|
Exegesis Volume 11 Issues #021-030 |
Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 21
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 00:25:09
+0100
>However you mention "human cognitive functioning" and
the "interface
Hi André,
I'm not sure about the subtleties of definition, but I
am certain that
My bias is influenced very heavily by what some people
call 'second
In particular, this view emphasises the dependency of
concept
I think such basic level experiences provide the foundations
for the
I also think that the main confusion in astrology is that
the source
>Now one of the intriguing aspects of Dale's ideas of
time and temporal
I'm not sure I understand you here. Why should it follow
that
>This is - as I pointed out some years ago in this forum
- provided
Yes, this is true. But while I can accept this for the
basic physical
The planets' cycles are convenient markers if you want
to use them,
The latter provide the perfect source for the creation
of a metaphor
But there's no real reason for this to be the case. Some
things only
The inferences and relational elements derived from the
source
One could go on and ask why we think each of the planetary
cycles
One could also ask how such a derived and non-literal
system could
>and (b) that
Yes, this would be true too. But at the same time it is
also true to
Having said that, I still can't work out what to make
of Saturn
>The speculation one needs to
>All this being the case then there actually would be
an empirical basis
I am just about still open to the notion that there is
some kind of
What about all the rest?
>The further implication is that the cognising brain doesn't
merely
I think the cognising brain is constantly evolving within
its
The square root of minus one does not exist outside the
human
And neither does the symbolic association of the planet
Uranus with
Or so I believe.
>Good to hear your voice again Bill - and those of Dale,
Roger, Patrice,
Yes, I'll drink to that.
All the best,
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Well, my new copy of "Cosmos and Psyche" arrived from
Amazon a few days ago.
That was 15 years ago, so he's riding a Saturn cycle (or
it's riding him).
"Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of
the universe, and what
Heady stuff for the times, no doubt, and a wonder Pico
was not pinged for
Tarnas moves on to describe "[T]wo fundamental paradigms,
two great myths,
"The first paradigm, familiar to all of us from our education,
describes
He is examining our cultural context as a preliminary
to seeing how we fit
You might think you see planets or orbits but, hey, you're
just being
So "our world-view - our beliefs and theories, our maps,
our metaphors, our
The modern mind is characterised by "a radical separation
between subject
"Primal experience takes place, as it were, within a world
soul, an *anima
"The many particulars of the empirical world are all endowed
with symbolic,
"From the modern perspective, the primal person conflates
and confuses inner
"In the long evolution from primal to modern consciousness,
there has taken
Noting that "*the achievement of human autonomy has been
paid for by the
"Recently there have been emerging from the deconstructive
flux of the
"Other major characteristics of this emerging intellectual
vision include a
"[T]he most distinctive trait of this new vision has been
its concern with
"Yet from its beginning this new vision or paradigm has
confronted a
"As the post-Kuhnian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend
recognized: "A
Tarnas then proceeds to target "the fundamental governing
assumption and
Tarnas seems to be onto something here - it does indeed
look like a case of
You can probably see where he's going with this.
If the whole contains
This all rather confirms to me that metaphysics is where
the action really
Dennis Frank
Message: 2
Hi Bill,
Again, much to think about. Too much to do justice
to.
What follows is just more random ramblings, more or less
as they occur
e} My bias is influenced very heavily by what some people
call 'second
Yes; hence I tried to be careful to indicate I wasn't
responding to you
The Cartesian dualism is something that tends to be present
in cognitive
'However I'm in danger of doing an injustice to cognitive
psychologists,
To the extent I understood the three paragraphs that followed,
I had no
e} Why should it follow that
The chain of reasoning is a little long and speculative
(but I started
Nevertheless, to approach this a little obliquely:
I guess given that
Whilst this is not at all accurate, let me call these
"atomic clocks"
Thus, when we look at the much more macroscopic and apparently
complex
However, I _believe_ from the discussions Dale and I have
had that we
My interest however begins at the threshold of what I
guess is called
But nevertheless I want to borrow a term you used, and
talk about living
Now, very loosely I want also to introduce the term "deciding"
into all
I _don't_ want "deciding" to be mixed up with the idea
of conceptualisational
Two questions now arise: are atomic clocks at all
useful to an organism
They are essential to the very existence of the organism
of course, but
Secondly, are clocks of any kind _necessary_ in deciding?
I suggest they are.
I put forward a thought experiment some years ago about
what an organism
Baldly stated, the thesis is that in order for an organism
to "make
For example, did that 'shape' that appeared over there
appear for a long
Essentially that was the thought experiment: if
we move the sensing
(BTW, beware of the word "judge" there. I'm not
suggesting the organism
More relevantly - still out in space - is that shape moving
toward me
Again, no reference or framework means no basis on which
to 'decide'
Let's jump back into context though: real environments
consist of lots
However I suggest out of such chaos nothing useful emerges:
a large set
What _does_ work is a large set of signals in which there
is a large
To head back out into space, if _two_ shapes appear and
one remains
Now the more signals (of many different spans) present
in an environment,
Now let me stress this: it is the _long_ signals
(or 'slow cycles') in
However - and this may answer your point about the cycle
of Uranus - on
Finally, I want to emphasise most strongly that I don't
think these
I really think that if these signals are available at
all then the
In that sense - again with the caveats that (1) such signals
are
I would put it on a par with the way in which we learn
to see - i.e. to
The interesting point to this conjecture is that _if_
there are any
I should point out that it may not be necessary that humans
have this
Ok, so having stated all that, I guess you can see why
I don't agree
e} The planets' cycles are convenient markers if you want
to use them,
as I suggest wanting has nothing to do with it.
As for caesium atoms:
e} I am just about still open to the notion that there
is some kind of
Well of course I'm sure - remembering your background
in science - we
I got the definite impression when I was doing undergrad
physics that
Which is something I'm extremely comfortable with.
I don't as yet see
e} The square root of minus one does not exist outside
the human
However have you read Roger Penrose - a mathematical neo-platonist
I
Incidentally, I think the square root of minus one actually
_is_ held to
Well! I really didn't intend to write at this length.
I hope it's not
All the best,
Andre.
------------------------------
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 22
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
I just realised the topic moved away from the original
discussion
Perhaps the only sensible things I've had to see in recent
years is at
Meantime however:
Overnight it occurred to me the behaviour of chaotic (i.e.
non-linear
(For anyone not familiar with such jargon, the basic meaning
of
As such, the mediator of "planetary influence" may not
need to be found
The only thing I've got to hand right now is an old paper
by Pulkinnern
That's quite interesting as I remember reading an objection
to astrology
However if even part of our global community of living
organisms are
The question then is simply do they need to, which is
what my ramblings
I by no means claim to be an expert in systems in which
order emerges
Firstly, the participants in the system have to be able
to influence each
Secondly though, there does seem to need to be some underlying
order
In other words, the order is already there, but needs
time to become
Now given that 'planetary order' is present in the environment
of earth
Good heavens! This does seem to come back to "as
above, so below" in
I wish most sincerely to thank and commend Fran for that.
However, particularly in recent years, the list suffered
from an
As there are currently no decisive tests of differing
astrological
I am particularly aware of this since the field within
which I work -
As such, claims are frequently made and data presented
in support of one
In that sense, I hope no-one mistakes my recent responses
to Bill
Only out of an enlightened and collaborative attempt to
identify and
Andre.
Van Flandern, T. C., & Pulkinnern, K. F. (1979).
Low precision formulae
------------------------------
Message: 2
Hi André, good to see you contributing here again.
Without wanting to
> Nevertheless, to approach this a little obliquely:
I guess given that
You know, the idea that forces propagate struck me as
wrong. I'm not saying
I do recall having my interest piqued quite early, probably
in the early
> Two questions now arise: are atomic clocks at
all useful to an organism
Inasmuch as the psyche is apparently able to detect a
single quantum (have
> Secondly, are clocks of any kind _necessary_ in deciding?
Yes, the impression I get from trying to keep abreast
of 'popular'
> What _does_ work is a large set of signals in which
there is a large
Yes, at the macro level, when an organism engages with
the environment, the
> Now the more signals (of many different spans) present
in an environment,
Sensing & interpreting the temporal context as a whole
sector of experience
> In that sense - again with the caveats that (1) such
signals are
I differ somewhat. No "stumble upon", in my opinion.
Always present as
> The interesting point to this conjecture is that _if_
there are any
Yes, an astrology. Investing meaning in time cycles,
then socialising that
> I should point out that it may not be necessary that
humans have this
Good point. Multiple entrainment in the ecosystem.
> I got the definite impression when I was doing undergrad
physics that
True, that's the culture.
> Well! I really didn't intend to write at this
length. I hope it's not
Not at all, always of interest. As we age, our opinions
evolve & hopefully
Oops, I slipped into an over-generalisation. Okay
- some of us!!
Dennis
Message: 3
On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 Bill Sheeran wrote:>
>> Why,
That's right, but I'd feel more comfortable
if it was qualified,
> So presumably the use of symbols in mathematics or abstract
reasoning,
Exactly so. I was specifically
thinking of a particular kind of
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .From a semiotics point
of view, there
Yes, NaCl is unambiguous, but unambiguity
in _that_ sense is not
> Similarly, the word 'dog' equals the canine animal we
all know and
Yes, dog, unlike NaCl, can conceivably
mean many things, but the
> However, I find it hard to see how one can fully separate
the sign
The problem isn't figurative language
as such but intent. As Lakoff
In _Heaven Knows What_, for his description
of Saturn square (or
Noel Tyl evidently agrees. In
_The Planets: Their Signs and Houses_,
The difference between Lewi and Tyl
is not figurative language but
For Tyl the particular words _do_ matter.
He doesn't expect people
> My take on astrology is profoundly different from your
own, though
Well, I think the rate at which objects
near the earth accelerate, at
> In other words I would not dismiss, say, Chinese astrology
out of
I don't dismiss Chinese astrology's
"signs", the year of the dog, the
> I also agree that planetary cycles in real time have
a place in
Again, it's a matter of intent.
Are we looking at a set of periods
The point of social constructionism
is not so much that the outcome
True, the identification of functional
similarities isn't easy or
> In the same way a machine can only measure what it has
been designed
It's not easy to identify what those
functional similarities are,
> I find it odd too, from the point of view of a possible
coherent
I don't feel as strongly about that
as some other things. I do
> In many respects we each are coming to astrology from
opposite ends of
Do you have a special meaning for "unreasonable"
that I'm not aware
> And this is what I try and understand, based on my experience
of
There are still flat earthers.
Would you defend that belief on the
> I think the symbolism, with all its ambiguity and lack
of consistency,
Symbolism has certainly contributed
to the survival of astrology,
> For this idea to sit comfortably in one's mind, astrology
has to be
I don't doubt that most astrologers
feel "a need to generate a sense
> The heavens provide a template for the way astrology
has been
Oh ye of little faith! I would
say that there are astrological
> Astrology is not discovered "out there". It is an emergent
property of
I believe that there is an "astrological"
order in nature that
> In which case, astrology becomes astrologer-centred.
Rather than the
I think these kinds of ideas bother
astrologers who espouse science,
> This is because the attitudes among western astrologers
in general are
I think divination is a form of self-deception,
so horary astrology
> The veneer of the ritual; of the use of the ephemeris
with its neat
If the astrologer and client are unwittingly
playing a game, as
> I think these kinds of rituals are important as they
help to focus
I think they mask what is happening
on a cognitive level, too,
> Which is why astrology is not taken seriously by rationalists.
It's not bizarre at all to me.
There is virtually no time when
> "All anecdotal evidence, and therefore inadmissable!"
scream the
I think there's a considerable amount
of unconscious processing,
> I think it is a very important aspect of the real process
(rather than
I prefer to speak of left brain and
right brain rather than reason
> Reasoning never generated any novelty; it only confirms
the
It depends on what you mean by "reasoning".
I would not agree
> If you've read this far, you will have realised that
I would have a
I'm a little leery of sophisticated
philosophical justifications
> I think there are points he makes in the book which
are important,
I know of several researchers who seem
to think that science will
> Against this kind of backdrop, Cornelius becomes a visionary
of sorts.
Kinda like Nostradamus?
> The exam question in the future will be about comparing
and
I wasn't aware that mathematicians
were doing this.
> I meant to say something about the epistemological status
of
And the band played on. :) Good to
see you back in circulation,
Dale
ps. I think Cornelius is forward-looking, like Rudhyar,
and
------------------------------
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 23
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Andre:
Dale:
Rog:
http://www2.kobe-c.ac.jp/~watanabe/blake/allrel.htm
Blake's Annotated natal chart:
I think the essence of "astrology" will remain
as unknowable as any
Rog...:)
PS I do enjoy the singularly excellent conversation here,
but my
------------------------------
Message: 2
Hi André
>As there are currently no decisive tests of differing
astrological
If one adopts the Kuhnian perspective, post 17th century
astrology can
Here are some quotes from "An Introduction to the Philosophy
of
"A general approach to research comes to dominate a field
- becomes a
"Those working in a pre-paradigmatic field are not even
sure what
"Until a paradigm arrives on the scene, practitioners
argue over
"The settling of fundamental principles also brings in
its wake
>In that sense, I hope no-one mistakes my recent responses
to Bill
Well I certainly don't. I'm still confused about my own
position!
I really value everyone's contributions to this list,
as they
>Only out of an enlightened and collaborative attempt
to identify and
Yes. I don't feel in competition with anyone on this list.
I think we
The chances are that any key breakthrough will be due
to the bringing
As you say, enlightened collaboration is what is required.
There won't
While I am very interested in the non-rational side of
astrological
I reckon also that the old separation of natural astrology
from
To whatever extent there are astrologers looking into
these questions,
I am looking from the other end of the spectrum, partly
because I used
Funnily enough, I also had experiences as a scientist
which made me
Anyhow, that's where I'm applying my creative gaze. I'm
not doing it
All the best,
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
Message: 3
Hi André
I asked:
>e} Why should it follow that
to which you replied:
>I guess given that
I think I understand you here, but I'm not sure.
Are you saying that there is in effect a set of absolute
limits which
>That
And are you saying here that because everything is constituted
>However, I _believe_ from the discussions Dale and I
have had that we
Not sufficient for the purpose of what?
>I put forward a thought experiment some years ago about
what an organism
I have been thinking about this in vaguely similar terms.
Briefly, we can't observe time itself (assuming time exists
as a
For the events which exhibit the property of regular iteration
(in
>For example, did that 'shape' that appeared over there
appear for a long
Here you have demonstrated quite clearly with your terminology
how we
I think it is interesting that we are able to directly
'know where we
The important thing is we have had to develop conceptual
frameworks to
>More relevantly - still out in space - is that shape
moving toward me
In my view it is not the length of the signal but its
iterative
I don't think we're too far apart regarding this point.
What I can't get together in my own head is how you bridge
the gap (or
I am prepared to accept as a possibility that there are
natural
While this latter suggests endogenous rhythms tied to
the earth's
>In that sense - again with the caveats that (1) such
signals are
Yes, I'd agree with that last sentence, whatever way the
temporal
>The interesting point to this conjecture is that _if_
there are any
Yes, 'an astrology'. I would even call exploring the attunement
of
That's an interesting idea.
>Ok, so having stated all that, I guess you can see why
I don't agree
I am approaching the time question in my own work from
a different
The reason I'm working this way round is because instead
of
Which is not to say I don't recognise that there is a
lot of
This latter feature may be based on delusion on my part,
but I'm not
For the moment, and having put that task on the long finger,
I have it
>
Well, in another post I was talking about the emergence
of a paradigm
I think that those working in either quantum physics or
astrophysics
>Which is something I'm extremely comfortable with.
I don't as yet see
I do think that astrology is connected with reality. I
do think there
>e} The square root of minus one does not exist outside
the human
No, I haven't read anything by Roger Penrose.
>Incidentally, I think the square root of minus one actually
_is_ held to
There is no doubt that the square root of -1 is a useful
'number' for
>From what I have read, the square root of -1 is a number
because there
(X x X) + 1 = 0
or
(X x X) = -1
therefore X = the square root of -1
then because it is an arithmetic operation, the identity
of X must be
But only because the laws of arithmetic demand it be so.
Is it more than -1 or less than -1?
In terms of real numbers, ' i ' has to be either positive,
negative or
If ' i ' were positive, then its square would be
positive, but it
If ' i ' were negative, then its square would be positive,
but it
If ' i ' were zero, then its square would be zero, but
it isn't. It's
Therefore ' i ' isn't a real number, which means it doesn't
have the
The question then arises "How come it's so useful?".
And I won't bother trying to answer that! But the "unreasonable
Just as I contemplate the unreasonable effectiveness (albeit
far less
>Well! I really didn't intend to write at this length.
I hope it's not
Clearly not! I'm enjoying the exchange.
All the best,
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 24
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Tarnas titled his 1st chapter *The Transformation of the
Cosmos* (reviewed
"To assume a priori that the entire universe is ultimately
a soulless void
However there were sensible reasons for the collective
departure of western
The promethean scientific pioneers of the 16th & 17th
centuries produced a
"Jung first described the remarkable phenomenon he named
synchronicity in a
"Accompanying the more profound occurrences of synchronicity
was a dawning
"Jung noted that such synchronicities were often kept
secret or carefully
Tarnas reproduces the psychologist and noted author James
Hillman's account
Tarnas explains the reference. Augustine was "in
a frenzy of spiritual
So Jung came to the view that time had a qualitative dimension
that people
"Whatever is born or done at this particular moment of
time has the quality
(to be continued)
------------------------------
Message: 2
Hi Dale,
Although your approach or sense of astrology may exclude
much of mine,
>We can communicate unambiguously if it's important to
us, but it's not
I'm not sure about this. I think what I try and do is
communicate
It is not the client's horoscope, but the chart they are
associated
So I find it hard to aspire to the goal of restricting
myself to
At the same time, I do believe that the symbol patterns
will 'find
This process of extrapolation is something I am exploring
at the
So for me, somewhat ironically, the more specific one
wishes to be
>
> For Tyl the particular words _do_
matter. He doesn't expect people
I'm not sure about this either.
I don't like lists of keywords. On the other hand I do
have words or
Obviously this approach is open to the charge of simply
fitting the
But for me the whole point is not about party tricks,
but facilitating
That just happens to be the way I operate.
Having said that, recently I did a written interpretation
for a client
I haven't mentioned this to brag or anything, but simply
to suggest
OK it's only one example, an anecdote, etc., etc.
Your question though is would I interpret the same or
similar symbol
>> I do agree, and have argued for years that the forms
astrology has
The rate at which objects near the earth accelerate is
true all over
Obviously there are intersubjectively agreed truths that
are species
The point is that intersubjectivity is collective but
contained. The
Of course, if one comes from a culture that promotes universal
I think this issue may be related to the semantic difference
between a
>There is, for instance, a transition at seven that appears
to
I can accept that possibility.
>That doesn't necessarily mean, however,
For the sake of argument though, it is also possible that
the
I can see the point you're making. However, my take would
be that the
>I doubt Chinese
I find it harder (i.e. it takes more effort) to reject
abstract
To believe that there are big black dividing lines in
the sky is also
The epistemological aspect of astrology can only really
be explored in
The more effective epistemologies of the modern era relate
to a
But are there other forms of knowledge, other ways of
knowing? And if
I don't know the answers to those questions. But I do
think that as
>> I also agree that planetary cycles in real time have
a place in
Your project seems to be trying to empirically reveal
the significance
I can understand why you would think that the provenance
of
The fact that it is marginalised influences the forms
it takes or the
However, I don't believe that one can take the pre-modern
heart out of
For example, I would simply assert that Mars is associated
I'll try and do that in another post.
>The point of social constructionism is not so much that
the outcome
This is true. Or perhaps more accurately, the way nature
is
Which then brings us to the question of realism vs 'anti-realism'
(the
>True, the identification of functional similarities isn't
easy or
Please don't think that I don't consider what you are
doing to be
>> In the same way a machine can only measure what it
has been designed
I don't think it is an alternative as far as that type
of research
>My Uranus/Neptune conjunction study took several years
to get off
They all sound like really interesting books. It must
have been very
>So I think
Given your goal, I don't think there is a better alternative.
No, what I mean is by contemporary standards, the tenets
of astrology
To my mind, it is the mirror reverse of what happens in
science, where
Similarly, astrologers as a group (unfortunately) don't
pay enough
I'm not sure I'd say I 'believe' in symbolistic astrology.
What I do
>If there's no "reason" for your
I'm working on that. I am unusual in that I am interested
in making
> Is there any result that, if it obtained, would
cause you to doubt it?
Yes, I would doubt it if it ceased to have any functional
value for
I'd have the same approach to using homeopathy. I don't
'believe' in
No. As I said earlier, the flat earth vs abstract conceptual
scheme
What I don't do is then go on to say that scientific realism
is wrong,
>> I think the symbolism, with all its ambiguity and lack
of consistency,
I'm not sure that such an inability invalidates astrology's
>I think a finite boundary
This raises the question of how we categorise. Finite
clean cut
My take on prediction is that the real world is primary,
and astrology
I am interested in the buffering potential associated
with
>This is always been the point
I'm not sure I agree with that. There's always lots that
won't happen.
> I don't
Well, yes, that is what a paradox means. But I always
feel that
But the analogy which I base that paradox on is the concept
of a
>> For this idea to sit comfortably in one's mind, astrology
has to be
Humans need to generate a sense of order. Mathematics,
science,
Astrologers predict, not astrology nor its symbolism.
The main thrust
>> The heavens provide a template for the way astrology
has been
The thing is Dale that I wouldn't dismiss what you are
saying here.
> I believe that there is an "astrological"
order in nature that
This theory-independent perspective indicates a compatibility
with
I'm not an objectivist, philosophically speaking. But
I'm also not an
Well, I don't use astrology to find answers. I use it
to illuminate
Your perspective on divination has a long tradition!
In my case, I didn't start out with that self-image at
all. I'm still
Of course, and the same is true of scientists operating
within, and
>> But I'm not a rationalist. I am very curious how it
is that I can make
The point that I'm getting at is that when I am operating
as an
There is so much 'information' that one can use with astrology
that it
But I don't think the correlations between symbol and
circumstance are
This isn't as random as it seems, because I do believe
that symbols
In other words, extracting a signal from the noise is
ultimately an
Client feedback is pretty much central to my practice.
I ask for it
The purpose is the illumination of the context, not the
description of
The divining aspect, for want of a better term, arises
in the
> I can't play these games. I can't convince
There isn't information to be gotten from the tarot cards
per se, or
Tarot cards and astrology (whatever else the latter may
be about) are
>But I think if
Without a doubt.
>But given the stories
Einstein reputedly said that imagination is more important
than
As regards journeymen scientists, they don't think about
such things.
> It depends on what you mean by "reasoning".
I would not agree
OK, we'll use imaginal. I use 'unreason' for effect. Unreasonable
has
>One might almost forget,
I agree. I'm certainly not anti-scientific. But it's one
thing to
>Kuhn, Geertz, Foucault, the Social
Yes, that's true too. They're nearly all sociologists
or feminists!
>There seem to be a
Science is a highly esoteric discipline (just look inside
any academic
>> I think there are points he makes in the book which
are important,
I don't think science will experience a Pauline conversion
and come to
Astrology exited the Middle Ages when the Middle Ages
ended. It also
It is impossible for contemporary astrology to mimic its
ancestors,
The use of symbols is not a primitive soon-to-be vestigial
aspect of
>> Against this kind of backdrop, Cornelius becomes a
visionary of sorts.
I don't know much about Nostradamus, but no, I think not.
I was using
>And the band played on. :) Good to see you back in circulation,
Likewise.
I think it's important to maintain the exchange of ideas.
Neither of
All the best,
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Hi Dennis,
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Tarnas comments that Jung believed "that the underlying
meaning or formal
"Jung had long regarded and defined archetypes as the
fundamental governing
"Jung had come to view archetypes as innate symbolic forms
and psychological
In giving his examples of Jungian archetypes Tarnas unfortunately
conflates
"Another major category of the archetypes comprises the
mathematical
Tarnas notes that most of his career Jung wrote from "within
the modern
"In his later work however, and most explicitly in the
context of his
"Jung's later work thus intimated the ancient understanding
of an ensouled
I'm hoping Tarnas will prove capable of developing Jung's
historical vision
Dennis Frank
-----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 21:37:57 +1200
> Thanks for putting in the effort to précis the
Tarnas chapters.
Thanks for that too, Bill, good to know someone appreciates
the review.
> Funnily enough, I also had experiences as a scientist
which made me
I have seen at least one other author use 'serendipity'
in this way -
> In my view it is not the length of the signal but its
iterative
Yes, I had the same intuition years ago, but nowadays
we know that the
> Yes, 'an astrology'. I would even call exploring the
attunement of
Well, I'd prefer to call it the physical basis for astrology,
which I see as
> pre-judging what they might be. And that's because I
do find, for
No need to assume it. Makes sense to me, intuitively,
and other
> I think what I try and do is communicate
Appropriate. Perhaps you don't do readings in absentia?
My bias towards
> will usually find myself discussing possibilities. My
approach is to
I agree, but always described it to non-astrologically
literate clients as
> I believe that the symbols have bounded meanings. I
Seems very similar to how I perceive the astrological
archetypes, even to
> I think that a symbol's meanings
I agree, but I do assume that the promptings of the archetype
select the
> I don't like lists of keywords. On the other hand I
do have words or
You must feel that keywords are too prescriptive.
I been around your type
> consensuses.
I remember learning in maths that the plural of radius
is radii. So the
> To believe the earth is flat while living in the
Yeah, when in Rome you do as the Romans do or they feed
you to the lions. I
> I would simply assert that Mars is associated
Yeah, red = blood = warrior. I remember thinking
that too, in times when
> I can't imagine though that anyone will be able to disprove
Snap! (on both counts)
> This raises the question of how we categorise. Finite
clean cut
Indeed, that's what we have Virgo for!! You know
what'd be a guaranteed
> I am interested in the buffering potential associated
with
You're onto it. All factors that help explain why
astrology doesn't
> The point that I'm getting at is that when I am operating
as an
Jeez, you mean there is such a thing as a rational astrologer??
The mind
Dennis
-----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
>I have seen at least one other author use 'serendipity'
in this way -
Hi Dennis,
I've been looking at cognitive linguistics and stuff like
that, rather
For example, somehow knowing that there is a danger around
the corner
I think the past and present are accessible to a greater
extent than
I also think that what is called divining, or 'reading
the signs', or
This isn't synchronicty, as far as I understand it. But
I do think it
Funnily enough, I'm in the middle of writing an article
about temporal
>Well, I'd prefer to call it the physical basis for astrology,
which I see as
I see heavenly bodies and their cycles as the physical
source from
>Perhaps you don't do readings in absentia?
Not if I can help it. I do other work with political horoscopes
and so
>My bias towards
I've done a lot of client readings face to face over the
last 20
I only really felt comfortable calling myself an astrologer
when I no
>> I believe that the symbols have bounded meanings. I
This relates to another article I am working on, about
how astrologers
>> I think that a symbol's meanings
I think the way the sensory-motor system cognises, and
uses conceptual
>> I don't like lists of keywords.
>You must feel that keywords are too prescriptive.
Well I do if someone just learns a list of keywords and
restricts
It's crucial to know why the terms are in the list (what
confers
>I been around your type
I use astrology as a tool. Just like an artist uses brushes
and
I'm not sure about being powered by psychic ability. I
know some
>> consensuses.
You are of course quite correct, but I chose to spell
it the way I did
>If you disregard
Which is why you should shift your gaze away from pyschology
and
>> I would simply assert that Mars is associated
It *is* contrived. The question is why does it have a
functional
There aren't too many books that discuss where the meanings
of the
> Venus was planet of war for the maya.
Wasn't Mars too? Or a big monster of some sort always
fighting.
>I came to view Mars as energy.
Well, I'd agree that the term is central and prototypical,
but heat
>Assertion and aggression I would
I'd agree with that.
>> I am interested in the buffering potential associated
with
>You're onto it. All factors that help explain why
astrology doesn't
Yes, it's really only in the 30 years or so that such
ideas have
>> The point that I'm getting at is that when I am operating
as an
No, there are lots of non-rational astrologers in denial.
;-)
All the best - keep them préces (would that be
right now?) coming!
Bill
http://www.radical-astrology.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Hi Dennis, Bill,
My apologies for the slow response. Unfortunately
I'm working seven day
I should add this response is as before dashed off in
haste, and is
Dennis I greatly appreciated your comments, which were
most relevant and
As regards the description I gave of 'forces propagating',
I think I was
At least when I lecture, I know all the students are there
for an
However exegesis contains such a diversity of backgrounds
and
There is a sense in physics of exactly what you stated
in your first
I should emphasise that is almost certainly not a universally
held view.
I wrote:
to which you asked:
Sorry - I meant the timing of biological processes might
not be
There's a slight semantic difficulty here I suppose.
Atomic clocks
That is simply to say there are much more immediately
accessible, useful,
Still, I get the feeling I am complicating this unnecessarily!
A
'atomic clocks'
The two lines forking off in different directions to "planet
cycles" on
What I suggest however is that there _should_ be a line
linking planets
There are two lines of reasoning one could take here:
the first (thanks
The second line is that the dependency/necessity is a
product of
At a physics/chemistry level, the Mona Lisa is simply
a discrete
Moreover this different level apparently has real effects
that change
These effects cannot (apparently, though really strong
reductionists
(Roger, maybe this links into your insights somehow).
Thus, I do not see the possibility of astrology as being
necessarily in
Bill you wrote:
Exactly. You put that much better than I did!
By the way I used the term "signal", lapsing I fear into
a boyhood spent
> What I can't get together in my own head is how you
bridge the gap (or
I may have been misleading in bringing up the two levels
at all, so that
Nevertheless, I don't claim there is or even needs to
be a connection.
We're back to the difference between the observer that
_pauses_ to
I think - whether as a result of entrainment, or of something
built into
I suggest it's more that these rhythms have got "built
into us" in some
(Whilst I hate the rhetorical practice of invoking famous
people's names
I am not sure but this _may_ meet in part with what you
described here,
> I am approaching the time question in my own work from
a different
I want finally to add that even _if_ all this (the idea
of a fundamental
Whilst I agree with Dale that (say) an age 7 rhythm is
there whether a
Well, as I've far exceeded what time I could afford, I'll
leave aside
All the best,
Andre.
------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 01:20:53 +0100
from wikipedia: "[..] When Lakoff claims the mind is "embodied",
he is
In terms of cognition's veiw of its self,
I think intellect has
My eccentric observations make me suspect
that the psyche dwelling
(Note, this too could be, ontically speaking,
just the existence of a
So, what if the psyche has as the condition
of its primary existence
"It", like other creatures of Nature may be informed
by non-local
The signs gestured by the psyche might have their
source code enacted
Illustration:
I see the psyche signaling the presence of
and position of what
I then emailed the artist, who was surprised to
find that I out of the
The intellect seems just the mistaken errand
boy of the signing
Rog
------------------------------
Message: 2
"In each case of synchronicity, Jung discerned an underlying
archetypal
"The empirical conformity between the event occurring
in the external world
Tarnas then quotes Jung himself: "The collective
unconscious surrounds us
"Jung's student and close associate Marie-Louise von Franz
stated in an
Tarnas thinks that synchronicity suggests "a transformation
in the
Tarnas moves on to a new section of chapter two - The
Archetypal Cosmos.
"Like most products of a modern education, I myself long
viewed any form of
Sounds good, eh? But he's probably over-stating
his case somewhat. [It's
Astrology "posits an intrinsically meaning-permeated cosmos
that in some
Tarnas is summarising his involvement with astrology,
which (subtle clues
"The consistency and precision of these initial correlations
between clearly
"What especially drew my attention was the inexplicable
fact that the
Actually, to be fair to the authors of that and earlier
eras, improvement
Nobody ever does this, of course. Even I got too
bored to do it with
Okay, so much for left-brain astrology. That's only
the structure of the
"These findings impelled me to step back and approach
the research task in a
"I found the symbolic principles associated with the planets
at the core of
"Equipping myself in this manner, I first made an intensive
examination of
"Keeping in mind the suggestibility inherent in such assessments,
I was
"This certainly would have been striking in itself, yet
even more
"Yet there were also problems and discrepancies.
A considerable portion of
------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 00:48:05 +1200
"Certainly much astrological theory and practice entirely
lacked critical
"Nevertheless, a certain core of the astrological tradition
- above all, the
Tarnas notes that his method of investigation "required
a constant
Whereas traditional astrology tended to be determinist
and literal, Tarnas
"A key to this emerging perspective, I came to realize,
was the concept of
He eventually concluded that, although the essences (of
the archetypes) were
He then declares that "the essential structure of this
emerging astrological
He began to see astrology as a vehicle for self-transformation
"continuing
"I eventually extended my research to encompass various
categories of
"I have become convinced, after the most painstaking investigation
and
Tarnas closes his second chapter by explaining to readers
(general public)
I'm surprised how similar his view is to mine. This
feels gratifying, after
Dennis Frank
------------------------------
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 30
[Exegesis Top][Table
of Contents][Prior Issues][Next
Issues]
Unless otherwise indicated, articles and submissions above
are copyright © 1996-2006 their respective authors.
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Re: symbolism (Andre)
>between cognition and the environment".
>
>I won't presume how exactly you conceptualise this,
but the word itself
>(cognition) scares me enough to mutter about the Cartesian
dualism at
>the back of 'cognitivism', at least as it is usually
understood in
>psychology.
Nice to hear from you.
I do not mean cognitivism if that word and the perspective
it
re-presents upholds Cartesian dualism.
generation' cognitive science, which is exemplified by
the works of
George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and others.
generation and reasoning on the body and on basic level
recurrent or
repeated physical experience. It is the opposite of dualistic
in that
respect.
way astrologies are conceptualised. That the real physical
experience
of the heavens provides the source for conceptual metaphor
schemes
that constitute the forms of various astrologies.
(the heavens) and target (the astrology) in the conceptual
metaphor
scheme are so closely related that they resemble each
other to the
point that they are hard to separate. The metaphorical
is therefore
very easily taken literally.
>templates is that the very notion of a "cognising being"
allows
>planetary cycles to plug straight into the "cognising
machinery" of that
>being.
planetary cycles "plug straight into" the sensory-motor
activity in
the brain? Is it because as cognising humans we can see
them, measure
them, and in the process of doing so somehow we facilitate
integration
on a sensory-motor level? I think I would agree with
this, but would
see it in terms of conceptual metaphor structures.
>that one grants that (a) having fundamental timing cycles
of some sort
>are likely to be a huge convenience to any living entity;
experience of the diurnal, lunar and apparent solar cycles,
and maybe
others related to solar activity based on the cumulative
gravitational
influence of planetary bodies, I find it hard to fathom
why an 84 year
cycle associated with Uranus should provide a useful
template.
but then so are the cycles associated with caesium atoms.
Neither of
them beat the diurnal, lunar and apparent solar cycles
for utility.
And neither of them are so obviously as associated with
qualitative
change as the diurnal, lunar and apparent solar cycles.
scheme used to conceptualise a target - in this case
the broad and
general temporal experience of qualitative change. Which,
in keeping
with the nature of the source for the conceptual metaphor,
is then
deemed to occur rhythmically and cyclically.
happen once. Some thing happen more than once, but without
any
recognisable periodicity. On the other hand, expectations
are being
forged through the use of the metaphor, and change for
astrologers
becomes conceptualised as rhythmic and cyclic.
transfer metaphorically across to planetary cycles, such
as those for
Mars, Jupiter, etc. In which case, they 'cause effects'
just as the
motions of the stars, moon and sun do.
should be related to different qualities, and how those
qualities are
defined.
have any functional value, though in my experience it
does.
>the best cycles to use for the purpose not only of running
one's own
>life processes but also interacting with other entities
can only be
>those that are (relatively) universal and _highly_ non-transitory.
say that the best cycles for running life processes are
the ones we
use, full stop. And they've been selected for under evolutionary
pressures, as it were. I don't think the cycles used
in astrology have
the same pedigree. The Uranus cycle for example wasn't
selected for,
but discovered.
Returns. There definitely seems to be a correlation there
(at 28-29)
with 'crossroads' type events and major decisions, either
making them
or having them made for you. But then, how come
they 'work' in
relation to dead people's reputations?
>accept here is that the 'brain' (or whatever one likes
to call it) will
>'naturally' tend to find the most stable and non-transient
signals it
>can from its environment, and further that - somehow
- living entities
>are able to detect _planetary_ signals from out of that
environment.
>for astrology; or if one prefers, an empirical "aspect
to" astrology.
weird physical aspect to the relationship between humans
and the
individual planets and their combinations, and that this
might even be
empirically demonstrated. Even on a collective level
by looking at
chronologies. But it would be way down one end of the
astrology
spectrum, just this side of astronomy.
>'respond to' but is in a very real and intimate sense
'built upon' or
>part of the environment.
environment, and what emerges structures the way we conceptualise
and
experience that environment (perceived as external reality).
I think
the ability to reason or to imagine is constantly evolving,
as is the
ability to astrologize or mathematize. I think the history
of
mathematics, for example, is a history of the evolution
of an aspect
of human cognition, rather than the story of discovering
more and more
about the abstract structure of a mind-independent Universal
Reason.
'cognitive field' (which structures reality for humans).
revolution.
>Dennis and so on recently.
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 21
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 23:40:30
+1200
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] cosmos & psyche
It is a recent publication, running to nearly 500 pages
of text. "Richard
Tarnas is a cultural historian and professor of philosophy
and depth
psychology whose first book *The Passion of the Western
Mind* became both a
bestseller and required reading at many universities."
[publisher's
description, from the jacket]
The word is that this new book is a sales pitch for astrology,
so it will be
interesting to see how someone of his stature presents
such a case in the
early 21st century. Having read the 1st chapter,
I will now report on it,
and maybe keep up a running commentary for awhile if
Exegesis remains
available to carry it.
happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal
and most
subjective reaches of the psyche." Tarnas cites
this quote from Carl Jung
to introduce the book. Under the heading The Birth
of the Modern Self he
reproduces a section of Pico della Mirandola's *Oration
on the Dignity of
Man*. Pico has God say to Adam "The nature of all
other beings is limited
and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed
by Us. Thou,
constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own
free will, in whose
hand we have placed thee, shalt ordain for thyself the
limits of thy nature.
We have set thee at the world's center.. We have made
thee neither of heaven
nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with
freedom of choice
and with honour, as though the maker and molder of thyself,
thou mayest
fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer."
heresy. But it sure does foreshadow Tom Paine,
Maslow & Rudhyar.
Interesting too that the deity is plural here, as in
Genesis. Yahweh,
according to himself, was a jealous god, but apparently
not a solitary one.
His copy editors edited out his companions from the surviving
original
script, but there Genesis still proves monotheism came
later to the jews.
diametrically opposite in character, concerning human
history and the
evolution of human consciousness."
human history .. as an epic narrative of human progress,
a long heroic
journey from a primitive world .. to a brighter
modern of ever-increasing
knowledge, freedom, and well-being." The other
is "a tragic narrative of
humanity's gradual but radical fall and separation from
an original state of
oneness with nature and an encompassing spiritual dimension
of being." He
notes that these "represent two basic antithetical myths
of historical
self-understanding: the myth of Progress and what
in its earlier
incarnations was called the myth of the Fall. These
two historical
paradigms appear today in many variations.. They underlie
and influence
discussions of the environmental crisis, globalization,
multiculturalism,
fundamentalism, feminism and patriarchy, evolution and
history."
into it. He applies the principle of complementarity:
"[B]oth historical
paradigms are at once fully valid and also partial aspects
of a larger frame
of reference, a metanarrative, in which the two opposite
interpretations are
precisely intertwined to form a complex integrated whole."
History has
brought "both a progressive ascent to autonomy and a
tragic fall from unity"
but this may lead to "a synthesis on a new level".
We see "the two
paradigms reflect opposite but equally essential aspects
of an immense
dialectical process". Yet a third view has emerged
in more recent times
that dismisses historical patterns as mere projections:
"Patterns are not
so much recognized in phenomena as read into them."
old-fashioned! Get hip to postmodernism & you'll
get over it! "[T]his
paradigm-free relativism, whereby no pattern or meaning
exists in history
except as constructed and projected onto history by the
human mind, is
itself clearly another paradigm. It recognizes
that we always see by means
of myths and interpretive categories but fails to apply
that recognition
consistently to itself."
myths, our interpretive assumptions - constellates our
outer reality.. World
views create worlds." This is the interface between
individual psyche and
group mind. A paradigm indoctrinates all users.
and object, a distinct division between the human self
and the encompassing
world." "The primal mind does not maintain this
division, does not
recognize it, whereas the modern mind not only maintains
it but is
essentially constituted on it." "The primal world
is ensouled. It
communicates and has purposes. It is pregnant with
signs and symbols,
implications and intentions.. A continuity extends
from the interior world
of the human to the world outside.. The human being is
a microcosm within
the macrocosm of the world, participating in its interior
reality and united
with the whole in ways that are both tangible and invisible."
mundi*, a living matrix of embodied meaning. The
human psyche is embedded
in a world psyche in which it complexly participates
and by which it is
continuously defined."
archetypal significance, and that significance flows
between inner and
outer, between self and world."
and outer and thus lives in a state of continuous magical
delusion".
place a complexly intertwined and interpenetrating two-sided
process: on
the one hand, a gradual *differentiation* of the self
from the world, of the
human being from nature, of the individual from the encompassing
matrix of
being; on the other hand, a gradual *disenchantment*
of the world,
producing a radical *relocation* of the ground of meaning
and conscious
intelligence from the world as a whole to the human self
alone. What once
pervaded the world as the *anima mundi* is now seen as
the exclusive
property of human consciousness. The modern self
has essentially absorbed
all meaning and purpose into its own interior being,
emptying the primal
cosmos of what once constituted its essential nature."
experience of human alienation*", Tarnas proceeds to
discuss The
Cosmological Situation Today: "Ours is an age between
worldviews, creative
yet disoriented, a transitional era when the old cultural
vision no longer
holds and the new has not yet constellated."
postmodern mind the tentative outlines of a new understanding
of reality".
"This reappraisal includes a more acute sensitivity to
the ways in which the
subject and the object are mutually implicated in the
act of knowing, a
revised understanding of the relationship of whole and
part in all
phenomena, a new grasp of complex interdependence and
subtle order in living
systems, and an acknowledgment of the inadequacy of the
reductionist,
mechanistic, and objectivized concepts of nature."
deeper understanding of the pivotal role of the imagination
in mediating all
human experience and knowledge; an increased awareness
of the depth, power,
and complexity of the unconscious; and a more sophisticated
analysis of the
nature of symbolic, metaphoric, and archetypal meaning
in human life."
the philosophical and psychological reconciliation of
numerous long-standing
schisms: between human being and nature, self and
world, spirit and matter,
mind and body, conscious and unconscious, personal and
transpersonal,
secular and sacred, intellect and soul, science and the
humanities, science
and religion."
seemingly insurmountable problem.. to succeed in becoming
a broad-based
cultural vision, or even to achieve its own implicit
program of
psychological and intellectual integration, this new
outlook has been
lacking in one essential element, the sine qua non of
any genuinely
comprehensive, internally consistent world view:
a coherent cosmology."
"No amount of revisioning philosophy or psychology, science
or religion, can
forge a new world view without a radical shift at the
cosmological level."
change of universal principles brings about a change
of the entire world.""
starting point of the modern world view - a pervasive
assumption that subtly
continues to influence the postmodern turn as well -
that any meaning and
purpose the human mind perceives in the universe does
not exist
intrinsically in the universe but is constructed and
projected onto it by
the human mind. Might this not be the final, most
global anthropocentric
delusion of all? For is it not an extraordinary
act of human hubris -
literally, a hubris of cosmic proportions - to assume
that the exclusive
source of *all meaning and purpose in the universe* is
ultimately centred in
the human mind, which is therefore absolutely unique
and special and in this
sense superior to the entire cosmos."
narcissism writ large, tacit yet evident once spotted.
It fits the Jungian
perspective too, located in the collective unconscious.
"I believe that
this criticism of the hidden anthropocentrism permeating
the modern world
view cannot be successfully countered. Only the
blinders of our paradigm,
as is always the case, have prevented us from recognizing
the profound
implausibility of its most basic underlying assumption."
meaning, not just the part (us), then that internal meaning
of ours must
have an external component, deriving from nature.
Tarnas concludes by
observing that the issues he has discussed "compel us
to examine that
mysterious place where subject and object so intricately
and consequentially
intersect: the crucial meeting point of cosmology,
epistemology, and
psychology."
is - the substructure of paradigms. Get some flux
happening there and those
creaking superstructural belief systems will soon have
the skids under them,
and the paradigm shift that took effect amongst the avante
garde in the '80s
will acquire some mass inertia as it percolates into
the mainstream.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 01:52:07 +1200
From: andre
Subject: [e] Re: Symbolism (Andre) (Bill Sheeran)
to me.
e} generation' cognitive science
directly.
_psychology_ (CP). I meant to emphasise that, because
I guess CP is
pretty narrow compared to cognitive science. (Indeed,
I am increasingly
of the view psychology as a whole is pretty narrow.
OTOH, it shares
interesting parallels and problems with astrology.
This though is
another topic for another day).
as I'm certainly no expert in the field! But at
least in my field,
where CP appears in the guise of "social cognition" which
tends rather
strongly toward an individualistic bias in which context
is secondary or
only apprehended 'second hand'.
problems with what you wrote.
e} planetary cycles "plug straight into" the sensory-motor
activity in
e} the brain?
out in physics and long speculative chains never stopped
anyone IMHO!).
If I put this in research terms, there are a number of
hypotheses and
all of them would have to be right for the conjecture
to be right.
all processes - non-living and living - can apparently
be reduced to a
handful of physics constants - especially the speed of
light - then in
effect all processes are "timed" at atomic and subatomic
levels. That
is, time itself can be said to be 'governed' by the 'speed'
with which
the fundamental forces propagate, and how that interacts
with basic
particles and fields. All this determines the processes
of change; the
varieties of change; and the interrelationships of changing
things
throughout the universe.
because it at least points to roughly the right level.
level of something like a living being, it would seem
that there is no
need to look anywhere else for the "clocks" that determine
the living
processes. Atomic clocks are universal (back to
our fundamental forces
underlying all matter and energy) yet also internal to
every living
entity, or indeed every thing period.
are committed to saying that atomic clocks alone are
not sufficient once
we reach the level of living organisms. Dale has
spoken of this in
terms of evolutionary development. I won't attempt
to represent
something here about which I am not knowledgeable and
about which he has
already written eloquently over many years in any case.
'consciousness' or 'sensory awareness' or whatever.
I shan't attempt to
define this right here; more deep water!
organisms as things that happen to have "sensory-motor"
capabilities.
this, in the sense of 'the organism senses something
in its environment
and [decides to] move toward it, away from it, or ignore
it'.
or reasoning processes however, since I would argue (and
I think Dale
does too) that we aren't just talking about humans here.
in deciding? I suggest they are not.
their 'rhythms' and 'signals' are simply too ridiculously
fast to be at
all useful in deciding anything. (To put this another
way, they are
mostly well beyond the threshold of sensory awareness.
I guess we _do_
sense or differentiate some of these clocks in some ways,
such as when
humans and other animals "see colour", but that's another
thread
altogether).
needs in order to measure time, and I want to attempt
to reintroduce it
here but in a more explained way.
sense" of its environment, there have to be stable signals
within that
environment against which to measure the more transient
signals which
portend opportunity, threat, or neither of these.
time? Or a short time?
organism and the shape out into empty space, I suggest
the organism
simply has no way to "judge time". What's the reference
or frame?
There is none.
has an intellectual interest in the number of seconds,
hours or aeons
that have passed. I'm talking about the organisms
need to "know" at a
much more raw level than that - see next).
quickly (hence possibly threatening)? Or slowly (maybe
less threatening)?
what to do.
of signals, and in a sense one might argue this cacophony
of signals
(life) provides the framework.
of transient and irregular signals (events) does _not_
provide anything
useful for organisms to decide anything. (Some
of you will immediately
think of emergent properties - especially emergent organisation
- at
this point. I will come to this presently).
variety of timespans, hence some are _less_ transient
and provide that
essential frame.
visible while the other suddenly appears and disappears,
there is the
beginning of "time measurement" here. Again, I
don't mean measurement
to be interpreted as an intellectual act. Rather
I mean this is
something much more primitive and fundamental.
the more "measureable" or "judgeable" time seems to be;
the more there
is a sense of time as a "flow". And because such
an environment is a
busy environment, the more importance 'deciding' (as
I defined it
previously) assumes, since this means the potential for
more threats and
more opportunities.
the environment that provide the frame; not the short
ones. The one
caveat here is that - _on a purely individual level_
- signals that are
longer than the organisms own lifespan are almost certainly
not useful.
a social/collective level, signals longer than typical
lifespans
certainly _are_ useful.
signals are picked up merely as a rational and optional
choice, although
I do think picking them up may be opportunistic.
organism picks them up almost as an act of necessity,
simply because it
provides huge advantages to do so. (I don't go
so far as to say the use
of such clocks is an absolute necessity for all life,
since I simply
don't pretend to know what _is_ necessary for all life!).
available and of course (2) the organism is able to sense
them - I don't
see this as a matter of a choice or of concept-construction.
Rather I
see it as something that almost all individuals among
living organisms
are likely to "stumble upon" and start to use simply
because it confers
huge advantages in terms of survival. Moreover
I think this is likely to
be _so_ fundamental as to occur at the bedrock level
of
cognitive-environmental learning.
resolve a chaotic mix of undifferentiated shapes and
colours into a
generally highly accurate cognitive map of the physical
environment.
This level is really so fundamental that (as far as I
know) we don't
seem to have the option to jump out of bed one morning
and "unsee" the
visual field. We don't appear to have the choice
to return to seeing
the world as a baby sees it.
organisms that are capable of sensing planetary cycles
(other than the
gross physical cycles you mentioned Bill: "the diurnal,
lunar and
apparent solar cycles"), then astrology (or rather perhaps
'an astrology')
follows quite naturally.
capability; merely that some significant minority of
living organisms
within the environment have the faculty. At that
point the 'system' of
living organisms starts to display emergent properties
based on
planetary cycles, hence making those signals available
to all the other
organisms in the environment. (My current research
work - nothing to
do with astrology I hasten to add - includes some quite
basic computer
simulations of social environments. It is most
interesting to see how
quickly random starting populations become highly ordered.
I guess a
gross example - diurnal - is the way birdsong fills the
air at dawn.
Any organisms with no eyes but ears get to know about
the diurnal clock
quite precisely).
with:
e} but then so are the cycles associated with caesium
atoms.
well I misappropriated the term above, but the _actual_
atomic clocks
are certainly available to some of us in terms of an
abstract human
conception of time, but I'm trying to describe a different
kind of time...
e} weird physical aspect to the relationship between
humans and the
e} individual planets and their combinations, and that
this might even be
e} empirically demonstrated.
agree there's something interesting about that term "empirical"
in
science. If data demonstrates some kind of reliable
correlation, sooner
or later science simply accepts the data as fact, and
constructs
"theories" (stories) that accomodate the data.
Any words we may have
invented to describe the data are eventually incorporated
into the
theory., i.e. the data invents the theory. (I'm
glossing over the fact
theories can be and are falsified on a continuing basis,
which means
this is story telling of a different kind than 'just
fiction').
physicists are among the most pragmatic of scientists:
hell, the data
doesn't fit the theory? Just invent a new theory,
and don't worry about
how weird the theory is.
any reason why the universe may not include astrology
in its physics.
e} 'cognitive field' (which structures reality for humans).
[and what
you wrote above that about mathematics]
think! He really is a brilliantly imaginative thinker
though (IMHO).
exist in a very real sense, e.g. in quantum mechanics
(if I remember
rightly). However, talking about mathematics surely
gets us back to
talking about the nature of theory or as you say our
construction of
reality. Penrose would disagree with us though...
a waste of time to read <wry grin>
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 12:38:29
+1200
From: andre
Subject: [e] Time - afterthoughts;
and thoughts on the demise of
Exegesis (was Symbolism -
Bill, Andre)
between Dale, Dennis and Bill. I should have changed
the subject line -
sorry about that.
the bottom of this post.
dynamical) systems - the 'environment' of living organisms
as I called
it last night - is such that the earth itself (or whatever
planet one
happens to be on) is likely to be a major potential participant
in the
system.
"non-linear" is simply that within such a system you
don't necessarily
get a dollar back for a dollar put in - which is what
you _do_ get from
a linear system (or some constant multiple of a dollar).
A non-linear
system is somewhat like a casino: you may put in a dollar
and get a
million back; or you may lose your entire life savings
and never see a
cent back. That's where the famous story of a butterfly
flapping its
wings in one part of the world and causing a hurricane
in the opposite
part comes from. Dynamical of course just means
changing., like
everyday life).
in living organisms at all. The earth itself is
a very good detector of
what the other planets are doing. Anyone on the
list who has ever
written an ephemeris program will know what I mean about
planetary
perturbations.
and Van Flandern (1979) from the U.S. Naval Observatory.
They published
low precision formulae for calculating planetary positions,
the
precision being one heliocentric arc-minute (so not always
as good at
that converted to geocentric coordinates). Even
at this low level the
effect of Venus, Mars and Jupiter on the Earth's position
are quite
apparent in the equations.
many years ago to the effect that "the gravitational
influence of the
doctor and nurses on a newborn baby far exceed the influence
of Jupiter".
sensitive to small variations in the earth itself, then
as participants
in a dynamical system _all_ organisms are potentially
able to sense
these variations. (What variations? The most
obvious would be day and
year variations, and the tilt of the Earth with respect
to the Sun).
of last night were about. Adding to that though,
I guess over our long
evolutionary histories, encompassing - for example -
periods of global
warming and cooling, there _might_ be good evolutionary
reasons for
organisms to be sensitised to even _very_ long and _very_
subtle cycles.
...
On reflection I didn't properly explain last night why
I thought timing
signals useful to living organisms couldn't arise from
an environment of
random and transient signals, without the need for any
longer signals.
out of randomness, but at least one or two things seem
apparent.
other - hence inanimate random systems can exhibit orderly
behaviour
just as much an aminate systems.
present somewhere in the system before order can emerge
at some larger
level. In simulations I am currently replicating
where two populations
start out mixed randomly together, any slight accident
of clustering
which gives one or the other the slightest advantage
most often
translates to a dominant advantage later on. However
the advantage
_has_ to be present, or nothing occurs.
manifest.
(and it is, given the point about planetary perturbations
above), and
given that the environment is at all sensitive to this
order, then one
must expect that environment will indeed reproduce that
planetary order
in some way.
some sense.
...
Finally, as exegesis is apparently going into demise,
I do want to make
a brief comment about that. Considered altogether
over the years exegesis
has been by far the most useful and thought-provoking
of the astrology
lists I've experienced.
increasingly adversarial culture that stifled genuine
collaboration.
The root of it seemed to lie in a determination by some
participants to
"prove" their own theory right and hence - quite rancourously
- others'
theories wrong.
theories available to us within this forum, such an enterprise
as vying
to be 'proved right' was always bound to be fruitless.
Instead, it
could only degenerate into egotistical posturings.
even though there are theory-testing methodologies available
- suffers
from something similar: a failure to properly take
the trouble to
understand and consider competing theories when advancing
one's own.
theory which actually just as easily fits others.
Sheeran as an attempt to refute his position in favour
of my own. On
the contrary, what Bill has advanced explains a number
of problems that
mine does not. This does indeed suggest that no-one
of us possesses
'the final theory'. Whilst there are undoubtedly
bad theories that
should be dumped, there are also good theories that should
be retained
(with the emphasis on the plural).
unify the good ideas can there be any point in a forum
such as this, and
in the brave enterprise that Patrice ran for some years,
and other
efforts like it.
for planetary positions, The Astrophysical Supplement
Series, 41:391-411.
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 19:09:23 +1200
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] Re: Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 22 (Andre)
muscle in on your conversation with Bill, I'd like to
throw in a few passing
comments..
> all processes - non-living and living - can apparently
be reduced to a
> handful of physics constants - especially the speed
of light - then in
> effect all processes are "timed" at atomic and subatomic
levels. That
> is, time itself can be said to be 'governed' by the
'speed' with which
> the fundamental forces propagate, and how that interacts
with basic
> particles and fields. All this determines the
processes of change; the
> varieties of change; and the interrelationships of
changing things
> throughout the universe.
it is wrong, mind you, since a mere physics graduate
was so unqualified
(even in the mid-'70s) as to be unworthy of employment
in the field. But
what I recall being taught is that energy & matter
propagate. Fields too,
although these are somewhat questionable as physical
entities (a sceptic
might describe them as collective hallucinations since
we can't sense them).
Forces just are, in my understanding. True, my
memory may be unreliable,
and physicists' collective comprehension of forces may
have changed somehow.
'60s when I encountered physics as just a subdivision
of the subject taught
to adolescents as "general science". The basic
assumptions & hypotheses
were described by the term "metaphysics". According
to the teacher, you
couldn't prove them, you just had to take them for granted.
I was
intrigued. Force, and natural forces, fall into
that category too I
believe. You define them as that which accelerates
masses. Like fields,
these hypothetical entities exist in our minds by virtue
of the behaviour
they seem to produce.
> in deciding? I suggest they are not.
>
> They are essential to the very existence of the organism
of course, but
> their 'rhythms' and 'signals' are simply too ridiculously
fast to be at
> all useful in deciding anything. (To put this
another way, they are
> mostly well beyond the threshold of sensory awareness.
I guess we _do_
> sense or differentiate some of these clocks in some
ways, such as when
> humans and other animals "see colour", but that's another
thread
> altogether).
read various references to this apparent 'fact' but am
unaware or forgot how
it was established), we must therefore be theoretically
open to influence at
the atomic level of matter. I suspect we are synched
in at some basic
level - more likely that of molecular systems.
>
> I suggest they are.
>
> I put forward a thought experiment some years ago about
what an organism
> needs in order to measure time, and I want to attempt
to reintroduce it
> here but in a more explained way.
>
> Baldly stated, the thesis is that in order for an organism
to "make
> sense" of its environment, there have to be stable
signals within that
> environment against which to measure the more transient
signals which
> portend opportunity, threat, or neither of these.
scientific publications is that there is a tacit consensus
that we have
evolved in synch with the temporal context, as structured
by the
geo/solar/lunar cycles. It is tacitly recognised
that development is cued
by that context. However, complex natural systems
do attain an independent
trajectory with their relative autonomy. It's a
question of what biological
processes are cued at what level.
> variety of timespans, hence some are _less_ transient
and provide that
> essential frame.
signals emanating from the ecosystem cue behaviour.
Thus diurnal, seasonal
etc patterns become concurrent in both part & whole
(of the ecosystem).
> the more "measureable" or "judgeable" time seems to
be; the more there
> is a sense of time as a "flow". And because such
an environment is a
> busy environment, the more importance 'deciding' (as
I defined it
> previously) assumes, since this means the potential
for more threats and
> more opportunities.
must have been a basic attribute of organisms throughout
evolution.
> available and of course (2) the organism is able to
sense them - I don't
> see this as a matter of a choice or of concept-construction.
Rather I
> see it as something that almost all individuals among
living organisms
> are likely to "stumble upon" and start to use simply
because it confers
> huge advantages in terms of survival. Moreover
I think this is likely to
> be _so_ fundamental as to occur at the bedrock level
of
> cognitive-environmental learning.
part of the ecosystem & basic wiring in the organism.
Prompts the psyche
via the subconscious, in humans. Programs the hormones
in animals, etc.
> organisms that are capable of sensing planetary cycles
(other than the
> gross physical cycles you mentioned Bill: "the diurnal,
lunar and
> apparent solar cycles"), then astrology (or rather
perhaps 'an astrology')
> follows quite naturally.
into a consensus over long time periods, via descriptive
labelling. Too bad
the latter process allows too much latitude for individual
artistry, with
consequent intellectual artifice. See Ptolemy for
prime example.
> capability; merely that some significant minority of
living organisms
> within the environment have the faculty. At that
point the 'system' of
> living organisms starts to display emergent properties
based on
> planetary cycles, hence making those signals available
to all the other
> organisms in the environment. (My current research
work - nothing to
> do with astrology I hasten to add - includes some quite
basic computer
> simulations of social environments. It is most
interesting to see how
> quickly random starting populations become highly ordered.
I guess a
> gross example - diurnal - is the way birdsong fills
the air at dawn.
> Any organisms with no eyes but ears get to know about
the diurnal clock
> quite precisely).
> physicists are among the most pragmatic of scientists:
hell, the data
> doesn't fit the theory? Just invent a new theory,
and don't worry about
> how weird the theory is.
> a waste of time to read <wry grin>
mature. Like a fine wine.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 07:33:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dale Huckeby
Subject: [e] Symbolism
that I wrote:>>
>> for instance, has there been almost no discussion
of the epistemological
>> status of astrological symbolism? I've raised
this issue a number of times,
>> arguing that symbolism is inherently flawed and on
occasion explaining
>> why I think so, but no one has offered an articulate
defense of it. How
>> is astrology to evolve and improve if we are impervious
to critiques of
>> its foundations (and to proffered alternatives)?
>
> Hi Dale and everyone,
> Seeing as the opportunity to shout from the rooftops
is going to
> reduce dramatically with the ending of Exegesis, I
thought I'd join in
> the party. First of all to thank Fran, and secondly
to pour a
> bucketful of ideas and notions into the punchbowl and
give it a good
> stir. Hopefully this won't induce too much nausea or
terminal
> hangovers, but from what has been written recently,
I know my
> contribution is more grape than grain (or is it the
other way round?),
> and wine and beer don't mix too easily in the head!
>
> I think that one of the reasons why little effort has
been made to
> discuss the epistemological status of astrological
symbolism is
> because it's a very complex subject. To get to grips
with it requires
> substantial knowledge and understanding from other
fields such as
> semiotics or cognitive science. There are symbols and
there are
> symbols, if you know what I mean.
>
> You mentioned in your last post to Dennis that you
use symbols every
> time you reason, communicate, calculate, and that it
is not symbols
> which you reject, but symbolism.
as it was in my post to Dennis, as _astrological_ symbolism,
to avoid
any possibility of misunderstanding.
> for example, is not symbolism.
astrological reasoning. I doubt that anyone calls
the use of symbols
in math symbolism. They call it math.
> is a difference between a mathematical or scientific
symbol, or a word
> that re-presents an entity for purposes of communication,
and imaginal
> symbols such as a cross, a circle (cycle), fire, ivy,
or whatever.
>
> The former are closer to signs than symbols, in the
sense that they
> are used to signify the signified entity in a direct
and definitive
> sense. NaCl *is* salt, which of course it isn't, but
the designation
> is not ambiguous.
what I'm getting at.
> love (but also the image in a photo of a dog or a drawing
of a dog -
> unlike NaCL, this word doesn't give rise to an unambiguous
> designation. The context is important). And so on.
fact that it _can_ mean many things doesn't mean that
it _will_ mean
many things in a given communication. Context is
the _means_ by
which we can make clear our intent, and by which the
recipient can
avoid misunderstanding it.
> from the symbol, given the way we cognise. Symbolising
is a human
> cognitive activity. I reckon it is impossible in normal
discourse to
> prevent words assuming subjectively expanded meanings.
They can mean
> different things to different people. Dog as a symbol
of fidelity,
> friendship; or dog as a symbol of guardianship; dog
as a symbol of a
> rogue, and so on.
>
> From what you have written, it seems that it is this
ambiguity
> associated with symbol meanings that has led you to
avoid astrological
> descriptions based on figurative language, and abandon
the notion of
> an astrology which relies on symbolism.
and Johnson cogently argue in _Metaphors We Live By_,
"human thought
processes are largely metaphorical." Without metaphors
we would unable
to speak intelligibly, if at all. Yet that desn't
mean that we can't
communicate unambiguously if we want to. Scientists
have been doing so
successfully for centuries, and if someone asked me to
"make the bed"
there would be no confusion in my mind as to what they
wanted me to do.
We can communicate unambiguously if it's important to
us, but it's not
clear that most astrologers want to. Consider these
examples.
opposite) Neptune, Grant Lewi writes, "Ambition has a
way of going to
sleep on you. A sense of your own power works subtly
inward giving
you a peculiar brand of good opinion of yourself, which
likely as not
you don't get around to doing anything about. A
sort of mystic faith
in your own worth pervades your thinking--you know you
could do it
if you wanted to, but you have to fight to want to.
This will prop
self-confidence if other things show aggression, but
it will forestall
acomplishment if you do not integrate your purposes and
translate
them by will power and a set goal, into action."
he quotes Lewi's first sentence, then paraphrases the
rest: "'Ambition
has a way of going to sleep on you (Lewi).' The
introversion of Neptune
absorbs the ambition of Saturn internally. The
Self has esteem, but the
need to externalize is weakened. The goal of effort
is elusive." But
notice how he _uses_ it. In _The Horoscope as Identity_
he notes that a
man with Saturn in the 11th opposite Neptune in the 5th
remarked that
his sex life had tapered off "normally" (Tyl's quotation
marks) during
his mid-thirties. Tyl then exclaims, "Ambition
_throughout the sex
spectrum_ [Tyl's emphasis] had fallen asleep."
"intent". Lewi's opening sentence summarizes his
observations, and the
rest elaborate and clarify, and thus delimit the possibilities
of what
he's trying to say. It doesn't matter which particular
words he uses.
He could say the same thing with different words, because
it's not the
words but what he thinks he's seen, that ideally applies
equally to
all cases, that he's trying to convey.
with Saturn opposite Neptune to share the same characteristics,
but
does expect their characteristics, however different
they appear to be,
to be describable using the appropriate keywords.
It's the keywords,
not the observed characteristics, that are stable and
thus predictable
from one case to the next. But since keywords can,
by being modified
or used as modifiers, mean virtually anything we want
them to, we
don't know in advance what the _next_ Saturn opposite
Neptune person
we encounter will be like, and what we'll therefore have
to make those
keywords mean. Symbolistic astrology can't predict,
but can only
explain, or appear to explain, after the fact.
> there are points of contact and overlap.
>
> I do agree, and have argued for years that the forms
astrology has
> taken are modulated by cultural and contextual factors.
Whether or not
> this makes me a social constructionist I'm not sure.
However, the
> intersubjectivity consensus you mention I would see
as 'locally valid'
> rather than visualising it on a global scale.
32 feet per second per second, is true all over the globe
and not just
locally. Surely there are species characteristics,
applicable to all and
not just to Koreans, Americans, or Bushmen, that are
also true all over
the globe. There is, for instance, a transition
at seven that appears to
occur in all cultures, in which the child develops a
persona and becomes
productive in terms of his or her culture. That's
presumably why in
ancient Sparta boys were at seven sent to the barracks
and trained to be
soldiers, or made apprentices in medieval Europe, and
why children in
so many cultures go through rites of passage at seven
or eight that
reflect a changed status in their culture. The
specifics differ from
culture to culture, but I think there's an underlying
"same thing" that
expresses differently in different cultures. But
given the lives we
have available to study, our findings are going to tend
to be 'locally
valid' for some time to come. That doesn't necessarily
mean, however,
a different _kind_ of astrology for each culture.
I suspect an age
seven Saturn transition occurs in all humans, and if
the astrology of
a given culture doesn't mention it, it doesn't mean that
it doesn't
happen in that culture, only that they don't know about
it.
> hand. The fact that it has a radically different form
from western
> astrology is a consequence, to use your terms, of social
> constructionist pressures within the cultural/contextual/environmental
> milieu. I would note with interest, for example, the
fact that Chinese
> astrology has a pronounced 'verticality' that is not
so emphasised in
> the west. Thus the zenith and circumpolar stars play
a major role. Of
> course, China is more mountainous than Mesopotamia,
which is
> geophysically horizontal. So horizon events dominate.
There's no right
> or wrong about this, only the fact that in an observational
sense the
> astrologies are bound to diverge from pretty much the
word go.
year of the monkey, etc., because it's non-Western.
I doubt Chinese
_and_ Western astrological signs for much the same reason
that I reject
the flat or central earth, that all are products of less
sophisticated,
less effective epistemologies than we have available
to us now, are
implausible, at least in my eyes, and aren't well enough
supported by
arguments and evidence to counter those objections.
> astrology, and always have done. But I'm not sure that
by rejecting
> their symbolic nature you escape ambiguity and subjectivity
in your
> observations of correlating patterns of events in life.
The
> identification of "functional similarities" isn't a
simple straight
> 'reading' of history, but a selection process, a projection
of
> (probably socially constructed) significance.
as a group to see if we can see how they're alike (in
which case we
have a hint of what the next one will be like)?
Or are we looking at
each period in turn to see if we can find events that
can be said to
fit the symbolism (in which case we don't have a hint
of what the next
one will be like)? In the latter case we can't
even differentiate the
conjunction periods from the non-conjunction periods,
because events
that fit the symbolism of Uranus/Neptune (or any other
planets, for
that matter) can be found at all times.
differs from one culture to another as that it differs
from the (now
seen to be) naive notion that discovery is like seeing
a rock, and
picking it up and showing it to others, who immediately
realize what
you've found, rather than a process of negotiation.
The nature of
nature constrains what _can_ be negotiated. No
one claims that water
runs uphill, or that objects accelerate at 35 feet per
second per
second. For an historical illustration of social
constructionism see
Martin J.S. Rudwick's _The Great Devonian Controversy:
The Shaping
of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists_.
Rudwick begins
by imparting to the reader the state of geological knowledge
at the
beginning of the period, about 1834, and the social groups
and contexts
in which it was pursued, and then enables the reader
to vicariously
experience the journey, the insights, the blind alleys,
the confusion,
and the emergence of consensus around 1842. It
evokes the stumbling-
in-the-dark nature of scientific research better than
any book I have
ever read.
straightforward. If it were, far more would already
have been done.
What I try to do, in order to avoid the most obvious
pitfalls, is let
historians and biographers supply the temporal structure.
I assume
they're deeply immersed in the history or life they're
describing,
and that for each life or history the periodization the
author uses
reflects his or her sense of which chunks of time hang
together as
a natural unit. If the periodization makes sense
astrologically, it's
presumably not because the author has an astrological
axe to grind.
In that case it becomes especially significant when I
see, in a Hitler
bio, a chapter titled "The Years of Waiting, 1924-31,"
which neatly
coincides with the Lewi-described "obscure period"; or
when I read in
another bio the author's assertion that when Hitler became
notably
more reckless and uncompromising in 1939 (with Saturn
moving into the
upper half of his chart) he was "returning to his earlier
self," the
rigid, unrestrained demagogue of the early 1920's (before
Saturn left
the upper half of his chart); or when I see, in an art
history book,
a series of artistic turning points that fall at Uranus/Neptune
intervals.
> to measure (the root of self-fulfilling prophecy in
science), you can
> only see what you can see. And in both cases there
is always more
> going on "than meets the eye". I personally don't have
a problem with
> the idea that you can generate useful insights in this
way, but I
> wonder about the idea that you can *identify* what
the planetary
> cycles "describe" re: functional similarities in world
events. In
> other words, that you can 'label' the cycles in some
way that is more
> solid (more real) than their attached symbolist meanings.
but I don't see taking infinitely malleable keywords
and picking out
disparate events that "fit the symbolism" as a viable
alternative.
My Uranus/Neptune conjunction study took several years
to get off
the ground precisely because I took the stance, and _meant_
it, that
I didn't know what _should_ recur at Uranus/Neptune intervals,
and
wouldn't until I actually saw the rhythm. Yet how
could I see it if
I didn't know what I was looking for? But I had
an insight thanks
to Kuhn that a second Scientific Revolution had occurred
exactly one
Uranus/Neptune cycle after the first, which focussed
my reading and
lead me to Thomas Goldstein's _Dawn of Modern Science_,
after which
I followed citations like a trail of breadcrumbs.
I ended up reading
lots of books on art history, which I had never been
interested in
before, with the most significant being Erwin Panofsky's
_Gothic
Architecture and Scholaticism_, _Perspective as Symbolic
Form_, and
_Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art_, and Samuel
Edgerton,
Jr.'s lovely and provocative _The Heritage of Giotto's
Geometry: Art
and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution_.
So I think
it is difficult, but not impossible, to find something
when you don't
know what you're looking for, and anyway I see no alternative.
> model, that you feel comfortable saying that in your
view the
> Uranus-Neptune cycle is "more important" than the Saturn-Pluto
cycle
> which has attracted Richard Tarnas's attention.
feel, but don't have compelling arguments or observations
to offer,
that cycles of adjacent planets--Jupiter/Saturn, Saturn/Uranus,
Uranus/Neptune, Neptune/Pluto--are more important than
the others.
It's not something I'd bet the farm on, however.
> a spectrum. Rather than succumbing to (and then reacting
to) the
> socially constructed pressures of old style modernity,
which rejects
> astrology completely because it doesn't fit the notions
of ontological
> possibility, objectivist philosophy, and all the rest
that informs
> that world view, I take astrology at face value. I
think astrology is
> exactly what it looks like: unreasonable.
of, or is this merely an assertion that you're going
to believe in
symbolistic astrology come what may? If there's
no "reason" for your
belief, is there a cause? Are you saying you have
no idea why you
think it's valid? Is there any result that, if
it obtained, would
cause you to doubt it?
> astrological practice. I don't bother with the fact
that it is absurd
> when stuck into a different context from the one in
which it
> flourishes.
basis that "it is absurd [only] when stuck into a different
context
from the one in which it flourishes"?
> is actually the main strength of astrology, and the
reason why it
> continues to survive and have any functional value.
The fact that a
> symbol can be meaningfully associated with an almost
infinite number
> of contextual themes, though paradoxically remain constrained
by a
> finite boundary separating it from what it does not
mean, is the
> reason why it is so useful.
in that it has enabled it to seem valid in the face of
an inability
to specify predictable correspondences. I think
a finite boundary
between what a symbol means and doesn't mean, or predicts
and doesn't
predict, is vital, the most important criterion I can
think of, but
I don't think symbolism succeeds. This is always
been the point
of my crticism, that it doesn't enable us to say what
won't happen
or isn't the case, which is the essence of prediction.
I don't
see how you can reconcile "an almost infinite number
of contextual
themes" with "a finite boundary separating it from what
it does
not mean," and your admission that it's paradoxical suggests
that
you don't, either.
> wrested from the heavens and brought down to earth
- to where it has
> been formed. I believe that astrology is a human creation,
a system
> which has evolved in various forms out of a need to
generate a sense
> of order in the experience of change in the phenomenal
world.
of order," and have long suspected that this is why what
seems clear
to me, that symbolism and related practices in effect
predict all things
at all times, and therefore nothing at all, is invisible
to the vast
majority of astrologers. (I did meet an astrologer
once who had come
to almost the same conclusion, who had performed an almost
identical
thought experiment.)
> conceptualised. But astrology is not in my opinion
an objective
> feature of the external world, or an aspect of Universal
Reason (as
> mathematics is often conceptualised) that defines the
lawful
> structuring of reality.
phenomena in nature, recurrent motivational patterns
that correspond
to planetary periods, although they are probably actually
timed by
biological clocks that have evolved using those periodicities
as
temporal templates, and that these clocks are periodically
reset by
the planets whose periodicities they correspond to.
> human cognitive functioning, and has evolved in response
to selection
> pressures at the interface between cognition and environment.
>
> Or so I believe.
exists independently of the beliefs that have emerged
from our
cognitive functioning.
> non-participatory observer who reads the astro-data
coming in from
> 'solar system space' and translates it into communicable
information,
> I would see a complex comprising the interpreting participating
> astrologer (seer), the context and the astrology, each
influencing
> each other. And whatever type of astrology that happens
to be, too.
>
> I don't think it matters in a crucial sense what form
of astrology one
> uses, because at the heart of the astrological process
is the
> astrologer, not the heavens or the horoscopes derived
from them.
>
> But I do think that the astrologer will only be able
to make useful
> astrologically-derived statements if he or she works
very hard at
> developing their relationship with the astrological
system they are
> using.
>
> They will be able quite honestly to say "this works
for me", but what
> they actually mean is "I work with this". Astrology
doesn't work.
> Astrologers do (or not depending on their abilities).
>
> I accept that these kinds of ideas get some astrologers,
and certainly
> their critics, frothing at the mouth. It actually requires
a denial of
> the dominant philosophy of the modern era to be able
to hold these
> views, so in a sense the approach is heretical, even
among
> astrologers.
but they're being inconsistent because what they _do_
(with vanishingly
few exceptions) is something else entirely. In
fact, they do what you
do. Although I disagree with your approach, you're
at least being
consistent. You recognize that what you're doing
is neither objective
nor scientific, so you don't claim otherwise.
> clearly culturally modulated. Perhaps the main symptom
of this is the
> common denial that astrology has a divinatory aspect,
divination being
> devoid of any causal potency in the material sense.
Even the tradition
> of horary, although it is the residual form of divinatory
astrology in
> the west, is seriously rule bound and tied to classicism.
This doesn't
> interfere in itself with the process of divining through
the use of
> horary, but it does diminish being able to see the
divination occuring
> in nearly all other areas of astrology.
>
> I'm not actually interested in horary astrology per
se - the idea
> of laws of astrological practice repels me. But I do
believe that
> whenever I am reading a horoscope, there is part of
my cognition
> functioning that is not rational, and which underlies
whatever seeing
> I manage to come up with.
and a divinatory approach to astrology don't appeal to
me. And what
you apparently see as nonrational functioning that mysteriously
gives
you valid answers, I see as a complex, subtle game that
astrologers
play with themselves, and that astrologers and clients
play with each
other, in which they fool themselves into thinking that
astrology
is giving them answers.
> rows of numbers nicely ordered; of the geometry; of
the emphasis on
> precision and accurate data - all these and more provide
intellectual
> comfort and act in a way that masks what is actually
going on. It is
> easy to convince oneself that what is being used is
the solar system
> itself, rather than a horoscope which bears very little
relation if
> any to celestial reality at time 't'. The use of the
causal language -
> planetary effects and influences, the energy of Neptune,
etc. helps
> too - it all sounds so reasonable.
I contend, it runs more smoothly if they believe in the
validity of
the astrology, and those things do help sustain belief.
> cognition on the task at hand, but I believe they mask
what is
> happening on a cognitive level. The insights are actually
> unreasonable.
although we obviously disagree about what _is_ happening.
>
> But I'm not a rationalist. I am very curious how it
is that I can make
> statements about a context that are not based on traditional
> analytical reasoning, and be right on the mark. It
is bizarre.
configurations that can be construed as significant are
not in
"effect". There are virtually no events that can't
be made to fit
the symbolism of a given configuration. And if
that's not enough
we have a multitude of factors and methods, and loose
logic, too
(geo planets aspecting helio planets, the Moon's position
five days
after birth aspecting Saturn's position five _years_
after birth,
etc.), and have the additional advantage of supplying
the words
that apply to the symbolism and to the event--if with
all that the
astrologer isn't "on the mark", even if given the wrong
birthdata
and event data, _that_ would be bizarre.
> sceptics. Yeah ... sure. "It's the Barnum Effect!"
Yeah ... sure. But
> any practising astrologer will know what I'm talking
about.
>
> Whatever it is that I am doing, it is not logical.
>
> I actually believe that what is called divination -
using non-rational
> (or pre-rational) cognitive faculties to see more than
can be
> delivered by rational analysis - is happening for everyone
to one
> degree or another, but very unconsciously. I also believe
that
> throughout history the cognitive process involved has
been 'amplified'
> by the use of systematic devices as exemplified by
the yarrow stalks
> of the I-Ching, Tarot cards, and so on.
>
> The actual device or system is not important. What
is important is
> that the system is used ... and used ... and used.
whether we call it rational or nonrational. I think
most astrologers
read the client much more than the chart, that in the
game they play
neither realizes the extent to which the answers supposedly
coming
from the chart are actually coming from the client, often
in the form
of "client feedback". I can't play these games.
I can't convince
myself that there is information to be gotten from tarot
cards per
se because I believe that the tarot reader is reading
the client and
the situation, that the cards are irrelevant except insofar
as the
reader's belief in them enables him/her to read the client
and
the situation more unselfconsciously and effectively.
At the same
time, if both astrologer and client are happy and get
something
out of the interaction, more power to them both.
But I think if
all else is equal, say you have two equally intuitive
astrologers,
if one of them has _in addition_ objective knowledge
that the other
doesn't, he or she has a leg up.
> the mythic version) of scientific progress. The creative
scientists
> were and are in effect (and unwittingly) seers who
rely on imaginal
> cognition to gain insights into seemingly intractable
problems, or
> whatever. I think a lot of the intense intellectual
work (the
> amplifying device inadvertantly used by scientists)
creates conditions
> suitable for seeing. The powers of unreason click in.
>
> Having had the insights - the illumination - they then
fall back on
> rational and analytical powers to model them so that
they can be
> communicated to peers. When the article is published
in the journal,
> there is no mention of the role of illumination in
the process.
> Science is based on rational analysis and the correct
methodology
> (and don't you forget it!).
and unreason. I believe that there are aspects
of reasoning that
we're unaware of. Kepler, in pursuing his theory
of planetary orbits,
made a mathematical error, but later made another one
that exactly
canceled out the first one. I can't help wondering
if in seeing and
correcting that error he wasn't thinking on a higher
plane, say in
terms of the Uranus rhythm rather than Saturn.
But given the stories
I've read about I don't get the impression that scientists
are as
unaware, or as unappreciative of, the unconscious aspect
of creative
insights as you seem to be implying.
> significance (or not) of what has been newly imagined.
William Blake
> was right - the imagination is the well source of human
creativity.
that right brain pattern recognition, which is where
I think a lot
of creativity comes from, is _un_reason.
> lot more respect for Geoffery Cornelius than you and
Dennis seem to
> have. I find it strange that he can be dismissed as
"a mere
> traditionalist" when the purpose of his book 'The Moment
of Astrology'
> is to deconstruct and undermine the influence of Ptolemy
on
> contemporay astrological practice!
>
> It's obviously an iconoclastic work, by any standards.
Although
> Cornelius (Capricorn Sun) may like to follow Lilly
in terms of his
> horary practice, his philosophical take on astrology
is more
> influenced by phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty, Levi-Bruhl,
etc.. At
> least it was when I last spoke to him, admittedly in
the last century.
for what seem to me backward practices. One might
almost forget,
with all the antiscientific deconstructing, postmodernizing,
etc.
going on, that the sciences have been pretty successful
in whatever
it is that they're doing. Surely they're doing
_something_ right,
and like Kuhn I'd like to know what it is. If it
isn't quite what
the scientists and/or philosophers thought they were
doing, it's
still pretty damned effective. Kuhn, Geertz, Foucault,
the Social
Studies of Science theorists, the Rhetoric of Science
theorists,
the Laboratory Studies guys, etc., etc., who have come
up with some
fascinating ideas about how science _really_ works, have
too often
been co-opted by people who don't _like_ science and
are all too
ready to consign it to the dustbin of history.
There seem to be a
lot of trendy types who've never caught up with science
who think
they're already beyond it.
> whether or not one is interested in horary, or even
symbolism.
>
> I'd better stop. At the back of all this is the notion
I subscribe to,
> which is that the 21st century will be the one when
non-rationality
> will be rehabilitated. This will happen because of
work in the
> cognitive sciences. As a consequence, astrology will
become a focus of
> attention, because it is the primary repository of
applied
> non-rational (imaginal) cognition in western culture.
undergo a revolution and come to see things our way,
and realize
we've been right all along. I think if our field
becomes acceptable
it'll be because _astrology_ has undergone a revolution
and exited
the Middle Ages.
> contrasting the contribution of astrologers and mathematicians
to
> structuring the human experience of change in the phenomenal
world.
> astrological symbolism, but that will have to wait
till later in the
> wake.
Bill, even if we don't agree on a whole lot.
I think that, also like Rudhyar, he is an arch-traditionalist
in terms of how he _does_ astrology, that is, his underlying
reasoning patterns.
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 12:08:06 -0400
From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: Symbolism; ...reasoning, creativity,
and Wm Blake
>> Reasoning never generated any novelty; it only
confirms the
>> significance (or not) of what has been newly
imagined. William Blake
>> was right - the imagination is the well source
of human creativity.
>
> It depends on what you
mean by "reasoning". I would not agree
> that right brain pattern recognition, which is
where I think a lot
> of creativity comes from, is _un_reason.
I guess only *shared" "reasoning"
engenders a legitimate instance of
Reason...:) The collective component being the
only path to its Human
embodiment. Reason born of a bastardizing individualistic
creativity is
then like a "cry in the wilderness".
" ALL RELIGIONS are ONE
The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness
The Argument As the true method of
knowledge is experiment
the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which
experiences.
This faculty I treat of.
PRINCIPLE 1st That the Poetic Genius
is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic
Genius.
Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from
their Genius.
which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit
& Demon.
PRINCIPLE 2d As all men are alike
in outward form, So (and with
the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic
Genius [..]"
http://pedantus.free.fr/Blake_Perception.gif
other "real" basis for grounding of the Universe. However,
it probably
is a case of human Metaphysics finding expression in
Art. We *can* draw
from Blake's chart a potentially edifying sense of holistic
perception,
we *can* see the unique Blake in terms of our a shared
reason-ably human
gestalt field of referencing framework. While there may
be no
objectivity to astrology whatsoever, Blake's "true man"
= "Poetic
genius" does seem to have an expression for us
to use. The planet
aspect differentiation of persons in this manner allows
us to see in the
way that our formal ontologies allow us to think thoughts.
I think
astrology serves us best as a graphic used to symbolize
our psyche's
spiritual "reality"....allows us to see the "spirit"
of Individuality as
no other Art (of Science) really does. And not to "predict"
it...(wince).
linguistic handicap does not allow me enough time in
a month to properly
respond in kind.
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 21:59:31 +0100
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Re: and thoughts on the demise of Exegesis
I think you've made a very important point.
>theories available to us within this forum, such an
enterprise as vying
>to be 'proved right' was always bound to be fruitless.
be said to be in a pre-paradigmatic stage of development.
Science" by Robert Klee (p134-135, OUP 1997).
paradigm - when practitioners working under its direction
score an
amazing research achievement, an achievement everyone
recognises as
such, even those practitioners committed to competing
approaches."
count as important data and what data are irrelevant.
They don't agree
on what needs explanation and what can be taken for granted
in that
field."
fundamental issues. The most basic principles of the
domain are open
game. We might describe this state of affairs by saying
that the field
is divided up into 'schools' of competing 'enthusiasts'."
something like a shared world view, which allows practitioners
to
obtain a set of standard responses to any questions regarding
the
metaphysical basis of their domain."
>Sheeran as an attempt to refute his position in favour
of my own.
invariably force me to think further and try to clarify
my own
position to myself. Surely a first step before trying
to present a
supposed internally coherent picture to someone else.
>unify the good ideas can there be any point in a forum
such as this, and
>in the brave enterprise that Patrice ran for some years,
and other
>efforts like it.
are all able to have valuable insights at this pre-paradigmatic
stage,
and that we should all have the confidence to pursue
our own ideas.
Not in a cavalier way, but intelligently. There is a
huge amount of
debate and exchange of ideas to be had, so let's have
it, but in a
spirit imbued with good and common intention regarding
the
understanding of astrology's fundamental principles.
together of ideas from several ostensibly differing perspectives,
the
achievement being to come up with a model which unites
elements from
each in a way that generates a new framing of astrology.
But for that
to happen, the differing perspectives have to reach a
state of
relative intellectual maturity. And in my opinion, that
will only
happen through critical exchanges between open-minded
adherents of the
various points of view.
be an Einstein or a Newton or a Copernicus who comes
up with a
paradigm for astrology. It will be a collective effort.
It is such a
huge challenge that no one individual will have the required
degree of
learning to put one together. What needs to be avoided
is the trap of
talking passed each other.
practice which seems to be less connected to the physical
planets, I
am also very aware that there is a dimension of astrology
that is
material in nature. I am unsure about the implications
of the latter
re: astrological determinism or causation. I also don't
believe that
astrology as it has variously manifested can be fully
understood with
sole reference to this material dimension.
judicial astrology is too simplistic. I think that the
two branches at
their roots are based on different conceptual foundations,
but that
they nevertheless interpenetrate. This interpenetration
gives
astrology much of its richness and is clearly very fertile.
Various
branches of astrology, for want of another way of putting
it, reflect
differing combinations or proportions of each. This is
simplistic, but
in a way it mirrors a far more general 'interpenetration'
between mind
and body (as opposed to the dualistic separation of the
two).
my sense is that most tend to start at the more physical
end of the
spectrum. Maybe for reasons due to conceptual familiarity
on the
common sense or educational level, and perhaps also the
pressures of
socially constructed conditioning regarding what can
be real.
to be a scientist and became disenchanted with predominant
themes at
the time to do with mechanistic thinking, reductionism,
objectivism
and so forth, and partly because my own experience of
astrology leads
me to think there is something very strange going on
when I practice.
wonder exactly what was going on as I carried out my
research. At the
time I used to call it 'serendipity' - ridiculous coincidences
leading
to breakthroughs. And maybe that's all it was - ridiculous
coincidences. But they only ever happened after periods
of intense
mental focus on a research problem. Part of me now thinks
of those
events in terms of 'seeing'.
because I think Dale's model, for example, is in itself
wrong. But
because I think it's important that there is an exploration
(through
contemporary filters) of an aspect of astrology which
has been there
from the beginning and which has had uneasy implications
since the
Hellenistic Greek period, or if not then, at least from
Cicero's day.
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 21:59:51 +0100
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Re: Time (Andre)
>e} planetary cycles "plug straight into" the sensory-motor
activity in
>e} the brain?
>all processes - non-living and living - can apparently
be reduced to a
>handful of physics constants - especially the speed
of light - then in
>effect all processes are "timed" at atomic and subatomic
levels.
define the lower extreme regarding how change can be
calibrated? I
must admit I get confused when trying to contemplate
time at anything
other than the macroscopic level, and even then it's
difficult! I
don't know enough about relativity theory or quantum
level dynamics.
>is, time itself can be said to be 'governed' by the
'speed' with which
>the fundamental forces propagate, and how that interacts
with basic
>particles and fields. All this determines the
processes of change; the
>varieties of change; and the interrelationships of changing
things
>throughout the universe.
ultimately at a fundamental particle level, the frequencies
operating
at that material level (your "atomic clocks") ultimately
determine
(when 'stepped up') how things can change, even at the
macroscopic
level?
>are committed to saying that atomic clocks alone are
not sufficient once
>we reach the level of living organisms.
>needs in order to measure time, and I want to attempt
to reintroduce it
>here but in a more explained way.
>
>Baldly stated, the thesis is that in order for an organism
to "make
>sense" of its environment, there have to be stable signals
within that
>environment against which to measure the more transient
signals which
>portend opportunity, threat, or neither of these.
'thing' in the first place). We do however observe change,
a term
which implies a series of events occuring in our spatial
environment.
What you call "stable signals" I would call regular iterations
of
particular kinds of events against which other events
(similar to your
"transient signals") can be considered, assessed, measured,
recognised, or whatever. Our real experience of time
is measured
relative to our real experience of events. So time is
bound up with
the comparison of events.
effect, a recognisable rhythm), each iteration defines
the same period
of time.
>time? Or a short time?
conceptualise time primarily in terms of space ('length
of time',
etc.) which I think is highly relevant when trying to
understand the
forms of astrology.
stand' in space, but need external measuring devices
to establish
where we stand in relation to time. In other words, in
normal
situations, we can tell which direction is forward, up,
down, etc.
There's no need for spatial equivalents of clocks or
watches in order
for us to orientate ourselves in our immediate environment,
at least
none that I have been able to imagine. We don't carry
rulers and
compasses around with us for such a purpose.
discuss or assess time, rather than it being an innate
capacity.
>quickly (hence possibly threatening)? Or slowly (maybe
less threatening)?
>
>Again, no reference or framework means no basis on which
to 'decide'
>what to do.
>
>Let's jump back into context though: real environments
consist of lots
>of signals, and in a sense one might argue this cacophony
of signals
>(life) provides the framework.
>
>However I suggest out of such chaos nothing useful emerges:
a large set
>of transient and irregular signals (events) does _not_
provide anything
>useful for organisms to decide anything.
>
>What _does_ work is a large set of signals in which
there is a large
>variety of timespans, hence some are _less_ transient
and provide that
>essential frame.
quality which can create the time frame. Of course, there
can be many
iterative signals with different frequencies. What I
think we're
talking about is rhythmic 'reference events'. Heart beats
would be a
very basic possibility for humans, even if they are not
entirely
consistent, for short time frames.
what the connection is) between the macroscopic experience
of regular
iterations in the external event space, and the vibrational
frequencies at a sub-atomic level internal to both observer
and the
material reality of the components in the event space
(your 'atomic
clocks').
frequencies for brain activity or neural-firings, and
that these will
be at a very high frequency. I don't have any problem
with the idea of
biorhythms (circadian), and the notion that these reflect
an
entrainment particularly to the diurnal cycle.
rotation in a celestial environment, I still can't make
the jump to
planetary cycles plugged into sensory motor equipment.
>available and of course (2) the organism is able to
sense them - I don't
>see this as a matter of a choice or of concept-construction.
Rather I
>see it as something that almost all individuals among
living organisms
>are likely to "stumble upon" and start to use simply
because it confers
>huge advantages in terms of survival. Moreover
I think this is likely to
>be _so_ fundamental as to occur at the bedrock level
of
>cognitive-environmental learning.
sensibility is embodied.
>organisms that are capable of sensing planetary cycles
(other than the
>gross physical cycles you mentioned Bill: "the diurnal,
lunar and
>apparent solar cycles"), then astrology (or rather perhaps
'an astrology')
>follows quite naturally.
living organisms to the diurnal, lunar and apparent solar
cycles a
branch of astrology when discussing the astrological
(as opposed to
biological). It's physical astrology, natural astrology.
>
>I should point out that it may not be necessary that
humans have this
>capability; merely that some significant minority of
living organisms
>within the environment have the faculty. At that
point the 'system' of
>living organisms starts to display emergent properties
based on
>planetary cycles, hence making those signals available
to all the other
>organisms in the environment.
>with:
>
>e} The planets' cycles are convenient markers if you
want to use them,
>e} but then so are the cycles associated with caesium
atoms.
>
>as I suggest wanting has nothing to do with it.
As for caesium atoms:
>well I misappropriated the term above, but the _actual_
atomic clocks
>are certainly available to some of us in terms of an
abstract human
>conception of time, but I'm trying to describe a different
kind of time...
direction. What I'm trying to do is understand where
the forms of
astrology come from. I believe these are founded on the
basis of
conceptual metaphor schemes, including those associated
with
conceptualisations of time. I realise that at some point
I have to try
and bridge the connection between the forms astrology
has taken and
their assumed functional value in terms of phenomenal
(and temporal)
experience. In other words, I have to ask the question
how come, given
astrology's forms, that they are useful in helping to
recognise
temporal order in relation to processes that range from
the physical
to the abstract.
considering astrology's possible nature from what we
scientifically
know about the way the world works, I am giving astrology
the benefit
of the doubt and taking it at face value as a starting
point. In other
words, I'm not discounting aspects of astrology which
are very
difficult to square with even common sense, never mind
scientific
knowledge.
redundancy in astrology, or even plain absurdity. I'm
just not
pre-judging what they might be. And that's because I
do find, for
example, that one can work with horoscopes for dead people
regarding
changes in their reputation, discoveries post mortem
of an author's
lost manuscripts, and so on.
assuming that just yet.
propped up against a vague notion of astrology's co-evolution
with
cognition, selected for fitness in response to selection
pressures. A
Darwinian model/analogy, if you like.
>e} I am just about still open to the notion that there
is some kind of
>e} weird physical aspect to the relationship between
humans and the
>e} individual planets and their combinations, and that
this might even be
>e} empirically demonstrated.
>
>Well of course I'm sure - remembering your background
in science - we
>agree there's something interesting about that term
"empirical" in
>science. If data demonstrates some kind of reliable
correlation, sooner
>or later science simply accepts the data as fact, and
constructs
>"theories" (stories) that accomodate the data.
being the pre-requisite for (and symptomatic of) agreement
on
astrology's fundamental principles. When such a paradigm
emerges, then
it will guide or channel future research and the kinds
of stories
allowed.
>
>I got the definite impression when I was doing undergrad
physics that
>physicists are among the most pragmatic of scientists:
hell, the data
>doesn't fit the theory? Just invent a new theory,
and don't worry about
>how weird the theory is.
are lucky in that their imaginations have a lot of space
to roam in.
Their world is mediated completely through instrumentation,
and what
they construct from the data is both guided by and constrained
by what
they can imagine and what questions they are able to
ask. It's a great
place to be for playing around with auxiliary hypotheses
designed to
maintain the preferred vision when data forces a rethink.
>any reason why the universe may not include astrology
in its physics.
is an dimension of the astrological which is, for example,
uniquely
relevant to a client's world. I just don't think that
astrology can be
understood without reference to astrologers and their
cultures.
>e} 'cognitive field' (which structures reality for humans).
[and what
>you wrote above that about mathematics]
>
>However have you read Roger Penrose - a mathematical
neo-platonist I
>think! He really is a brilliantly imaginative
thinker though (IMHO).
>exist in a very real sense, e.g. in quantum mechanics
(if I remember
>rightly).
mathematics. At the same time, ' i ' (or the value associated
with the
square root of -1) is called an 'imaginary number'. You
can't use it
to measure anything.
is a law of arithmetic which insists that any operation
on 'numbers'
will result in a number. If x is a number one is being
asked to
identify in the algebraic equation
a number, so the square root of -1 is a number.
zero.
isn't. Its square is -1.
isn't. Its square is -1.
square is -1.
central property of magnitude that can be linearly compared
to other
magnitudes.
effectiveness" of mathematic's use for modelling reality
is an issue
that both mathematicians and philosophers contemplate.
so than with mathematics) of astrology's use for illuminating
my
experience of reality.
>a waste of time to read <wry grin>
Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 21:27:00 +1200
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] cosmos & psyche 2
in Exegesis 11/22). The title he gives his 2nd
chapter is *In Search of a
Deeper Order*. In his historical survey of the
paradigmatic nature of the
cosmologies that have brought us to where we are today,
he has come to adopt
this stance:
within which our multidimensional consciousness is an
anomalous accident,
and that purpose, meaning, conscious intelligence, moral
aspiration, and
spiritual depth are solely attributes of the human being,
reflects a
long-invisible inflation on the part of the modern self.
And heroic hubris
is still indissolubly linked, as it was in ancient Greek
tragedy, to heroic
fall."
civilisation from the primal state. "The disenchanting
strategy can be said
to have served well the purposes of its time - to differentiate
the self, to
empower the human subject, to liberate human experience
of the world
inherited from tradition and enforced by external authority.
It provided a
powerful new basis for criticism and defiance of established
belief systems
that often inhibited human autonomy."
cultural sea-change in the 18th which washed astrology
away. Reason,
however, soon produced an over-rigid collective rationality.
The result was
romanticism and spiritualism in the 19th century, which
in turn led to an
excess of escapism. Modernity was a pragmatic reaction,
but in reaching
back to the 18th century for its metaphysical foundation,
it painted itself
into a dualist corner. "At its core and essence,
modernity had constellated
a seemingly irresolvable tension of opposites, a fundamental
antithesis
between an objectivist cosmology and a subjectivist psychology."
seminar as early as 1928." He was following in
the footsteps of the
world-famous Austrian biologist, Paul Kammerer, who conceived
a `law of
seriality'. Einstein's comment on Kammerer's book
was that it was "original
and by no means absurd". Strange coincidences had
always been part of
culture, often entering folklore but also attracting
prior scientific
attention in the person of the famous French astronomer,
Camille Flammarion.
But it was Jung who first made the psychological connection.
"The dramatic
coincidence of meaning between an inner state and a simultaneous
external
event seemed to bring forth in the individual a healing
movement toward
psychological wholeness, mediated by the unexpected integration
of inner and
outer realities. Such events often engendered a
new sense of personal
orientation in a world now seen as capable of embodying
purposes and
meanings beyond the mere projections of human subjectivity.
The random
chaos of life suddenly appeared to veil a deeper order."
intuition, sometimes described as having the character
of a spiritual
awakening, that the individual was herself or himself
not only embedded in a
larger ground of meaning and purpose but also in some
sense a focus of it."
guarded, to avoid the possibility of ridicule".
This is important to keep
in mind. Society and culture have a long-standing
mass bias against the
phenomenon, which artificially suppresses collective
awareness of the degree
of incidence. Insofar as the significance is normally
personal, this is
understandable. Insofar as it may impress others,
this bias retards our
culture. Sometimes a synchronicity changes the
world, but usually we never
know unless the subject publishes the account in a memoir.
"The famous
coincidence that formed a turning point in the life of
Petrarch took place
at the climax of his ascent of Mont Ventoux in April
1336, an event that has
long been regarded by scholars as representing the symbolic
beginning of the
Renaissance."
of Petrarch's experience: "At the top of the mountain,
with the
exhilarating view of French Provence, the Alps, and the
Meditteranean spread
before him, he had opened his timy pocket copy of Augustine's
*Confessions*." Opening at random he read "men
go abroad to admire the
heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea,
the broad tide of
rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of
stars, and pass
themselves by..." This triggered a transcendent
spiritual experience.
"Petrarch was so moved by the coincidental force of Augustine's
words that
he remained silent for the entire descent down the mountain."
One presumes
he was not alone. Tarnas includes Petrarch's comment
on encountering the
words of Augustine in this manner: "I could not
believe that it was by a
mere accident that I happened upon them. What I
had read there I believed
to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that
Saint Augustine had
once suspected the same thing in his own case."
crisis" in a garden in Milan in 386AD. He overheard
a child's voice from a
nearby house repeatedly saying "Pick up and read".
Uncertainly, he opened
at random a copy of the epistles of Saint Paul to read
words which resolved
his "lifelong conflict". The "light of certainty
flooded my heart and all
dark shadows of doubt fled away." [*Confessions*,
VIII, 29] Tarnas
comments that this was a "revelation of his personal
vocation" heralding a
millennium of Christian supremacy. Augustine had
been both a heretic and an
astrologer.
could connect with. Time, wrote Jung "contains
qualities or fundamentals
which can manifest themselves in relative simultaneousness
in different
places and in a parallelism which cannot be explained,
as in cases of
simultaneous appearance of identical thoughts, symbols,
or psychic
conditions."
of this moment of time." Tarnas dates this statement
of Jung's to 1930, in
very lengthy footnote (p498), and refers the reader to
"Jung on
Synchronicity and the Paranormal", R. Main, p23.
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 15:44:10 +0100
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Re: Symbolism (Dale Huckeby)
Here are a few (!) comments in response to your reply
to my message.
Just let me say at the outset that these are opinions
based on my
experience.
the converse isn't the case. By which I mean that I have
room for the
naturalistic bent of your work, but my perspective moves
way over the
boundaries which your approach seeks to define. From
where I stand, I
don't see the differences as mutually exclusive, by any
means. I think
we're groping somewhat blindly at different parts of
the elephant, as
it were.
>clear that most astrologers want to.
clearly, which is not the same thing as unambiguously.
The reason why
ambiguity inevitably creeps in to a consultation is because
the
interpretation of the symbols and their patterns is not
independent of
context, and the context is usually fluid or not fully
formed. Thus I
will usually find myself discussing possibilities. My
approach is to
explain that the horoscope does not represent the unique
physical
reality of the client, but for want of a better phrase
'the archetypal
self'.
with. It belongs to a moment, if it belongs to anything.
So the
process of interpretation requires establishing context
(it's not for
a horse race or a business project). But the context
is on the one
hand unique and on the other fluid. The context also
has a past that
has a determining effect on the present and future. Implicit
in the
horoscope are many possible meanings which are ultimately
filtered via
a consideration of context.
unambiguous comments.
their form' in the client's life. And in that respect
there is less
ambiguity, because I believe that the symbols have bounded
meanings. I
have prototypical concepts on a general level which for
me define the
central 'principle' (or maybe two or three), and which
can be expanded
upon or extrapolated across scale and context.
moment in my efforts to understand where the meaning
of symbols comes
from. It seems to involve the use of conceptual metaphor,
metonymy,
polysemy and cognitive strategies for categorisation
that are
'non-classical'. As you can tell from this, I think that
a symbol's
meanings is in effect constructed and structured on a
cognitive level,
rather than being innately associated with actual planetary
periods
and subsequently discovered.
with one's statements, the more ambiguity there is concerning
possible
significances. On the other hand, the more the context
is mapped out,
the more the ambiguity diminishes.
> The difference between Lewi and Tyl
is not figurative language but
>"intent". ...
>with Saturn opposite Neptune to share the same characteristics,
but
>does expect their characteristics, however different
they appear to be,
>to be describable using the appropriate keywords.
It's the keywords,
>not the observed characteristics, that are stable and
thus predictable
>from one case to the next. But since keywords
can, by being modified
>or used as modifiers, mean virtually anything we want
them to, we
>don't know in advance what the _next_ Saturn opposite
Neptune person
>we encounter will be like, and what we'll therefore
have to make those
>keywords mean. Symbolistic astrology can't predict,
but can only
>explain, or appear to explain, after the fact.
phrases that I associate with symbols. They are very
general in
nature, more like generic principles. I can't say that
I feel I know
in advance what the symbols actually mean - in other
words how they
correlate specifically with the client's past and present
experiences.
My consultations are dialogues and relatively improvised,
on the basis
that the meaning, significance or insights will emerge
in the course
of the dialogue.
symbolism to the contextual information supplied either
knowingly or
otherwise by the client.
the emergence of insight in the client regarding their
situation. I
actually tell my clients before we start that I don't
know what their
horoscope means; that they are the only one's who can
know that; and
that my job is to guide them towards recognition of significance.
living in another country. I normally refuse to do this
for a number
of reasons, but made an exception in this case. In that
situation one
has to make bald statements, as there's no scope for
feedback
regarding context. I knew nothing about her. She was
amazed at how
relevant my comments were. And, if the truth be told,
so was I when
she explained why she found my comments "frighteningly
accurate".
that what I wrote was in effect predictive. I was predicting
aspects
of her character and challenges she would meet on the
basis of
interpreting the symbols in her chart, and without any
reference to
context other than the fact she was a woman living in
Scotland.
patterns in another individual's horoscope the same way.
Perhaps, but
probably not. Because I think there is more going in
a reading than
the translation of signs that have a one-to-one 'truth
correspondence'
with specific meanings.
>> taken are modulated by cultural and contextual factors.
Whether or not
>> this makes me a social constructionist I'm not sure.
However, the
>> intersubjectivity consensus you mention I would see
as 'locally valid'
>> rather than visualising it on a global scale.
>
> Well, I think the rate at which objects
near the earth accelerate, at
>32 feet per second per second, is true all over the
globe and not just
>locally.
the globe, but the only part of your statement which
is socially
constructed is the way you've described it - 32 ft/sec/sec.
wide. Water runs downhill, etc. But these are based on
shared primal
level aspects of experience and sense perception. If
it is the case
the social constructivism relates to among other things
the impact of
culture, context and environment on the formulation of
truth
consensus, then there's bound to be local variations
in that respect
in relation to particular subjects.
consensus truths function sufficiently within the contained
context,
and may be quite incompatible or incommensurable with
other truth
consensuses. So in accepting that notion, I can handle
the idea of a
value associated with say the truth consensus of aboriginal
Australians.
objective truths as being the only form of truth, then
there are bound
to be problems when considering the value of what I would
call local
intersubjectivity consensuses.
fact and a truth.
>occur in all cultures, in which the child develops a
persona and becomes
>productive in terms of his or her culture.
>a different _kind_ of astrology for each culture.
I suspect an age
>seven Saturn transition occurs in all humans, and if
the astrology of
>a given culture doesn't mention it, it doesn't mean
that it doesn't
>happen in that culture, only that they don't know about
it.
transition could be mapped astrologically onto the progressed
moon
cycle. Which is a different kind of astrology than is
used (as far as
I am aware) in say India.
transition at seven is an aspect of the human condition,
and doesn't
have to necessarily be mapped onto the Saturn cycle.
>_and_ Western astrological signs for much the same reason
that I reject
>the flat or central earth, that all are products of
less sophisticated,
>less effective epistemologies than we have available
to us now, are
>implausible, at least in my eyes, and aren't well enough
supported by
>arguments and evidence to counter those objections.
conceptual systems than erroneous notions concerning
the macroscopic
physical environment. To believe the earth is flat while
living in the
modern world is an absurdity.
an absurdity. But that's not what zodiac signs are. They
are
schematic. They exist in horoscopes, which have little
to do with
celestial reality. They are not maps of the heavens (try
navigating
with them) and they are not maps of individuals or entities.
Planets,
or rather their derived positions projected onto the
ecliptic - i.e. a
set of coordinates - make transits to another set
of coordinates on a
piece of paper.
tandem with some sort of consideration of astrology's
ontological
status. If you take astrology to be in essence a feature
of the
physical cosmos which astrologers have discovered, then
that has
epistemological consequences, as does the adoption of
an alternative
ontological set of assumptions.
certain type of knowledge epitomised by scientific knowledge.
Without
doubt this is extremely useful stuff.
so, what might the epistemological differences be?
the focus of science moves increasingly towards the more
complex and
less gross features of reality, following along the chronological
path
of development in complexity from mechanics/physics >
chemistry >
biology > psyche/cognition/consciousness, that novelty
will emerge in
relation to these questions.
>> astrology, and always have done. But I'm not sure
that by rejecting
>> their symbolic nature you escape ambiguity and subjectivity
in your
>> observations of correlating patterns of events in
life. The
>> identification of "functional similarities" isn't
a simple straight
>> 'reading' of history, but a selection process, a projection
of
>> (probably socially constructed) significance.
>
>Again, it's a matter of intent. Are we looking
at a set of periods
>as a group to see if we can see how they're alike (in
which case we
>have a hint of what the next one will be like)?
Or are we looking at
>each period in turn to see if we can find events that
can be said to
>fit the symbolism (in which case we don't have a hint
of what the next
>one will be like)?
in astrological terms of the planetary periods. If you
are successful,
you will be adding to astrological knowledge, but I don't
think you
will necessarily be replacing any. This despite the fact
that you may
discover contradictions to traditional meanings assigned
to
astrological symbols. I think what will happen is there
will be a
parallel coexistence.
astrological symbolism, insofar as it's ever discussed,
reeks of
absurdity. It quite clearly does not fit modern epistemological
criteria. And that is because astrology is a pre-modern
tool still
used in the modern era. The continuation of astrology
in the modern
era has left it open to modulation by social constructivist
forces, if
you like.
course of its evolution. The Gauquelin work is symptomatic
of the
influence of modernity on astrological thought, as is
the increasingly
common use of any number of newly discovered bodies in
the solar
system, be they planets or not. Even the projects involved
in
translating old astrology texts and hunting for the one
true craft
from the Golden Age and repackaging it for the present
is a symptom of
our era.
astrology. Astrology is what it is, in all its diversity.
I don't
believe it's a universal system that we just haven't
'seen' properly
yet.
symbolically with heat, anger, war, and all the rest
because it's
reddish looking. That is not logical, and it doesn't
make any sense
anymore in terms of modern epistemology. On the other
hand, one can
have a go at making an argument, based on the way conceptual
metaphors
are used to structure our sense of reality, about why
it does make
sense in an astrological context, even if it is not literally
'true'.
>differs from one culture to another as that it differs
from the (now
>seen to be) naive notion that discovery is like seeing
a rock, and
>picking it up and showing it to others, who immediately
realize what
>you've found, rather than a process of negotiation.
The nature of
>nature constrains what _can_ be negotiated. No
one claims that water
>runs uphill, or that objects accelerate at 35 feet per
second per
>second.
conceptualised constrains what can be negotiated. Which
I think is the
same as saying that epistemology is dependent on ontology.
latter being the catch-all term used by critics of various
degrees of
relativism and idealism). Social constructivism, by the
way, would be
placed firmly in the 'anti-realist' camp.
>straightforward.
important. It's very interesting.
>> to measure (the root of self-fulfilling prophecy in
science), you can
>> only see what you can see. And in both cases there
is always more
>> going on "than meets the eye". I personally don't
have a problem with
>> the idea that you can generate useful insights in
this way, but I
>> wonder about the idea that you can *identify* what
the planetary
>> cycles "describe" re: functional similarities in world
events. In
>> other words, that you can 'label' the cycles in some
way that is more
>> solid (more real) than their attached symbolist meanings.
>
>It's not easy to identify what those functional similarities
are,
>but I don't see taking infinitely malleable keywords
and picking out
>disparate events that "fit the symbolism" as a viable
alternative.
goes.
>the ground precisely because I took the stance, and
_meant_ it, that
>I didn't know what _should_ recur at Uranus/Neptune
intervals, and
>wouldn't until I actually saw the rhythm. Yet
how could I see it if
>I didn't know what I was looking for? But I had
an insight thanks
>to Kuhn that a second Scientific Revolution had occurred
exactly one
>Uranus/Neptune cycle after the first, which focussed
my reading and
>lead me to Thomas Goldstein's _Dawn of Modern Science_,
after which
>I followed citations like a trail of breadcrumbs.
I ended up reading
>lots of books on art history, which I had never been
interested in
>before, with the most significant being Erwin Panofsky's
_Gothic
>Architecture and Scholaticism_, _Perspective as Symbolic
Form_, and
>_Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art_, and Samuel
Edgerton,
>Jr.'s lovely and provocative _The Heritage of Giotto's
Geometry: Art
>and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution_.
enriching reading them.
>it is difficult, but not impossible, to find something
when you don't
>know what you're looking for, and anyway I see no alternative.
>
>> I think astrology is
>> exactly what it looks like: unreasonable.
>
> Do you have a special meaning for "unreasonable" that
I'm not aware
>of, or is this merely an assertion that you're going
to believe in
>symbolistic astrology come what may?
are unreasonable. But I don't think it has to be reasonable.
While I
do make use of my powers of reason, I also believe that
I am making
use of my powers of unreason, which I would also call
'imaginal'.
scientists primarily function using reasoning powers
while remaining
fairly oblivious to the imaginal contribution their mind
is making to
the construction of their hypotheses and interpretation
of data. I'm
talking about creative scientific thought here rather
than lab
technicians and the majority of those who work in the
scientific
domain ('the drones').
attention to using their powers of reason, while their
imaginal powers
are in full flow. I would agree with your critique about
the problems
associated with a lack (or even absence) of critical
thinking within a
substantial part of the astrological community.
is use astrology as a tool, and I don't believe in tools.
I use tools
because they are useful for the task at hand. Science
would not be a
useful tool for the purposes I use astrology for.
>belief, is there a cause? Are you saying you have
no idea why you
>think it's valid?
sense of what I'm doing when I practice astrology. Currently
I am
looking at certain areas of cognitive science for clues
about why
astrology has any functional value. The fact that I think
it has
functional value is based on my use of the tool.
me. I can't imagine though that anyone will be able to
disprove
astrology to me through argument, because I don't think
it can be
disproved given my ontological assumptions. You might
think that
therefore I must by definition 'believe' in it, but I
think I'm just
being pragmatic.
homeopathy, I use it because it has had a functional
value in my life,
despite its obvious absurdity when considered scientifically.
>
>> And this is what I try and understand, based on my
experience of
>> astrological practice. I don't bother with the fact
that it is absurd
>> when stuck into a different context from the one in
which it
>> flourishes.
>
> There are still flat earthers.
Would you defend that belief on the
>basis that "it is absurd [only] when stuck into a different
context
>from the one in which it flourishes"?
comparison doesn't hold for me. Astrology, and certainly
the astrology
I practice, doesn't make sense when considered in the
light of
scientific realism.
just because I can interpret horoscopes in consultation
situations to
the benefit of clients. I also don't tie myself up in
knots trying to
make astrology fit into a framework that could almost
be said to have
been designed to exclude it. Astrology and science are
incommensurable.
>> is actually the main strength of astrology, and the
reason why it
>> continues to survive and have any functional value.
The fact that a
>> symbol can be meaningfully associated with an almost
infinite number
>> of contextual themes, though paradoxically remain
constrained by a
>> finite boundary separating it from what it does not
mean, is the
>> reason why it is so useful.
>
>Symbolism has certainly contributed to the survival
of astrology,
>in that it has enabled it to seem valid in the face
of an inability
>to specify predictable correspondences.
usefulness. It depends on how one wishes to use the tool.
Astrology
can't compete with science when it comes to prediction.
>between what a symbol means and doesn't mean, or predicts
and doesn't
>predict, is vital, the most important criterion I can
think of, but
>I don't think symbolism succeeds.
boundaries between categories are not the norm, especially
once one
gets beyond the classical style of taxonomic categories
in science,
which represent a certain ideal. Category membership
is a fuzzy thing
at the best of times.
illuminates it. Because it is now quite clear that real
world
processes exhibit non-linear (and therefore very hard
to predict)
dynamics, I tailor my expectations accordingly. Predictive
statements
have to be qualified based on contextual factors.
self-organising dynamics in life processes, which can
'delay the
inevitable', or alternatively systems which have reached
a state of
self-organised criticality (and are both very unstable
and very
unpredictable). I'm also interested in hysteresis effects
which delay
a system reaching its natural equilibrium position. All
these themes
from non-linear science and mathematics influence my
understanding and
use of of astrological prediction. I don't assume that
major planetary
transits will correlate with big changes bang on cue
for example, or
will even correlate with any noticeable change. I try
and read the
contextual situation before making predictive statements.
I'm not a
fan of astrological determinism. I think the determinism
is
earth-bound.
>of my crticism, that it doesn't enable us to say what
won't happen
>or isn't the case, which is the essence of prediction.
>see how you can reconcile "an almost infinite number
of contextual
>themes" with "a finite boundary separating it from what
it does
>not mean," and your admission that it's paradoxical
suggests that
>you don't, either.
paradox is very close to a truth of some kind. Which
reminds me for
some reason of of a saying by Thomas Mann (I think):
"The definition
of a Great Truth is one whose opposite is also a Great
Truth".
finite bounded circle which contains within it an infinite
number of
points (one can always make the points smaller in scale
- there is no
limit in that respect). This is an abstract concept using
mathematical
ideas which is both true (mathematically, ideally) and
a paradox (when
projected onto the real), forcing one to contemplate
the nature of
infinity. Is it a feature of an external objective reality?
Or does it
only exist in the 'mathematics cognitive field' ?
>> wrested from the heavens and brought down to earth
- to where it has
>> been formed. I believe that astrology is a human creation,
a system
>> which has evolved in various forms out of a need to
generate a sense
>> of order in the experience of change in the phenomenal
world.
>
>I don't doubt that most astrologers feel "a need to
generate a sense
>of order," and have long suspected that this is why
what seems clear
>to me, that symbolism and related practices in effect
predict all things
>at all times, and therefore nothing at all, is invisible
to the vast
>majority of astrologers.
cosmology and theology are rooted in the same urge.
of my arguments come from this starting point. It is
not a question of
translating signs using the astro-dictionary and then
making
predictive statements based on what the book says (or
the keywords).
It is about seeing. Astrology is a tool used to see more.
If an
astrologer wishes to make random use of the symbolism,
good luck to
him or her, but I don't think they'll get the best out
of the tool.
>> conceptualised. But astrology is not in my opinion
an objective
>> feature of the external world, or an aspect of Universal
Reason (as
>> mathematics is often conceptualised) that defines
the lawful
>> structuring of reality.
>
> Oh ye of little faith! I would
say that there are astrological
>phenomena in nature, recurrent motivational patterns
that correspond
>to planetary periods, although they are probably actually
timed by
>biological clocks that have evolved using those periodicities
as
>temporal templates, and that these clocks are periodically
reset by
>the planets whose periodicities they correspond to.
It's just that I don't think that this view can tell
the whole story.
I really do think there are at least two 'phenomena'
blended in
astrology, one of which has a decidedly natural slant.
I see the
effects of seasonal change as astrological, when I'm
thinking
astrology. It's astrology applied to the overt physical
plane.
>exists independently of the beliefs that have emerged
from our
>cognitive functioning.
scientific realism. My version of realism is softer.
I think there is
an external world out there - it's not all a dream. If
you kick a
stone, the stone is there. But I am sceptical about the
extent of
knowledge we can have of the phenomenal world.
out and out relativist. I don't think anything goes (despite
what you
may think regarding my use of symbolism). I'm interested
in
intersubjectivity consensus regarding truths and their
functional
value, but would see the common ground as based more
fundamentally in
cognitive evolution than social construction, which for
me is
secondary. To use a term from George Lakoff, I would
see myself at the
moment holding a perspective which he calls 'embodied
realism'.
>
> I think divination is a form of self-deception,
so horary astrology
>and a divinatory approach to astrology don't appeal
to me. And what
>you apparently see as nonrational functioning that mysteriously
gives
>you valid answers, I see as a complex, subtle game that
astrologers
>play with themselves, and that astrologers and clients
play with each
>other, in which they fool themselves into thinking that
astrology
>is giving them answers.
situations.
not interested in horary. Over the years I gradually
came to the
conclusion that there was something else going on when
I practice than
'following the rules' of astrological interpretation.
Divination is a
word that should be replaced with something more suitable,
as it has
connotations that I don't subscribe to.
>
> If the astrologer and client are
unwittingly playing a game, as
>I contend, it runs more smoothly if they believe in
the validity of
>the astrology, and those things do help sustain belief.
following unthinkingly the limits set by their ruling
paradigm. Don't
underestimate the role of faith in science! Or the creative
power of
thought.
>> statements about a context that are not based on traditional
>> analytical reasoning, and be right on the mark. It
is bizarre.
>
> It's not bizarre at all to me.
There is virtually no time when
>configurations that can be construed as significant
are not in
>"effect". There are virtually no events that can't
be made to fit
>the symbolism of a given configuration. And if
that's not enough
>we have a multitude of factors and methods, and loose
logic, too
>(geo planets aspecting helio planets, the Moon's position
five days
>after birth aspecting Saturn's position five _years_
after birth,
>etc.), and have the additional advantage of supplying
the words
>that apply to the symbolism and to the event--if with
all that the
>astrologer isn't "on the mark", even if given the wrong
birthdata
>and event data, _that_ would be bizarre.
astrologer, I am not being wholly rational.
in effect constitutes chaotic noise. One could argue
that astrology
would work a lot better (if one thinks that it is the
astrology which
is working) if the redundancy was removed and only the
true
determining factors were identified and used.
primarily external, to be discovered by the astrologer.
I think they
are primarily internal to the astrologer - at least I
do when it comes
to horoscope interpretation.
have semantic boundaries. Also, I believe that the symbols
an
astrologer chooses to work with are a reflection of the
astrologer -
in effect a subjective choice determined by a number
of factors,
including such things as their psychological nature,
cultural factors,
philosophical bent, and so on. I don't think there are
imperatives in
that respect. Which is why I am happy to accept that
Vedic astrologers
can come up with useful astrologically derived statements
while using
a very different system to myself.
astrologer-specific process.
>
>I think there's a considerable amount of unconscious
processing,
>whether we call it rational or nonrational. I
think most astrologers
>read the client much more than the chart, that in the
game they play
>neither realizes the extent to which the answers supposedly
coming
>from the chart are actually coming from the client,
often in the form
>of "client feedback".
directly. I get them to give me as much contextual information
as
possible. I don't feel that what I am doing is about
guessing
correctly what a client's character is like. I just ask
them.
it; to see more than is already visible (to the astrologer
or the
client). I don't see it in terms of providing answers,
but
facilitating the emergence of insight in the client regarding
their
context.
subconscious choices I make regarding which pieces of
symbolism to
focus on, which questions to ask, which statements to
make, which
words to use in what is effectively an improvised dialogue
with a
stranger. I don't feel I have to discuss all the symbolism
in a chart.
I don't adopt a 'lawn mowing' astrology-by-numbers approach
in some
sort of formulaic manner, starting at A, then moving
to B, and so on.
Each consultation has its own life.
>myself that there is information to be gotten from tarot
cards per
>se because I believe that the tarot reader is reading
the client and
>the situation, that the cards are irrelevant except
insofar as the
>reader's belief in them enables him/her to read the
client and
>the situation more unselfconsciously and effectively.
the astrological symbolism per se. They are in effect
meaningless,
certainly in specific terms, until they feature in a
process of
conscious and purposeful engagement involving the 'seer'
and the
client's or whatever other context.
tools which help to focus the practitioner's imaginal
cognition. The
important thing is not so much the the cards as the engagement
with
the context.
>all else is equal, say you have two equally intuitive
astrologers,
>if one of them has _in addition_ objective knowledge
that the other
>doesn't, he or she has a leg up.
>I've read about I don't get the impression that scientists
are as
>unaware, or as unappreciative of, the unconscious aspect
of creative
>insights as you seem to be implying.
reason. But that was Einstein. Any honest creative scientist
will
acknowledge the role of 'serendipity', insights arising
out of the
blue in the bath, etc. But this incredibly important
aspect of the
processes of scientific theorising and speculation is
not exactly
broadcast loudly in the text books (gospels). It doesn't
feature in
the myths surrounding science's 'self-image'. And it
certainly doesn't
feature in journals and texts stacked in the libraries
and given the
imprimatur of academic officialdom. These types of revelations
appear
in autobiographies at the end of a scientist's life,
when making such
statements won't cost them their job or dent their reputation.
They just follow the method protocols after the introduction
in the
papers describing the work they are replicating. Their
job is to
refine knowledge, not create novelty.
>that right brain pattern recognition, which is where
I think a lot
>of creativity comes from, is _un_reason.
negative connotations, and is equated with the irrational.
>with all the antiscientific deconstructing, postmodernizing,
etc.
>going on, that the sciences have been pretty successful
in whatever
>it is that they're doing. Surely they're doing
_something_ right,
>and like Kuhn I'd like to know what it is.
assess the successes of the science project, and another
to consider
what it is scientists (or rather the philosophy guiding
the
scientists) think they are actually doing. The debate
between realists
and the so-called anti-realists is a valid one. The anti-realists
within the scientific community are not saying anything
about the
effectiveness of science.
>Studies of Science theorists, the Rhetoric of Science
theorists,
>the Laboratory Studies guys, etc., etc., who have come
up with some
>fascinating ideas about how science _really_ works,
have too often
>been co-opted by people who don't _like_ science and
are all too
>ready to consign it to the dustbin of history.
However, many of the critiques I think have been good
for the
evolution of science.
>lot of trendy types who've never caught up with science
who think
>they're already beyond it.
science journal). It's hard to make any well-informed
constructive
criticisms of science if you haven't spent time working
as a
scientist. There has to have been an initiation.
>> whether or not one is interested in horary, or even
symbolism.
>>
>> I'd better stop. At the back of all this is the notion
I subscribe to,
>> which is that the 21st century will be the one when
non-rationality
>> will be rehabilitated. This will happen because of
work in the
>> cognitive sciences. As a consequence, astrology will
become a focus of
>> attention, because it is the primary repository of
applied
>> non-rational (imaginal) cognition in western culture.
>
>I know of several researchers who seem to think that
science will
>undergo a revolution and come to see things our way,
and realize
>we've been right all along. I think if our field
becomes acceptable
>it'll be because _astrology_ has undergone a revolution
and exited
>the Middle Ages.
see things as astrologers do. I think astrologers will
benefit in
terms of their understanding of what they are doing because
of
developments in scientific understanding.
underwent a revolution when celestial mechanics broke
ranks. I think
it's currently in the middle of a 'pre-paradigmatic'
stage of a new
revolution, but without realising it.
because at the heart of it all is the practicing astrologer,
not to
mention all the social constructvist forces at work contributing
to
the 'modulation of the astrology narrative'.
human cognition.The fact that modernity provides a problematical
context for astrology is not because of the use of symbols.
>
> Kinda like Nostradamus?
the term 'visionary' in the way that it is often used
retrospectively
to acknowledge someone whose ideas fell on deaf ears
when they were
expressed, but which in the long run turned out to have
substantial
value - a person who comes up with ideas 'before their
time'.
>Bill, even if we don't agree on a whole lot.
us are right. It's a big elephant. I'm not looking at
what you're
looking at, even though we're grappling with the same
thing. So I'm
not seeing what you're seeing. I am totally open to listening
to the
reports you bring back from your explorations.
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 25
Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 01:03:46 +0100
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Thanks Dennis
Thanks for putting in the effort to précis the
Tarnas chapters.
Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 21:28:43 +1200
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] cosmos & psyche 3
factor that linked the synchronistic inner and outer
events - the formal
cause, in Aristotelian terms - was archetypal in nature."
principles of the human psyche."
dispostions that unconsciously structure and impel human
behaviour at both
the personal and collective level."
two indepent categories, but it wouldn't surprise me
if the error was
originally Jung's. These are archetypes of human
experience; light & dark,
birth & death, good & evil, masculine & feminine
etc, and archetypal
categories of people; the hero, trickster.
He also cites what I consider
problematic or dubious candidates - child, great mother.
Why not ordinary
mother? Why not great father? Also Eros &
Logos. Then he allocates
another category of "more specifically personified and
culturally inflected"
archetypes (Aphrodite, Dionysus, Saturn, Sophia etc)
without explaining his
(Jung's?) criteria.
principles of number and form, as in the Pythagorean-Platonic
tradition, and
traditional sacred forms such as the mandala, the circle,
and the cross."
Cartesian-Kantian philosophical framework of basic
division between the
human subject and the objective world, and thus tended
to restrict
archetypes to the interior world of the human psyche.
His view of
archetypes in the early and middle periods of his career
was generally
equivalent to Kant's notion of a priori forms and categories."
They were
"inherited psychological structures of dispositions that
preceded and shaped
the character of human experience but could not be said
to transcend the
human psyche."
analysis of synchronicities, Jung moved towards a conception
of archetypes
as autonomous patterns of meaning that inform both psyche
and matter,
providing a bridge between inner and outer." he
gives this quote from Jung
without reference: "Synchronicity postulates a
meaning which is a priori in
relation to human consciousness and apparently exists
outside man."
world, of an *anima mundi* in which the human psyche
participates and with
which it shares the same ordering principles of meaning.
Jung noted the
parallels between synchronistic phenomena and the Chinese
understanding of
the Tao, the ancient Greek conception of the cosmic sympathy
of all things,
the Hermetic doctrine of microcosm and macrocosm, the
medieval and
Renaissance theory of correspondences, and the medieval
concept of the
preexistent ultimate unity of all existence, the *unus
mundus* (the unitary
world)."
sufficiently to illuminate an ongoing relevance to our
time. Jung's
archetypes seem distinctly historical to me, even if
they are less obviously
dated than Freud's quaint obsession with hysterics.
Jungians have been
conspicuous in their collective failure to document any
manifestation of his
archetypes in contemporary society. What has not
dated, however, is Jung's
essential perception of the primary holistic function
of the psyche, and his
equally essential perception of the secondary dualistic
function of the
psyche. Would that he had only spelt it out so
succinctly!! His vision
would have had a much greater impact, the waters of his
influence less
muddied.
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 26
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] feedback, comments
> wonder exactly what was going on as I carried out my
research. At the
> time I used to call it 'serendipity' - ridiculous coincidences
leading
> to breakthroughs. And maybe that's all it was - ridiculous
> coincidences. But they only ever happened after periods
of intense
> mental focus on a research problem. Part of me now
thinks of those
> events in terms of 'seeing'.
actually, I seem to recall that was the title of the
book & it was also
scientific. Just curious why you didn't/don't call
it synchronicity, which
is what it looks like to me.
> quality which can create the time frame. Of course,
there can be many
> iterative signals with different frequencies. What
I think we're
> talking about is rhythmic 'reference events'. Heart
beats would be a
> very basic possibility for humans, even if they are
not entirely
> consistent, for short time frames.
heartbeat pattern is not only not regular, it's technically
chaotic. I
agree with you about the experience of iteration being
requisite. A good
point, probably insufficiently made in the general literature
of the
subject. Back when I was researching astrology,
I concurrently went through
all the available books about time. I probably
still own at least half a
dozen. I think its the essential background context
study for astrology.
> living organisms to the diurnal, lunar and apparent
solar cycles a
> branch of astrology when discussing the astrological
(as opposed to
> biological). It's physical astrology, natural astrology.
a social construction designed to interpret those physical
cycles of common
experience. I take the (postmodern?) point that
physical cycles are
represented in the psyche via perception.
> example, that one can work with horoscopes for dead
people regarding
> changes in their reputation, discoveries post mortem
of an author's
> lost manuscripts, and so on.
>
> This latter feature may be based on delusion on my
part, but I'm not
> assuming that just yet.
astrologer/writers have described such correlations credibly.
> clearly, which is not the same thing as unambiguously.
The reason why
> ambiguity inevitably creeps in to a consultation is
because the
> interpretation of the symbols and their patterns is
not independent of
> context, and the context is usually fluid or not fully
formed. Thus I
using astrology as a language, and consequent promotion
of keywords, arose
from doing more chart analysis alone and in presentation
to conferences than
client readings.
> explain that the horoscope does not represent the unique
physical
> reality of the client, but for want of a better phrase
'the archetypal
> self'.
the potential self or the blueprint of their inner nature.
> have prototypical concepts on a general level which
for me define the
> central 'principle' (or maybe two or three), and which
can be expanded
> upon or extrapolated across scale and context.
the several main strands of meaning or typical types
of manifestation rather
than just one.
> [are] in effect constructed and structured on a cognitive
level,
> rather than being innately associated with actual planetary
periods
> and subsequently discovered.
descriptive terms people chose which then accrete via
social consensus.
> phrases that I associate with symbols. They are very
general in
> nature, more like generic principles. I can't say that
I feel I know
> in advance what the symbols actually mean - in other
words how they
> correlate specifically with the client's past and present
experiences.
> My consultations are dialogues and relatively improvised,
on the basis
> that the meaning, significance or insights will emerge
in the course
> of the dialogue.
of astrologer throughout my involvement with the astrological
community.
The best such practitioners have always compelled my
admiration. I
eventually realised I was a different kind of animal!
It often looks like
astrology powered by psychic ability, but this description
may not fit you.
word you wanted must be consensii! Just a reminder
to me that mine was the
last generation whose intelligensia was expected to learn
latin at school (I
chose not to).
> modern world is an absurdity.
have previously in Exegesis explained that Rudhyar's
unconventional handling
of this issue was actually quite correct. It might
even be the most
spectacularly profound point he ever made, his observation
that we are all
living at the centre of the universe as we experience
it. If you disregard
local variations of ground level, the flat earth extending
to a circular
local horizon is the basis of generic human experience.
If psychologists
were not so collectively inadequate they would acknowledge
this fact as
being a key feature of the structure of the psyche.
The locus of perception
orients to the ground/sky hemispherical duality.
Those hemispheres of our
perception are abstractions, if you like, and they are
divided by an
abstract plane, but we see and orient to this common
framework regardless of
abstract terms. We move, on average, on the flat
earth. It is the basis of
our collective experience.
> symbolically with heat, anger, war, and all the rest
because it's
> reddish looking.
I'd wonder if I wasn't being sucked in by a completely
contrived belief
system. Venus was planet of war for the maya.
The moon was a male god for
several historical cultures. I came to view Mars
as energy. Both physical
energy and motivational energy (`get up & go'), manifesting
mainly as
activity. One could cite Gauquelin 1st major finding
as `proof' (champion
athletes had Mars rising or culminating). Assertion
and aggression I would
call secondary manifestions of the archetype.
> astrology to me through argument, because I don't think
it can be
> disproved given my ontological assumptions. You might
think that
> therefore I must by definition 'believe' in it, but
I think I'm just
> being pragmatic.
>
> I'd have the same approach to using homeopathy. I don't
'believe' in
> homeopathy, I use it because it has had a functional
value in my life,
> despite its obvious absurdity when considered scientifically.
> boundaries between categories are not the norm, especially
once one
> gets beyond the classical style of taxonomic categories
in science,
> which represent a certain ideal. Category membership
is a fuzzy thing
> at the best of times.
recipe for psychosis? Take a multiple Virgo, innately
inclined to
differentiate shades of grey, and indoctrinate them in
a dualist belief
system, in which things are either black or white.
Yeah, I know, we've had
several centuries of it. No wonder the world's
such a mess.
> self-organising dynamics in life processes, which can
'delay the
> inevitable', or alternatively systems which have reached
a state of
> self-organised criticality (and are both very unstable
and very
> unpredictable). I'm also interested in hysteresis effects
which delay
> a system reaching its natural equilibrium position.
All these themes
function like clockwork, why planetary triggers often
fail to trigger
anything. This has only become evident in recent
years.
> astrologer, I am not being wholly rational.
boggles.
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 27
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 01:20:53 +0100
From: Bill Sheeran
Subject: [e] Re: feedback, comments
>actually, I seem to recall that was the title of the
book & it was also
>scientific. Just curious why you didn't/don't
call it synchronicity, which
>is what it looks like to me.
I resist calling it synchronicity because I don't want
to get too
entangled with Jung's perspective, however valuable it
might be.
than depth psychology. So I'm interested in the relationship
between
perception and cognition. And seeing as a sense which
extends beyond
the visual. I think there is a perceptual sensitivity
which can tune
in to the 'co-present'. By that, I mean being able to
tune in to 'the
answer' because it is already present.
(say, in the form of a wide truck) when one is driving.
Any possible
accident is in the future, but the truck is where it
is in relation to
my car in the present. And that relationship pertains
because of what
happened in the past. I often 'read my world' - get omens
- that I act
on, and which have made a difference in avoiding negative
events, etc.
is generally realised. That's a speculation.
seeing omens, are all cognitive devices used to amplify
the signal as
it were. To 'see around the corner', in the case of the
truck and the
car.
is important in the experience of doing science or astrology.
>
>Back when I was researching astrology, I concurrently
went through
>all the available books about time. I probably
still own at least half a
>dozen. I think its the essential background context
study for astrology.
awareness and how it's features are conceptualised and
re-presented as
various forms of Time. I'm working towards ideas about
why the way we
frame time is so intimately associated with the heavenly
cycles as
opposed to any other local and reliable reference events.
There are
some obvious reasons and some which are not so obvious.
But whatever,
the answers to these sort of questions illuminate why
astrology has
had the forms it has had.
>a social construction designed to interpret those physical
cycles of common
>experience. I take the (postmodern?) point that
physical cycles are
>represented in the psyche via perception.
which highly complex systems (based on conceptual metaphor,
metonymy
and so on) have been developed. And the systems are called
astrologies.
on which is a different kind of practice than working
one-to-one with
a client. There is a great deal of "in absentia" in such
situations,
as I rely on the media for contextual information, which
of course is
incredibly unreliable.
>using astrology as a language, and consequent promotion
of keywords, arose
>from doing more chart analysis alone and in presentation
to conferences than
>client readings.
years. There is, and was at the time, no doubt in my
mind that the
first two or three years were an apprenticeship. It's
like learning
how to find your own style and inner artist after having
spent years
being taught at art college. Or learning how to speak
a language by
living in the country, rather than learning it at school.
longer needed to refer to books. Having the fluency to
just start
immediately talking about a chart without having to analyse
it.
Actually, I used to see it as having the fluency to allow
the chart to
talk to me! And still do, I suppose.
>> have prototypical concepts on a general level which
for me define the
>> central 'principle' (or maybe two or three), and which
can be expanded
>> upon or extrapolated across scale and context.
>
>Seems very similar to how I perceive the astrological
archetypes, even to
>the several main strands of meaning or typical types
of manifestation rather
>than just one.
categorise, or the nature of categories in astrology
and where they
come from, if you prefer.
>> [are] in effect constructed and structured on a cognitive
level,
>> rather than being innately associated with actual
planetary periods
>> and subsequently discovered.
>
>I agree, but I do assume that the promptings of the
archetype select the
>descriptive terms people chose which then accrete via
social consensus.
metaphor to structure the experience of order in the
phenomenal world
is at the heart of it all. I'm with Lakoff on this one,
when it comes
to the nature of astrology. Not that he mentions it anywhere.
I'm
making use of his ideas (and you heard it here first!!).
their understanding of symbol to the learned terms.
category membership). Then one doesn't need the list
anymore. One is
liberated from its finite constraints, and can start
drawing on the
context to achieve an appropriate mapping.
>of astrologer throughout my involvement with the astrological
community.
>The best such practitioners have always compelled my
admiration. I
>eventually realised I was a different kind of animal!
It often looks like
>astrology powered by psychic ability, but this description
may not fit you.
pigments as tools. They become an extension of the artist,
and the way
they are used reflects the artist. There's only one way
for me to be
an astrologer if I wish to maintain my integrity, and
that's to do it
my way! It isn't the right way to do astrology - it's
the right way
for me to do astrology.
people who are far more psychic than I am. I think it's
more basic
than that. Ground level, and not particularly rarified,
but also not
entirely rational. And there's the rub as regards acceptance
of the
idea.
>
>I remember learning in maths that the plural of radius
is radii. So the
>word you wanted must be consensii!
because the Latin version looked too awkward. Mind you
the English
version sounds awkward. But I did actually make a decision
about this
while writing! Over here the plural of census is censuses,
for better
or worse.
>local variations of ground level, the flat earth extending
to a circular
>local horizon is the basis of generic human experience.
If psychologists
>were not so collectively inadequate they would acknowledge
this fact as
>being a key feature of the structure of the psyche.
towards cognitive science (especially cognitive linguistics),
which
has no problem acknowledging the fundamental role immediate
physical
experience has in providing sources for conceptual metaphorical
schemes used by humans to structure reality. At least,
there's no
problem if you follow the path set by Lakoff and others.
>> symbolically with heat, anger, war, and all the rest
because it's
>> reddish looking.
>
>Yeah, red = blood = warrior. I remember thinking
that too, in times when
>I'd wonder if I wasn't being sucked in by a completely
contrived belief
>system.
value. My guess, which is motivating my work, is that
it has something
to do with the co-evolution of astrology and cognition.
symbols come from. Hence the epistemological defict which
Dale refers
to. But I think it is 'what it looks like', and very
simple.
would be the heart of the matter for me.
>call secondary manifestions of the archetype.
>> self-organising dynamics in life processes, which
can 'delay the
>> inevitable', or alternatively systems which have reached
a state of
>> self-organised criticality (and are both very unstable
and very
>> unpredictable). I'm also interested in hysteresis
effects which delay
>> a system reaching its natural equilibrium position.
All these themes
>function like clockwork, why planetary triggers often
fail to trigger
>anything. This has only become evident in recent
years.
trickled into the public domain. But it is amazing how
long it is
taking to have an impact on astrological discourse. I
remember giving
a lecture at a conference in Venice in 1997 on this topic
- basically
the need for astrologers to come to terms with unpredictability
- and
the audience feedback made it clear they had no idea
why I thought the
matter was important. The conference organiser had to
butt in and
explain in my defense that "I was raising a deep philosophical
point".
Whereas I thought I was simply being realistic.
>> astrologer, I am not being wholly rational.
>
>Jeez, you mean there is such a thing as a rational astrologer??
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 12:30:51 +1200
From: andre
Subject: [e] Responses on time (or rather, late)
weeks at the moment and have one or two potentially serious
family
pressures as well. That's a shame as the recent
exchanges have been
stimulating and worthwhile. Hence, if I am slow
to respond or don't
respond at all now and over the next few months, please
be sure it is
niether disinterest nor rudeness!
likely to be littered with the odd misinterpretation
(in addition of
course to my usual misinterpretations and mistakes :-).
extended what I was trying to say. You also supplied
the term
(entrainment) which had momentarily escaped me!
guilty there of oversimplifying for an imagined audience!
approximately common purpose, and have an approximately
common
background in the subject. There I can simplify
without - hopefully -
being too misleading.
disciplines it is a really difficult forum on which to
write both
accurately and meaningfully.
----------------------------
Bill, I fear I was a little obscure in my previous post!
However you
also got me exactly right on the fundamental point.
paragraphs; that the "atomic clocks" do indeed determine
time and change
at the macroscopic level. Indeed (if I recall correctly)
Steven
Weinberg in 'Dreams of a final theory' presents a fairly
strong
assertion of that kind. (See also Brian Greene
(sp?) 'The elegant
universe' for a thoughtful summary of that perspective).
In its
strongest expression the claim is that _once and if_
physics attains a
'final theory of everything' (TOE) then everything else
would be
explained or explainable: psychology; art; chemistry;
life etc.
Moreover even if it were true, attaining a TOE would
not in any case
instantly answer all questions. On the contrary,
there would still be
many thousands of years of work exploring the ramifications,
and art
would still be art, and love still love!
>However, I _believe_ from the discussions Dale and I
have had that we
>are committed to saying that atomic clocks alone are
not sufficient once
>we reach the level of living organisms.
> Not sufficient for the purpose of what?
sufficiently explained by 'atomic clocks alone', notwithstanding
the
strong assertions about a TOE that some physicists might
make.
provide a sub-microscopic level of explanation of time.
In one sense it
might be true they entirely explain time at macroscopic
levels too.
However they might still not be _useful_ at these larger
levels of
reality, any more than consulting a table of atomic weights
is
immediately useful in understanding artistic responses
to a painting, or
psychological needs in a client.
and _valid_ markers at the macroscopic level.
causation scheme might go like this:
|
determine...
/
\
/
\
planet cycles
\
\
living processes
one hand and "living processes" on the other would -
I think - express
an orthodox idea that planets and organisms are _entirely_
independently
influenced or governed by atomic clocks. Neither
is dependent on the
other, and no amount of talking about "different levels
of explanation
(being valid)" is sufficient to conjure up a connection
or dependency
between the two.
and organisms; that the 'causation' is not merely from
the bottom level
of atomic clocks up, but also operates 'horizontally'.
I suggest this
is not a mere semantic convenience but is both valid
and _necessary_ to
understanding "time" for living organisms. Moreover,
I mean "necessary"
in the context of "having to be included in the scientific
theories" or
"essential to accurate prediction".
Dennis) is the matter of entrainment, which is capable
of working with
inanimate as well as animate things. If these things
are interacting
appropriately, then entrainment (or everything getting
into some sort of
phase with everything else) is a definite possibility.
cognition or consciousness, and is therefore peculiar
to living things.
Once cognition is introduced, different levels of explanation
become
valid and _necessary_ before _complete_ understanding
is possible.
collection of molecules. But once cognition is
introduced (combined
with eyes of the sort we have operating in the frequency
range ours do,
and combined with cultural histories of particular kinds
etc etc), the
Mona Lisa becomes - well; 'The Mona Lisa' - and
so we have a different
level of reality and explanation.
lives ("change particle trajectories and system dynamics"
a physicist
might prefer to say) and hence change aspects of the
universe such as
where one happens to be, who one happens to meet, etc
etc.
will disagree) be predicted without the existence of
the cognitive level
being entered into the theory.
conflict with science (or physics) as currently understood.
> Briefly, we can't observe time itself (assuming time
exists as a
> 'thing' in the first place). We do however observe
change, a term
> which implies a series of events occuring in our spatial
environment.
> What you call "stable signals" I would call regular
iterations of
> particular kinds of events against which other events
(similar to your
> "transient signals") can be considered, assessed, measured,
> recognised, or whatever. Our real experience of time
is measured
> relative to our real experience of events. So time
is bound up with
> the comparison of events.
partly in electronics. I in fact _meant_ "regular
iterations".
> what the connection is) between the macroscopic experience
of regular
> iterations in the external event space, and the vibrational
> frequencies at a sub-atomic level internal to both
observer and the
> material reality of the components in the event space
(your 'atomic
> clocks').
you inferred I was trying to establish a connection;
but given the ideas
I raised above perhaps this was a good thing.
I simply mean that it may be necessary to have physics,
chemistry and
biology to explain the bodies we walk about in, but that
_astrology_
(cognition, evolution, ..., and physics ultimately perhaps)
may be
necessary to explain what we _do_ with those bodies.
"appreciate" the Mona Lisa versus the cosmic ray which
simply passes
straight through the Mona Lisa, neither "noticing" (being
effected by) the
other at all. There is a real difference here,
although I know this
goes back to debates in philosophy about phenomenalism
etc. Not a can
of worms I want to open here by the way!
our biological mechanisms via evolution, or as a product
of fundamental
conditioning of our cognition in our first days of life
- that time for
us and other living beings is fundamentally "structured"
by these
constant planetary rhythms. I suggest it's not
so much that we 'notice'
the Sun or Saturn has returned to a familiar background
and 'decide' to
use these convenient clocks (although obviously we _have_
done such
things).
way (one of the three at the start of the previous paragraph
perhaps).
As such, it might be more accurate to say these rhythms
don't determine
_what_ we do but rather _when_ we do things, which of
course in the end
has a large effect on the _what_ anyway. In a sense,
it may not be that
we looked up, saw Jupiter had returned to a background
of stars, and
thought "hey that's handy", but rather that we looked
up and saw Jupiter
_because_ that cycle was already within us, and within
our friends, our
enemies, our predators and prey, and so on - and this
is why it's all
fundamental and useful.
to apparently make one's own thesis more impressive,
I can't resist a
comparison with Einstein's two theories of relativity.
In most respects
nothing changed; almost all the mathematics that was
valid under
Newtonian mechanics continued to be valid. (No
bridges or buildings
collapsed, I understand, the day special relativity got
published!).
Yet on much larger (and also much smaller) scales our
understanding of
the universe both changed and _increased_ enormously.
In a reverse
sense, it does not seem much more has to change for a
universe with
astrology in it to become at least distinctly possible).
particularly the second half of it:
> direction. What I'm trying to do is understand where
the forms of
> astrology come from. I believe these are founded on
the basis of
> conceptual metaphor schemes, including those associated
with
> conceptualisations of time. I realise that at some
point I have to try
> and bridge the connection between the forms astrology
has taken and
> their assumed functional value in terms of phenomenal
(and temporal)
> experience. In other words, I have to ask the question
how come, given
> astrology's forms, that they are useful in helping
to recognise
> temporal order in relation to processes that range
from the physical
> to the abstract.
time basis to astrology) is true, it most certainly is
not in conflict
with the project you have been describing. Considering
the cultural
dimension you point out for example, it is undoubtedly
true that
astrology (and everything else) will evolve in some way
that best
accomodates the needs, wants and practices of different
populations.
particular population notices it or not, I would also
say that whether
they notice it and then decide to use it may have something
to do with
the need or relevance of that rhythm to the society.
As such, different
constructions and conceptions of astrology are bound
to arise, not just
between cultures but between any arbitrary-sized population
or community
(consider, indeed, all the different flavours and kinds
of 'western'
astrology that exist now).
discussion about complex numbers. Do give Penrose
a look sometime
though: he's a professor of mathematics at Oxford,
stands beside
Stephen Hawking as one of the two great contemporary
physicists, and
actually is far the more original of the two IMHO.
Nothing to do with
astrology however!
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 28
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 13:45:13 -0400
From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: Re: feedback, comments (Bill Sheeran)
> From: Bill Sheeran
> Subject: [e] Re: feedback, comments
>
[..................]
>
>>> I believe that the symbols have bounded meanings.
I
>>> have prototypical concepts on a general level which
for me define the
>>> central 'principle' (or maybe two or three), and
which can be expanded
>>> upon or extrapolated across scale and context.
>> Seems very similar to how I perceive the astrological
archetypes, even to
>> the several main strands of meaning or typical types
of manifestation rather
>> than just one.
>
> This relates to another article I am working on, about
how astrologers
> categorise, or the nature of categories in astrology
and where they
> come from, if you prefer.
>
>>> I think that a symbol's meanings
>>> [are] in effect constructed and structured on a cognitive
level,
>>> rather than being innately associated with actual
planetary periods
>>> and subsequently discovered.
>> I agree, but I do assume that the promptings of the
archetype select the
>> descriptive terms people chose which then accrete
via social consensus.
>
> I think the way the sensory-motor system cognises,
and uses conceptual
> metaphor to structure the experience of order in the
phenomenal world
> is at the heart of it all. I'm with Lakoff on this
one, when it comes
> to the nature of astrology. Not that he mentions it
anywhere. I'm
> making use of his ideas (and you heard it here first!!).
arguing that almost all of human cognition, up through
the most abstract
reasoning, depends on and makes use of such concrete
and "low-level"
facilities as the sensorimotor system and the emotions.
[..]
little awareness of root psychical phenomenon. I image
the psyche live's
as a pre-linguistic being more ontic than ontological,
and "eternal" as
in not a being able to percieve the existence of passage
of time, wholly
incapable of forming intention...but not at all Freuds
negatively
charged ID...:) More at a Carl Rogers position of social
neutrality.
What, if anything, is ontic about some "thing"
in astrology? What does
ontic mean?
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontic
"[..]"Ontic" describes what is there, as opposed
to the nature or
properties of that being. To illustrate:
Roger Bacon, observing that all languages are built upon
a common
grammar, stated that they share a foundation of ontically
anchored
linguistic structures. [..]"
at the level of the Jungian rhizome is not really engaged
in something
like awareness and or caring, like Heidegger's Dasein
:
"[..]Martin Heidegger posited the concept of Sorge, or
caring, as the
fundamental concept of the intentional being, and presupposed
an
ontological significance that distinguishes ontological
being from mere
"thinghood" of an ontic being. He uses the German word
"Dasein" for a
being that is capable of ontology, that is, recursively
comprehending
properties of the very fact of its own Being[..]"
sentiment belonging to Heidegger, merely a socially framed
expression of
his natal chart "instinct"--the particular condition
of Venus at the
cusp of Virgo, perhaps.)
which is nearly an ontic thing-ness, and little or no
intention-forming
behavior. What if "its" reality has no sense of being
in time, or any
awareness of other-ness, or any sense of an "out there"
world with which
it must strike bargains an acquire remedial social conventions
in order
to fulfill it individual needs, etc..
structure and thus holistically integral.
Nature's sensorimotor "vocabulary".
http://www.fifeartsandcrafts.co.uk/Dougie%20Images/Drawings%20and%20Paintings/migraine.jpg
astrology calls Uranus , it is placed at about House
11. Attached to it
is a silver white crescent. My twisted brain sees Uranus
opposite the
Moon, and Mars probably nearby. In my working with
this image I had no
birth data at all. So, I just made some up...:) I just
found a date that
would give me Moon opposite Uranus and Mars near Uranus:
http://pedantus.free.fr/Dougie_expected.gif
blue a total stranger wanted to know his birth data "on
his
birthday!"...:) EEEK! More complications...LOL..:)
Illustration of expected versus actual:
http://pedantus.free.fr/Dougie_expected-vs-actual.gif
psyche...:) How ever you guys want to divide up the life
enslaved
molecules and bewitching cosmic rays...:)
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 20:53:30 +1200
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] cosmos & psyche 4
coherence that linked the otherwise unconnected events,
informed the larger
field of meaning, and gave to the time of the synchronicity'
occurrence a
specific fundamental quality."
and the archetypal quality of the internal state of consciousness
suggested
that the active archetype could not be localized as an
exclusively
subjective intrapsychic reality. Rather, both psyche
and world, inner and
outer, were informed by the archetypal pattern and thereby
united by the
correlation."
on all sides.. It is more like an atmosphere in
which we live than
something that is found *in* us.. Also, it does
not by any means behave
merely psychologically; in the cases of s0-called
synchronicity it proves
to be a universal substrate present in the environment
rather than a
psychological premise."
interview late in her life that "the work which has now
to be done is to
work out the concept of synchronicity. I don't
know the people who will
continue it. They must exist, but I don't know
where they are.""
psychology of religion". "As the physicist Victor
Mansfield has written,
speaking for many: "I have encountered too many
synchronistic experiences,
both in my life and that of others, to ignore them.
Yet these surprisingly
common experiences pose tremendous psychological and
philosophical
challenges for our world view. They are especially
troubling experiences
for me as a physicist trained within the culture of scientific
materialism."" Mansfield published his book "Synchronicity,
Science and
Soul-making" in '95. It is certainly well worth
reading, even if it lacked
the vital new insights I was looking for. Another
physicist, F. David Peat,
earlier produced another good book on the topic (Synchronicity:
bridge
between matter and mind, '87).
"Jung began to examine astrology as early as 1911, when
he mentioned his
inquiries in a letter to Freud." "It is also clear
from reports from his
family and others close to him that in his last decades
he came to employ
the analysis of birth charts and transits as a regular
and integral aspect
of his clinical work with patients in analysis."
astrology with automatic skepticism. Eventually,
however, influenced not
only by Jung's example but also by a number of colleagues
whose intellectual
judgement I had reason to trust, I came to think that
some essence of the
astrological thesis might be worth investigating."
Tarnas gives a fuller
account, but I'm just passing on the key points.
"I was also impressed by a
number of commonalities between that ancient thought
system and the new
conception of reality currently emerging in many fields
out of the
postmodern matrix: the affirmation of the multidimensional
nature of
reality, the complex holistic understanding of part and
whole in all
phenomena, the recognition of an `ecology of mind' in
nature, the new
discernment of subtle dimensions of order in seemingly
random natural
processes, the openness to sources of knowledge and traditions
of thought
beyond those sanctioned by conventional modern rationality,
the
acknowledgement of the spiritual dimension of existence,
the appreciation of
the role of symbolic, mythic, and archetypal meaning
in human experience."
true that I wrote The Astrologer and the Paradigm Shift
(1992) on a very
similar perception of commonalities.] Perhaps the
commonalities tended to
be
more tacit than explicit. Ancient astrologers wouldn't
have had a clue what
he was talking about. I suspect the common ground
is evident only to
postmodern sophisticates.
sense is focused on the Earth, even on the individual
human being, as a
nexus of meaning."
suggest) apparently began in the '70s. "After learning
the rudiments of how
to calculate natal charts, I directed my attention to
a curious phenomenon
of which I had heard reports circulating among professionals
in the mental
health field, corroborating an observation that Jung
also had made. The
reports concerned planetary transits, which are alignments
formed between
the current positions of the orbiting planets and the
planetary positions at
an individual's birth. Beginning with a small sample
and then steadily
augmenting it, I found to my considerable astonishment
that individuals
engaged in various forms of psychotherapy and transformational
practices
showed a consistent tendency to experience psychological
breakthroughs and
healing transformations in coincidence with a certain
category of planetary
transits to their natal charts, while periods of sustained
psychological
difficulty tended to coincide with a different category
of transits
involving other planets."
definable psychological states and coinciding transiting
alignments seemed
too significant to be explained by chance. Yet
given currently accepted
views of the universe, such correlations should simply
not be happening."
Dale has probably already got Tarnas pegged as another
victim of symbolism
but, despite my sympathy for his view as regards most
astrologers, I have a
gut feeling that there is more going on here. I
take at face value his
declaration that he approached the subject as a sceptic
(as I did). I also
approached it hoping that it wasn't just bullshit - while
Tarnas does not
confess to any such sympathy, it is evident that he did
approach with an
open mind unfettered by ideological bias. What
then would cause him to see
the correlations and correspondences? I cannot
presume to answer, but it
sure as hell is a damned interesting question!
character of the observed psychological states corresponded
so closely to
the supposed meanings of the relevant transiting and
natal planets as
described in standard astrological texts." In view
of the quality of the
texts available at the time, this is indeed inexplicable.
since has been minimal. "For there to be any consistent
correlations at all
was obviously puzzling; for the correlations also
to match the traditional
meanings of the planets was startling." Damn right,
given the sources
available! Obviously the man's right brain was
running the show, otherwise
they would never have become apparent. My right
brain tuned in similarly,
but my left brain got real picky when it noticed that
the meanings could not
actually be consensually established in the literature.
You can verify this
for yourselves, if you have the interest and sufficient
mental discipline.
Just list the meanings given by each author/source and
compare them. List
all the agreements. Separately, list all those
meanings given that differ
from other sources.
sufficient rigor to measure the result.
The devil, as usual, is in the details, so only those
with planets in Virgo
would even contemplate wrestling with him/them, let alone
actually doing it.
If you do, you get keywords and phrases in the consensual
output. If you
can prove that multiple astrologers use these, via quotes,
you have
established the real language of astrology. I assert
this on the basis that
words and phrases used communally to convey meanings
are the content of
language.
language. The body is produced by the right-brain
hemisphere - imagery,
metaphor, analogy, resonance of feeling, intuition.
Not so easy to
describe, because description is a left-brain process.
more fully prepared and systematic manner. I decided
to examine the history
and principles of astrology in earnest by reading carefully
through the
canon of major astrological works, from Ptolemy's summation
of classical
astrology, the *Tetrabiblos*, and Kepler's *On the More
Certain Fundamentals
of Astrology*, to modern texts by Leo, Rudhyar, Carter,
Ebertin, Addey,
Harvey, Hand, Greene, and Arroyo."
the astrological tradition unexpectedly easy to assimilate,
since they
proved to be surprisingly similar - indeed, essentially
identical - to the
archetypes of modern depth psychology familiar from the
work of Freud and
Jung and their successors in archetypal and transpersonal
psychology." I
bought that line as a student of the subject, but soon
saw through it. The
reason that nobody has ever documented that it is true
is partly that they'd
rather just take it for granted, and partly that it isn't.
The most that
can be said for this belief is that there are similarities,
more so for some
than others. Men, for instance, tend to come from
Mars.
my own natal chart and the charts of forty or fifty other
individuals I knew
well, attempting to ascertain whether a significant correlation
existed
between the planetary positions at birth on the one hand
and the personal
character and biography on the other." Readers
may be surprised to hear it,
but I found this utterly heart-warming. Tarnas
impressed me more with this
than anything else I'd seen from him so far.
nevertheless deeply impressed by the range and complex
precision of the
empirical correspondences. It was as if an uncommonly
gifted depth
psychologist, after long acquaintance with my own or
another individual's
life and personality, had determined the archetypal dynamics
operative in
that person's biography and then constructed an appropriate
planetary
diagram to match - though in reality this diagram represented
the actual
positions of the planets at the time of that person's
birth."
extraordinary were the correlations between specific
transits and the timing
of major events and psychological conditions. Expanding
upon my initial
observations, I observed that the continuously moving
planets as listed in
the astronomical tables consistently seemed to cross,
or transit, the
planetary positions in the birth chart in coincidence
with times in a
person's life that in archetypal terms were uncannily
appropriate. In each
instance the particular meaning and character of significant
life
experiences closely corresponded to the postulated meaning
of the planetary
transits occurring at that time. The more systematically
I examined the two
sets of variables - planetary positions and biographical
events - the more
impressive were the correspondences."
the astrological literature was so vague, over-specific,
or quaintly
irrelevant as to make useful correlations unobtainable.
I cam to suspect
that a number of conventional astrological tenets were
no more than
inherited ad hoc formulae that had gradually solidified
into established
doctrine".
End of Exegesis Digest, Vol 11, Issue 29
From: "Dennis Frank"
Subject: [e] cosmos & psyche 5
rigor. It seemed to me that considerable waste,
misdirection, and even harm
occurred as a result of many astrological teachings and
consultations."
planetary correspondences with specific archetypal principles,
and the
importance of major geometrical alignments between the
planets - appeared to
have a substantial empirical basis. As time passed,
I applied the same mode
of analysis to the lives of more and more persons in
a widening circle of
inquiry, with equally illuminating results. The
more exact the available
data and the more deeply familiar I was with the person
or event, the more
compelling were the correspondences. Both the quantity
and the quality of
positive correlations made my initial skepticism difficult
to sustain. the
coincidence between planetary positions and appropriate
biographical and
psychological phenomena was in general so precise and
so consistent as to
make it altogether impossible for me to regard the intricate
patterning as
merely the product of chance."
reciprocal interaction between archetypal insight and
empirical rigor.
Moreover, an essential characteristic of this analysis
was that it did not
predict specific events or personality traits.
Rather, it articulated the
deeper archetypal dynamics of which events and traits
were the concrete
expression. This it seemed to do with astonishing
precision and subtlety."
arrived at "a different understanding of astrological
`influence' on human
affairs." This "better recognized the critical
significance of both the
particular context and the participatory human role"
and tended to discount
the viability of specific concrete prediction.
archetype as developed by Jung, taking into account not
only its complex
Platonic, Kantian, and Freudian background but also its
more recent
evolution in depth psychology through the work of James
Hillman, Stanislav
Grof, and others." Tarnas expands his perception
of the planetary
archetypes on page 67 in sufficient length as to make
reproduction
laborious, so I'll try to summarise. He says they
are "multidimensional and
multivalent" and therefore (seem to) produce "a plurality
of meaning and
possible manifestation". "[A]ny particular manifestation
of a given
archetype could be positive or negative, benign or destructive,
admirable or
ignoble, profound or trivial." Particular outcomes
"seemed to be determined
largely by contingent circumstances and individual response
rather than by
anything observable in the birth chart or planetary alignments
per se."
"clearly discernible underlying the flux and diversity
of the observed
phenomena, these principles were also both fundamentally
shaped by many
relevant circumstantial factors and co-creatively modulated
and enacted
through human will and intelligence." Looks like
he refers to the
difference between the nature of the archetype and the
various ways it
manifests.
paradigm appeared to be focused not on the prediction
of specific concrete
outcomes but rather on the precise discernment of archetypal
dynamics and
their complex unfolding in time."
and deepening the depth-psychology project" [maybe a
reference to the human
potential movement centred on Esalen]. He now saw
the unconscious as of
"larger dimensions than originally conceived - less exclusively
personal,
less subjective, more cosmically embedded."
historical and cultural phenomena. Compared with
the psychotherapeutic data
and biographical material involving non-famous individuals
on which I
initially had focused, the timing and character of historically
significant
events and the biographical data of major cultural figures
presented the
advantage of being publicly verifiable, so that planetary
correspondences
were more open to rigorous evaluation." He "began
a systematic study in
this larger domain of research. Together with many
colleagues and students,
I have now steadily pursued this research for three decades."
So, a Saturn
cycle.
critical assessment of which I am capable, that there
does in fact exist a
highly significant - indeed a pervasive - correspondence
between planetary
movements and human affairs, and that the modern assumption
to the contrary
has been erroneous. The evidence suggests no that
the planets themselves
*cause* various events or character traits, but rather
that a consistently
meaningful empirical correspondence exists between the
two sets of
phenomena, astronomical and human, with the connecting
principle most
fruitfully approached as some form of archetypally informed
synchronicity."
that ensuing chapters provide examples to help them access
how astrology
works these days, and "also as an aid in developing,
or awakening, what
Hillman has called "an archetypal eye": that form
of imaginative
intelligence, implicit and potential in all of us, that
is capable of
recognizing and discriminating the rich multiplicity
of archetypal patterns
in the intimate microcosm of one's own life as well as
the great events of
history and culture."
6 years of quite the opposite experience in Exegesis,
so it is tempting to
observe that great minds think alike. However it
seems to me that he does
not really see the archetypes as natural principles,
and anyhow I was hoping
for more original unique insights than this. He
seems talented as an
advocate for the paradigm shift, being able to explain
lucidly the fresh
alternative and identify the main features of its emerging
common ground.
What we need though, is more of a conceptual break-through.
