Exegesis Volume 5 Issue #34


From: Patrice Guinard
Subject: Answer to Dennis's kind "Commentary on octagonal house division" (5.26, 30, 33)


From: "William D. Tallman"
Subject: Time 8: last installment.


Exegesis Digest Mon, 26 Jun 2000


Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 10:30:30 +0200
From: Patrice Guinard
To: Exegesis
Subject: Answer to Dennis's kind "Commentary on octagonal house division" (5.26, 30, 33)
 

I thank Dennis for his commentary on my "Dominion". This text is the most visited - the most read? - on the web site of C.U.R.A.

What I have to tell, is that my intuition about this model was first, that I hadn't thought on Gauquelin's works when I've imagined it. Only after came my searching of cultural & historical antecedents, of the eventual use of a set of 8 houses by some astrologers in the past, of the convergence more or less adequate with Gauquelin's findings.

Nevertheless this model could apply easily to enrich the psychological interpretation of the chart. Other thing that the superstitious use of 12 houses for horarist factual-oriented purposes. I've found that the 12 houses system and the horary theory were probably miscellanies of different patterns that appeared in Greece in the 3rd or 4th century B.C.E. and that "our astrology", despite of Ptolemy, Al-Biruni and others, is going on to collapse with them.

Dennis's conclusion: "My feeling about his thesis thus far is that the historical case is surprisingly strong, but the theoretical case is tenuous and unconvincing."

I could use the same adage than others ("it works"). Never mind. Everybody is free to remain sceptic or not about a theory. What thesis is, as a theory, convincing in astrology? Ptolemy, when he is defending an old frame of rulerships with "meteorological" arguments? Rudhyar when he is amalgamating different astrological patterns in his books, contradictory the ones with the others? Ebertin? Addey? Such astrological model, "demonstrated" by such astro-statistical test, never reproduced, and if reproduced, without any astrological real importance?

I recognize that the theoretical case could be improved, and I could let the attempt to a stronger than me. But, I point about this: none astrological matter is convincing ... for the modern thought, because the astrological reasoning is different from the modern scientific one. I was confronted with this problem in my thesis. And I've forged a concept, Matrix-Based Reason (French: "Raison matricielle"), which could explain this situation, and also which could explain why astrology is definitely not accepted in academy, universities... Other thing that the Jungian synchronicity (see my critics about it on CURA's site)

The use of Matrix-Based Reason is essentially "TO MAKE" astrology, and not for going on "interpreting charts" (and, as doing it, finding nothing else that is already obviously known). THE PLURAL, MATRIX-BASED REASONING IS THE REAL TRUE ASTROLOGICAL ACT. And not "interpreting charts" (an application), or doing predictions (a pretension). It's my thesis.

4 further remarks about the set of the 8 houses:

- the very early preexistence of the feeling of a eight division of the day by people in ancient societies. It could be confirmed, and I'm in touch with an archeologist about this.

- if so, and if this very perception of the differenciated qualities of the day did really exist, then it ought to be of more value than later astrological speculations about this question, because the people of ancient societies were SEEING, did really use Matrix-Based Reasoning, and their perception weren't obliterated by further mathematical and speculative considerations.

- what's about the time and the extent (confidential or not) of this ancient tradition by astrologers?

- what's about the possibility to find a bio-physical justification? Each astrologer should keep this "garde-fou" in mind.

Patrice Guinard


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Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 00:49:30 -0700
From: "William D. Tallman"
To: exegesis
Subject: Time 8: last installment.
 

In the seventh of this series, I reviewed the first three of the counting numbers and addressed the first non-prime number: four (4). I showed how it was comprised of the qualities of its factor(s), two (2). In so doing, I introduced the idea that any non-prime number has multiple complexes of qualities that are derived from the factors of the given number. It seems clear that we have at least two different archetypes of Number; there may be more that can be derived, but it is likely that they are subclasses of those archetypes from which they are drawn. For the present, we can assume that the archetypes based on the presence or absence of factors are indeed primary.

On the basis of the analysis presented here, we can assume the first step in addressing a prime number is to use the approach already used on the Number three (3), for it should be the prototypical basis of an approach to any odd Number, all prime Numbers being odd, of course. We focused on the segment that was at the midcycle point, and suggested it held the key to the essence of the Number itself. I suggest that this will be a valid initial step in a general procedure in the analysis of all prime Numbers.

The formal organization of an analysis of prime Numbers can be represented by the statement: n=2((n-1)/2)+1. The innermost quantity is the Number itself minus one, and we see it divided by two; each of these represents the Number that can be used to describe the qualities of each half of the Process of Interest (POI) that are separated by the innermost segment. Two of these Numbers, one on each side, plus the single innermost segment are summed to the Number representing the POI. Each of these halves, ((n-1)/2), are in potential opposition to the other, a potential maintained by the presence of the moderating innermost segment, and they are so fundamentally the same way we saw the two outer segments moderated by the inner segment in the Number three (3). The primary difference is, of course, that these halves are not peer with the innermost segment as they are in the Number three (3), for they are factorable and so have a complex of qualities. In the general case, they are primary in the essence of the Number representing the POI, for it is the potential dual that they comprise that describes the basic nature of that Number. In short, it is how this dual is moderated by the innermost segment that describes the essence of the prime Number under consideration, and that "how" depends entirely on the nature of the quantity ((n-1)/2).

The analysis of the archetypal quality of a prime Number begins, then, with that of the quantity ((n-1)/2). With that analysis in hand, the task is then to postulate the opposition of two of these Numbers; this, of course, implies the Number two (2), and so those quantities can be set as mirror images, having opposite and potentially complementary effects on the POI. Of the several qualities attributed to the Number two (2), that of complementarity is probably the most useful, especially as the quality is made accessible by the presence of the moderating inner segment; indeed, it is this attribute of potential complementarity which can be said to be the fundamental of the quality of any prime Number. Any non-prime that is even has, by definition, the unmoderated opposition of qualities represented by the quantity (n/2). This opposition can be modified by other configurations, but each of those are peer to that of the opposition itself, and so can be only modified, but not moderated.

So that I avoid being unclear here, let me define my terms. That which is modified is not essentially changed, but merely altered. That which is moderated, in this case at least, must remain undefined in essence except in the context of the moderator, for the moderator itself is part of that essence, mediating the potential opposition of the qualities (n-1)/2. For any even Number, the statement is given as n=2(n/2), where (n/2) is the entire essence of the opposing qualities. It can be modified on a peer basis by the configuration n=x(n/x), for n/2 and n/x are peer quantities, having n in common. For a prime Number, the statement is given as n=2((n-1)/2)+1. Here, the quantities n-1 and 1 are not peer, for 1 is the quality (as well as quantity) that n-1 lacks; therefore it is the quantity (and quality of) 1 that *moderates* the quantity (and quality of) n-1.

In the last post, I stated I would look at the Number five (5), but instead, I suggest that the reader now assay the application of these ideas to the next series of Numbers. The Number five (5) is prime, as is seven (7), eleven (11), and thirteen (13). The others are factorable, as far as that series is likely to run, I suspect. Further primes are seventeen (17), nineteen (19), and twenty-three (23), but it's unclear whether a sequence of Number archetypes that exceeds those is likely to be all that useful. The reader is at liberty, of course, to define any limit.

On reflection, it seems appropriate at this point to attempt a compilation of the ideas presented in this series.

The primary concept is that of process, that our experience of time and/or duration takes place within the context of a process that is recognized as such. We can assay yet another definition of process as an ordered series of changes, where the order serves to relate these changes in some fashion; for our purposes, the order is sequential, at least in significant part, and the experience thereof in that context is what we know as time. We can further stipulate that the process must have some relationship with one that has already occurred and so remembered, else it would not be recognized as such. We can assume that relationship implies some commonality, which is our means of achieving recognition, and so it is the repetition of that commonality that is of interest here; we can assume the potential reoccurrence of that commonality in a different guise, and it is the ability to predict that reoccurrence which is of value for it gives us the powerful survival strategy that becomes possible in the acquisition of time for preparation.

In order to make use of this predictive potential, we must create tools to generate appropriate descriptive data from our observations of this phenomena, else we are doomed to an indeterminate sequence of recurring recognition thereof with no way to profit from that recognition. In this creative endeavor, we name the phenomena that of cyclicity and we take up the circle as the graphic icon of imagery. From this image, we derive the notion of predictable repetition, and to the extent the repetition is continuous we are able to select from the observed phenomena in our environment some dependable context against which we can make comparisons that enable judgment. This is, of course, the situation with regard astrology: we use the natural phenomena of the Solar System as the basis of judgment and we assume some sort of connection between the cyclic process of interest and the observed Systemic benchmark processes. In a large part, this is the extent to which current astrology can assert itself: the correspondence between celestial and terrestrial phenomena. In general, all attempts to erect a formal basis upon which to array this correspondence such that some sense can be made thereof have been apparently unsuccessful.

The thrust of this series has been to generate concepts that will address the concept of process as a very basis phenomenon, and that will remain useful as the concept is further defined as cyclical and thus requires tools of analysis that will make possible our understanding of these matters. Accordingly, I have put forth the notion of strictly archetypal metrics with which we can establish some dimensions of the concept of process, such that can be applied to any given manifest process that becomes of interest. The reasoning is that it is bootless to presume that a given manifestation will provide appropriate metric, because that metric must be assumed to be specific to that manifestation and therefor useless in the analysis of any essentials that it might share with others; this is the case with the correspondence between celestial and terrestrial phenomena: the use of the celestial process as the metric for the terrestrial phenomena is specific and yields no inherent insights into the essences of either of these processes.

My suggestion is that the establishment of a process on an essentially conceptual basis can yield an appropriate metric, and I have offered that of Number as appropriate to the primitive establish of segments within a process, whatever they might be. The underlying assumption is that of sequentiality as the basic connection between the changes comprising any given process. The numbering of these changes in sequence seems to imply a relationship of cause and effect, but this is only apparent and not real, for a sequence of changes may reflect the effect of forces outside the process that are not so related, and that is only an example. Sequentiality is apparently the common mode of temporal experience, at least to the extent the experience can be commonly recognized, and so it becomes the natural basis for the conceptual form we can learn to analyze.

In the development of these tools, I suggested the significance of relative embedment of process, such that the process under investigation is comprised of constituent processes, and itself takes its place as a constituent of a larger process. This creates three cosmic levels: a modular (cosmos), a microcosm and a macrocosm. I submitted that a proper use of Number must satisfy these concerns, and I showed how all Numbers could do so, be they factorable or prime.

I also pointed out that any given process is only a part of an ongoing flow of changes, and must be recognized as an arbitrary construct, where its beginning and end can only be assumed to be relevant to the identified process and not necessarily significant in the context of the ongoing flow itself. I suggested that it is useful to recognize that those segments of the cycle of interest that bound the beginning/ending point are actually those that connect it to that larger flow, and so have a defining attribute that separates them from other interior segments. As an extension of that recognition, I suggested that it would be the innermost segment that most clearly described the nature of the cyclic process itself. All the rest flowed from these observations.

You may ask: What, then, are the unique virtues of these analytic tools with regards astrology as we presently know it?

They will allow the identification of the appropriate celestial phenomenon against which to measure any aspect of any given process. They will allow the choice of the process itself, instead of the acceptance of whatever process is implied by the movements in the celestial sphere. We can look directly at what we wish to understand and analyze it in its own terms, and then apply the results as implicit definitions of the appropriate celestial motion. We can make informed and logically supported choices of celestial cycles to examine in any given situation and do so solely on the basis of the terrestrial process under inspection. Of course, the reverse is also valid, we can select celestial cycles and understand how to apply them logically to terrestrial phenomena in a manner that recognizes and stipulates the virtue of that phenomena in its own right. The result can be that we are not forced to define terrestrial phenomenon solely on the basis of celestial archetypes, for there would be an already established archetypal construct that can assess both the celestial and the terrestrial simultaneously.

Specifically, they will provide the means to assign significances that are entirely divorced from the acquired lore of astrological assignments. This will make it possible to generate theoretical bases that can be tested against that lore. There is now an assortment of astrological techniques that are said to have demonstrated value, and it is far from clear that some are not contradictory in essence. It should be possible to directly address those that are based on a temporal rather than spatial construct, and with more mature techniques and the data they may make available, it seems reasonable to suspect that the spatial constructs might also be accessible.

In short, the development of these tools should allow the beginning work of generating a theoretical basis for astrology to be undertaken.

Some further thoughts:

The material I've presented in this series is intended to comprise only a sketched outline of what seems to me to be a set of potentially quite useful analytical tools, the use of which may constitute the basis of a more formal structure capable of supporting theoretical work. I don't pretend that these ideas are in any way complete, nor are they likely to be indicative of further insights, etc. They are a place to begin.

Having said that, I also suggest that this material will require some intellectual diligence to adequately comprehend. Any useful understanding of an archetypal construct is generated by personal study, for the understanding itself must be archetypal and not specific in nature. All one can acquire from others is by nature fundamentally specific because the means of transmission of ideas itself is in the form of already defined concepts (words, phrases, concepts already applied elsewhere, etc.) Understanding is an internal state, and relies solely on one's own personal conceptual (verbal and/or non-verbal) foundation. And one must ultimately do the work of erecting that all by oneself.

Discussion is profoundly helpful. Einstein stayed in Germany as long as he did in the face of rampant anti-Semitism because of the powerful intellectual atmosphere then extant in Berlin, without which he felt severely handicapped. He set yet another excellent precedent for collegiality, and we are well advised to follow it, I think.

The beginning of the thoughts from whence this series followed was that we tend not to recognize that any given life is complete at whatever stage one wishes to address it. No life experience must be from birth to death to have value, else we would not have the ability to learn and to change our own directions, for it would only be at death that our life would become that mature. At any given moment, each of us can identify the halfway mark in our lives to that point, and that mark proceeds at half the rate we live. So we need to be able to address a life experience at any given moment as a complete process in itself. The cyclic aspect is not fundamentally relevant here, because any given person's life is unique to them. What is needed is to address the life of any length as a whole in itself, irrespective of any notion of life expectancy, because that expectancy is only a fiction in the mind of anyone who is not already (or nearly) there. This means that the use of celestial cycles as having constant meaning does not address the complete life only, it addresses the completed life *plus* that which is expected to come, and implies that any life experience that does not achieve that is not achieved in full, that one is cut off from the fullness of a natural numbers of years of experience, etc.

The result is that it is difficult for an individual to see the essence of their life's experience as it is at the moment. The question of where one has gotten to and returned is only generally meaningful in terms of the full human lifetime, and the usual conclusion is that wherever one has gotten to and returned (lessons potentially completed and ready for application, etc.) can only be given meaning in terms of that potential, as yet incomplete, whole. This means that there must surely be some amount of value from one's experience that is at the very least denigrated because it is deemed inherently incomplete, and thus the potential wisdom and understanding already earned is left untaken and unappreciated, to our certain detriment.

We are accustomed to the notion that time goes faster the older we get, and it seems reasonable that this is because the natural metric provided by nature, the day, month and year, become increasingly smaller segments of our experience. When we are very young, a day is an entire adventure, and we learn of the meaning of the week, the month, the season, and the year as we get older. As we mature, we think in terms of these longer intervals as useful segments of experience, until in old age we see lifetimes themselves as useful markers in the understanding of events, etc.

The question was, and is: how does astrology address this, or can it do so? If it cannot, then it appears to have no connection at all to our natural process of understanding.

My question is: is this actually the case? There are some older astrological techniques that might directly address this, but until we can create an independent theoretical construct that we can prove useful, we will be unable to assess those techniques in any rational way. And that is, of course, only the place I began to cogitate....

Absent any further insights, I will end this series here.

Comments?

wtallman


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End of Exegesis Digest Volume 5 Issue 34

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