud forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (i.e. in 30 CE) the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment.[citation needed] The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Maimonides stated that "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.[1] [edit]Stringencies of Evidence in Capital Cases Two witnesses were required. Acceptability was limited to: Adult Jewish men who were known to keep the commandments, knew the written and oral law, and had legitimate professions; The witnesses had to see each other at the time of the sin; The witnesses had to be able to speak clearly, without any speech impediment or hearing deficit (to ensure that the warning and the response were done); The witnesses could not be related to each other or to the accused. The witnesses had to see each other, and both of them had to give a warning (hatra'ah) to the person that the sin they were about to commit was a capital offense; This warning had to be delivered within seconds of the performance of the sin (in the time it took to say, "Peace unto you, my Rabbi and my Master"); In the same amount of time, the person about to sin had to: Respond that s/he was familiar with the punishment, but they were going to sin anyway; AND Begin to commit the sin/crime; The Beth Din had to examine each witness separately; and if even one point of their evidence was contradictory - even if a very minor point, such as eye color - the evidence was considered contradictory and the evidence was not heeded; The Beth Din had to consist of minimally 23 judges; The majority could not be a simple majority - the split verdict that would allow conviction had to be at least 13 to 11 in favor of conviction; If the Beth Din arrived at a unanimous verdict of guilty, the person was let go - the idea being that if no judge could find anything exculpatory about the accused, there was something wrong with the court. The witnesses were appointed by the court to be the executioners. As a result, it was next to impossible to convict someone of a capital offense in Judaism.
The harshness of the death penalty indicated the seriousness of the crime. Jewish philosophers argue that the whole point of corporal punishment was to serve as a reminder to the community of the severe nature of certain acts. This is why, in Jewish law, the death penalty is more of a principle than a practice. The numerous references to a death penalty in the Torah underscore the severity of the sin rather than the expectation of death. This is bolstered by the standards of proof required for application of the death penalty, which has always been extremely stringent (Babylonian Talmud Makkoth 7b). Because the standards of proof were so high, it was well-nigh impossible to inflict the death penalty. The Mishnah (tractate Makkoth 1:10) outlines the views of several prominent first-century CE Rabbis on the subject:
A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel.
According to the Talmud forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (i.e. in 30 CE) the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment.[citation needed]
The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Maimonides stated that "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.[1]
As a result, it was next to impossible to convict someone of a capital offense in Judaism.
So, even though I consider religion to be heavily flawed, I do see how (wise) people can still come up with good judgements. But I'm not seeing how the stars and planets and seasons do this.
Johannes Kepler (the man arguably most responsible for the fact you and I today understand that the Sun is the center of the solar system) wrote Harmonies of the World to explain his belief in a harmonic relationship between the Platonic solids, music intervals and the orbits of the planets. Let me quote the introduction:
Johannes Kepler published Harmonies of the World in 1619. This was the summation of his theories about celestial correspondences, and ties together the ratios of the planetary orbits, musical theory, and the Platonic solids. Kepler's speculations are long discredited. However, this work stands as a bridge between the Hermetic philosophy of the Renaissance, which sought systems of symbolic correspondences in the fabric of nature, and modern science. And today, we finally have heard the music of the spheres: data from outer system probes have been translated into acoustic form, and we can listen to strange clicks and moans from Jupiter's magnetosphere.
The modern mindset which applies the razor of "true in every detail*" or "not true in every detail" to every theory it meets is overcome by disappointment upon learning that a theory such as Kepler's is "discredited". Into the dustbin with it. But this misses the true value of Kepler's work: the rigorous exercise of intellectual discipline guided by aesthetic sense and the conviction that everything is interrelated. And the author of this introduction inadvertently notes a by-product sense in which Kepler was right all along - that Jupiter, Saturn and other bodies in the heavens emit harmonic frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum! After post-processing (down-conversion of the frequencies in order to make them audible), you can even listen to the Musica Universalis, the Music of the Spheres:
It turns out that some of the planets and other bodies have orbits that are closely correlated. For example, Earth and Venus orbit in an 8:13 ratio that creates the Venus pentagram traced out by the orbit of Venus as seen from Earth. Modern astronomy largely ignores these resonances because of the fact that they are not exact - but then they ignore the potential electromagnetic explanation of the exact ratio of the Moon's orbital-rotational resonance, explaining it instead in terms of "locked tides" in the Moon and Earth.
In other words, Kepler may be more right than he is given credit for. His mathematics might need further adjustment but the principle that many of the heavenly bodies orbit in resonance with one another because they are affecting each other (modern plasma cosmology even gives us a mechanism for this: electromagnetic interaction) may turn out to be correct and conquer the modern astronomical view of the heavenly bodies as essentially exclusively gravitational in their causes and effects. The pursuit of aesthetic connections between the sciences is not superstition nor is it merely aesthetic. It actually drives scientific discovery and exploration.
*The caveat "as far as we know" should always be appended to this, but rarely is...
Speaking of music of the spheres, I read a fascinating paper a few years ago that discussed in detail the astonishing features of our solar system that appear to be in-sync as opposed to just random. I can't think of the title of the paper a the moment (maybe it was "Music of the Spheres") but it showed patterns in the distances from the sun, sizes of the planets, ratation periods, etc. to all exhibit strong signs of being in a very non-random harmonic relationships to each other, leading to the idea that the entire solar system is an actual functioning system. I'll have to do some searching and find it again, but again, we see more evidence in favor of electromagnetic properties describing the phenomena of nature. (:
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
Well, let me break the positions down as I see them and then address your point:
a) Rejection of religion. Religion promotes falsehoods (which is immoral) and it does this through immoral means (emotional manipulation, captive-audience (children) etc.), therefore, it is immoral on two counts (I'll call this the Dawkinsian view). The only way forward for mankind is science.
My response is that there is always an ineradicable "mystical" element behind whatever structured knowledge (science) we have. The character of this mystical element should not be ignored simply because it is not scientific. But to not ignore it requires dabbling, in some sense, in religion.
b) Adherence to a particular religion. A particular religion (e.g. Judaism) is taken as the framework for the mystical element of human experience.
In this case, I think the individual has no use for astrology. He already has a religious context in which to frame the mystical element and needs no more.
c) Neither a nor b; This leads to the quandary that I personally face and that I think a significant minority of people face. I don't accept my native religion because I think it teaches corrupt morals that I don't want to impart to my children and because I think it is intellectually bankrupt.
When I survey the other religions in the world, they all have one thing in common: they're alien to me. I wasn't raised Jewish... so I just don't "get" Judaism. Even though I can see the wisdom in many of the teachings and so on, I don't think I could "convert" - I just wouldn't be being myself. I would have to don some kind of artificial persona.
That's what motivated the opening of this thread. I was initially thinking to start from scratch - just found an organization that teaches liberal philosophy and tries to make it personal by actually meeting people face-to-face and having community activities, etc. But the more I looked at astrology (h/t Bonacci), the more I realized that it already has all the personal religious aspects built-in to it. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
And as I posted above, it is the fact that astrology begins with the stars - the most notable and unalterable facts of human existence, barely changing over millenia of human history - that makes it so attractive. What more obvious beginning point is there? You can begin with introspection but then you're stuck "going it alone", that is, forsaking the valuable experience and knowledge that others have acquired over time. Astrology combines the introspective and the astronomical aspects into a cohesive whole, providing a way for the individual to translate the introspective insights of others into his own experience so he can compare and contrast and actually learn from the insights of others.
As a side note, Judaism also has an astrological tradition - it's called the Kabbalah.
Ahh, I remember now. It was a paper called "Dirac's Equation and the Sea of Negative Energy," by D.L. Hotson. It had a part one and part two (there was a part three that did not seem to add too much, if I recall correctly). Absolutely fascinating read, for anyone mildly interested in some of the things Clayton has spoken of. And as far as Paul Dirac and his equation (and dismissal of literally half of its solutions by "mainstream" scientists of his day and today), it agains demonstrates a dogmatic streak in the scientific community and a tendency to shy away from something new that is not entirely intuitive and would rattle the foundations of Einstein's work and the "science" based off of his theories. Here's the address to part 1 and part two:
http://openseti.org/Docs/HotsonPart1.pdf
http://openseti.org/Docs/HotsonPart2.pdf
the entire solar system is an actual functioning system
Exactly. And I think it is inevitable that there is going to be a big shift in the sciences as this realization becomes more and more unavoidable. The current view of the planets as "rocks hurtling around in ellipses but otherwise indifferent to each other" is just completely bogus. The more I read/study the subject, the more I realize that modern astronomy has lost sight of the forest for the trees on this point.
Their justifications for ignoring the systematic relationships between the planets and other bodies are completely circular. Take the most basic question you can ask about the solar system, for example.... why do the planets all orbit in the same plane and all in the same direction? Gravity operates in 3-dimensions, spherically in all 360 degrees equally. It has no planarity and it sure as hell has no handedness (disposition to spin in one particular direction over the other).
Electromagnetism, on the other hand, explains both phenomena easily. Look at the orbit of the Moon:
And we see that, in fact, this same "spiral" is the actual path being traced by all the planets around the Sun:
I'd like to just mention on the subject of Joseph Campbell, monomyth, and Jungian approach to mythologies, that this line of thinking is very rooted in a romantic Golden Bough-esque conception of myth and is not to be trusted as rigorously historically accurate. Campbell has many interesting insights but do read some more modern histories of the mythologies in question, someone more modern than Eliade and Kerenyi for example. I have a personal thing about this, I think it's unfair to the cultures in question to try to force their beliefs into a universal mold.
The more I read/study the subject, the more I realize that modern astronomy has lost sight of the forest for the trees on this point.
I have exactly the same sentiments.
Part of the problem, I think, may be the idea that the State should be funding scientific inquiries and endeavors (whether through direct grants or indirectly through universities). It seems many of the projects, take CERN, for example, just seem like something a bureaucrat would devise that looks so grandiose and magnificent to those that don't care too much to study science on their own, cost ridiculous amounts of money, and in the end, look for, in my opinion, ghosts that are fabricated necessarily because of faulty paradigms held to be absolute. Obviously, this is not to say all such projects funded by the State are purposefully wasteful, but many are, IMO, even if unintentionally.
It actually resembles the monopoly on the training and practice of medicine held by the AMA and their cronies what might be referred to as the medical-industrial complex. Heaven forbid that more people educate themselves and *gasp* discover that much of medicine is based on the favor given to pharmaceuticals (that make large profits because of the immoral intellectual property laws) and their financial and political allies. I mean, we still have the State clinging to the notion that cannabis has "no known medical benefits" (aided by a still a few "reasearchers" in state-funded universities), even though it was one of the most widely used ingredients in medicines for hundreds and thousands of years. But oh yeah, a plant cannot be patented, and it grows so easily that many wouldn't need to buy it from Big Pharma. But I digress.
Have you read theories on the link between gravity and electromagnetism? Essentially an "electromagnetogravitism" where all (electricity, magnetism, and gravity) are functions of the same source, if you will? I mean, it's just a quirk that:
F=k(Mm)/(r^2) &. F=k(Qq)/(r^2) ?
I would think it would be odd if gravity and electromagnetism weren't linked in a functioning system.
I have a personal thing about this, I think it's unfair to the cultures in question to try to force their beliefs into a universal mold.
This is my concern, too. If you're going to say something is "universal", you have to be able to account for this universality - is it biological? Is it astronomical (as in the use of 12-division solar calendars arising from the ratio of the lunar to the annual cycle...)? Just pointing out lots of similarities doesn't say that much, IMO.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the parallels between Dennet's ideas of cranes vs skyhooks and the idea of the market order anarcho-capitalists talk about vs centralized state "order"
It seems so obvious, but I believe Dennett is himself some kind of socialist. It's not entirely clear because he mostly criticizes rather than recommends politics
@Phi: Yes, it would be nice if they were linked and I think everybody (even the mainstream guys) would like to find this link. The trouble is that gravity as we understand it just doesn't behave ilke electromagnetism as we understand it. Let's suppose that you are clinging to the Earth because the Earth is a charged body and yours has the opposite charge. Then you should be lighter whenever standing above a deposit of conductive materials or whenever you are standing above any significantly massive, conducting object. That is, we should be able to "shield" against gravity but the fact is that there is no gravity shielding. It acts with the same force on all bodies regardless of their electromagnetic shielding, etc. Also, gravity is charge neutral. Charge an object however you like (positive or negative) and gravity pulls it down just the same.
The 1/r2 connection is only a weak motivation to try to find a connection between gravity and EM; I have seen it pointed out that if you take two point sources and extend rays from them in every direction, the "intersection density" of those rays will be 1/r2 as you vary r between the points. The real motivation is causality, in particular, locality of causality. We have a local, causal theory of EM. We do not have a local, causal theory of gravity unless you consider "bending spacetime" to be causal, which I don't (I think it's a metaphysical bungle).
Dennett is himself some kind of socialist
I will note that what I've read/watched of Dennett so far, he seems to exhibit the grace to keep his opinion to himself on matters that he doesn't actually understand - that is, I've not heard him express dogmatic opinions for or against socialism. That said, it is always disappointing when these leading biologists who so intimately understand the power of distributed variation and selection fail to make the connection to economics.
But there has been some experimental evidence to suggest that gravitational shielding is possible. Quirino Majorana in the 1920s and 1930s reported to observe that a lead sphere experienced a reduction in weight when a large piece of lead was placed beneath it and the earth and no shielding effect when the large piece of lead was place above the sphere. Of course, I myself haven't tested this, but you can imagine the Einsteinians dismissal, since general relativity had become widely accepted and it does not allow for gravitational shielding.