A Scientific Explanation And Theory Regarding Why Astrology Works

The horoscopes of the parents can certainly influence a person, you can even inherit certain things from the horoscopes of your ancestors. It's all about patterns. Certain patterns can be passed down from one generation to the next although to be honest I'm not entirely sure how this works. Astrology is personally my favorite way to study divination but there are of course many other ways as well like numerology, palmistry etc. They're all connected and just different ways to understand the bigger picture.

reply to post by forestlady

I don't think predeterminism is in astrology. You have a choice to follow your chart or not. I was born with a really bad chart. If I had made different decisions I would be following it but I'm not. In fact, I have uncovered some things in myself that I want to work on and I found them in my chart.

As usual, you give me lots to think about. Forest.

According to my theory, PREDETERMINATION is absolutely REQUIRED to make astrology really work (and I hope I can explain that in a later post.) It is my very first assumption in my opening post. Before I am finished with this thread, I will be explaining this better than I have so far (hopefully.)

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But I have to distinguish what I am calling “predetermination” from “free will”. Clearly, free will exists – I exercise it right now with every word I choose, and every time I hit the “backspace” key. Yet at some point, I will post this. Maybe I will edit it later – but at some point it will be forever committed to an unchanging past! The words I typed will no longer be subject to free will. What I am typing now will be the ONLY THING that I could have typed!

Every decision I make is based on all that has happened in my PAST. And since the past cannot change, I am driven to make only one decision. I don't know what that decision will be. Once I've committed to a course of action based on that decision, I can NEVER change that was the decision I made at that instant in time.

Of course, I can make future decisions based upon the result of past decisions -- but once a choice is made, it cannot be unmade. (Caveman pointed this out -- see my previous response.)


You had the ability to make choices in your life. But in some way, they were the choices you were destined to make! You looked at your chart, used it to guide yourself in a self-referential way. Feedback, knowing WHAT MIGHT BE changed WHAT EVENTUALLY HAPPENED!

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I submit to your personal path, which countered your negative astrological influences, was a highly complex relationship that might actually be revealed in your chart somewhere. You would have to look at the particular moments of time when you came to your decision points – at the relationship with those who were with you when those decisions were realized. You might find that your “unfavorable” chart actually favored all the choices you eventually made. (You might have to dig deeper than current astrological methods actually permit – I don’t know. It might be beyond the envelope.)

There is no question that feedback is an important and complicating part of the whole astrological phenomenon. Can you ever escape your personal astrological influences? I would suggest no – but you can use them to incredible personal benefit, turn "very bad" into "very good". I would also suggest that your chart (which you described as “bad”) might actually just be very "unique" – the unfavorable aspects may serve as “danger” signals that you will move away from, to achieve things in your life that others (less inclined to believe in astrology) might not be able to accomplish.

Amazing, Forest. Your post really gives me pause, and I will be thinking more about it over time, referring back to it. Thanks!

That's one thing I'm not too happy about with astrology, there's no way to change disfavorable things in your horoscope . Once you're born and take your first breath that's the celestial influence you'll have for life. I'm not sure exactly how much predetermination has to do with the future since everyone has free will. It makes sense that a person's individual horoscope would make them more prone to make certain choices. Does anyone know the best way to do predictive astrology?

reply to post by Woland

Your post doesn't discuss how astrology can work from a scientific viewpoint, though. You've spoken, at length about how divination could be feasible should one find a mechanism that is valid. You have not made a case for the mechanism of interactions between astral bodies to produce the effects on the human body.

Great comment Woland! I haven’t done a good enough job on this – there is still some confusion, and I will try to elaborate here. I appreciate the opportunity to do so in response to your question.

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT! According to my theory (and counter to what several people have suggested) astrology does NOT work because of any actual influence of the planets due to gravitational effects or mysterious forces. This IS NOT my theory!

In fact, my theory is quite different, and more subtle. I don’t mean to run counter to anyone else’s opinions here (in particular my friend Rizla, who I will respond to in a later post.) Of course there are actual effects of the sun and moon – we have seasons, and tidal forces. But, my theory DOES NOT RELY on actual physical forces, or even actual influences. That may be someone else’s theory. It is not mine.

I will try to explain it better. It is difficult, but let me discuss this a bit differently from the way I expressed myself in my opening post.

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#1. Point me at any moment in the past, and I can tell you EXACTLY where the planets were, with arbitrary precision. Those positions will not ever be changing. For example, the position of the planets on January 1, 5000 BC are forever recorded. What has happened is now stuck forever as it happened.

#2. NOT ONLY are all the planetary positions stuck in the past –EVERYTHING is stuck in the past. All human life, and all universal existence, is forever locked in an unchanging “reality-mesh” (to quote a post by “Kruel”) Nothing in the past is subject to change. Period.

#3. Since the past is static, you can draw a relationship between the past position of planets, and the past state of anything that has occurred. This framework is ARBITRARY – obviously many ways exist to quantize and measure the state of things. You can use 12 signs, or base-16 numbers, or inches or centimeters -- whatever way you want to map the relationship between two or more things, where one of those things is the position of celestial objects, viewed from earth. That relationship can be defined, reviewed, and agreed to. The past exists. We acknowledge, understand, and make agreements about it.

#4. So consider this: Amazingly, not only do we know the position of the planets in the past, we can also know, with arbitrary precision, the position of the planets IN THE FUTURE. This is not as simple as it may appear. If you are talking about the distant future, you have to use the “multi-body” equation to account for gentle perturbations of orbits due to gravitational attractions between the planets. (Solutions to this “multi-body” equation are mind-blowingly difficult! You need a super computer!) But with that – it is still possible to predict with arbitrary precision where the planets will be on January 1, 5000 AD.

#5. Now comes the crux of my argument: If there is predetermination in life, then the exact same physics (specifically cause and effect) that allow you to predict the state of the PLANETS s in the distant future with arbitrary precision ALSO permits you to predict the state of ANYTHING in the future. The relationships between the planets and the state of other aspects of existence apply whether it is in the past or the future. This is not surprising if you consider the future is just the past – given the passage of enough time. (The future will become the past -- of course.)

#6. I discussed this in terms of Fourier’s Theorem earlier. I will avoid a discussion of this except to say that this is a way of analyzing any function of time based upon its frequency components. The function of time does not have to be periodic itself. It does not have to repeat. Yet it still has frequency components (which could be related to the frequency of planetary orbits, for example.) Astrology is just a way of keeping time, and allowing patterns to be recognized and predicted. That prediction can be arbitrarily precise, but perhaps more complicated than current astrological methods permit (or perhaps not.)

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I am NOT SAYING that current astrological methods, as they exist, actually work for predicting the future (and this IS NOT part of my theory) However, I might as well say, I am eventually going to say that I BELIEVE this mapping has been worked out, and is in fact what we call the astrological method, and it is pretty accurate. (I am going to save that discussion for some sort of terminal post, because it is going to be arguing my beliefs rather than logic.) The important thing I am trying to demonstrate is that astrology CAN work. There is scientific reason to believe this.

I am running out of characters for this post! I will quickly summarize in the remaining 1300 characters: if we removed two or three of the planets, and changed the zodiac around a bit, astrology could still work. In fact, according to my theory, all you need is a calendar, a watch, an hour glass, or a water clock -- in fact ANY METHOD of measuring time is adequate to predict the future with arbitrary precision. If we select a reasonable system of time measurement, it may make the ability to forecast predictions easier, but predictions are not necessarily tied to a particular way of measuring time.

This is a remarkable hypothesis, and I'm not sure I have adequately explained why I think this is true, or made it into a real theory -- but now I am virtually out of my 6500 character maximum, and I'm going to end here. Subsequent posts may better clarify what I am saying. I honestly see a very clear picture -- I think it is reflective of reality -- it is very difficult to articulate.

Thanks for the question Woland. I am interested in any refutation you may have, or further questions or comments.

reply to post by rizla

Carl Jung did studies on astrology…we should remember that science is incomplete. i.e. Quantum Mechanics vs Gravity. Evidence increases that our theory of gravity is incomplete. And there may be other unknown forces acting on us.

Originally posted by Neiby. It's not a scientific explanation to say there might be an effect. A real hypothesis would state the effect and explain how it might actually be doing it.

I think the OP attempts to do that. I am not. What I am saying is that is possible, but we just don't know. In fact, what I would go so far to say is that the moon, the planets and the sun must have more of an effect on us than science currently acknowledges.

Thanks for the comment Rizla. (I cited you earlier also!)

Nobody knows what the “now” is, and why the future appears indeterminate and the past immutable. The obvious truth is that nobody really knows the nature of time, even though it controls all aspects of our life! Many people (incorrectly) think that Einstein figured this out and said time was another dimension, but that is not true. No modern theory explains time – it is always the dependent variable in equations.

Consider M-theory, for example. This is the most bizarre and over-the-top theory you can imagine, but also the most current “unification” theory. With regards to time, M-theory considers this as a separate thing from space dimensions. It has different properties that only obliquely fit into a spacial construct. (Or so I think – who really knows what M-theory really stands for anyway? I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to say more!)

en.wikipedia.org...

To clarify, the Wikipedia article above says that M-theory suggests 10 spacial dimensions and one TEMPORAL dimension, for a total of 11 dimensions. Time is kept separate from the other 10 dimensions, and grouped with them only losely. Time is special and odd.

Point being, exactly as you say – we just don’t know. And I don’t think anyone can really argue or contradict you on that.

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Regarding your comment about my OP, discussing whether this is really a theory or a hypothesis or simply a weird speculation, I think you could classify what I’ve proposed as a theory
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Specifically, I theorize that astrology can work, because the future is precisely defined by the past, and a periodic function of time can be used to make arbitrarily accurate predictions about the future, given a proper "mapping" function. It is a logical explanation of physical properties of the future. The theory can be either verified or falsified by empirical observations. That I think qualifies it as a theory.

What is conjecture is whether astrologers can actually predict the future. I believe that is probably true, but I can see how astrological methods might be flawed, hence you can’t believe an astrologer. Even if that turns out to be true, that wouldn’t immediately invalidate my theory, which has a much more limited scope.

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So anyway, I appreciated your supporting words! (Carl Jung was a mysterious genius, no doubt! He actually coined the word "synchronicity", which is a related topic, unto itself!)

Thanks Rizla. Your posts are well received and digested!

reply to post by Keeper of Kheb

it could be that God created in man and creation each individuals lifespan, and there are 3 things that effect it, God,Satan and Individual free will. you can follow Gods will or the devils will or your will each of which all have different paths.

Not a bad speculation, and certainly moves this discussion into a religious framework, which is quite appropriate.

The “free will” aspect of life, which you mention, Keeper, intrigues me. If there is total free will, as you suggest, this invalidates my theory. If you really have the ability to choose, independent of your past, but based only on some quantum moment, then you could say there are some things that cannot be predicted with arbitrary precision.

At least with regard to human choice, astrology has no binding effect. And if you toss that out, you pretty much kill the entire cause and effect that I am basing the theory on.

I would speculate that, whether you choose good over evil is something that is predetermined. I know that religious predetermination is really a depressing concept. I am reluctant to embrace that idea. It is something that I need to resolve, and more work is needed.

Interesting comment, Keeper, thanks! I will think about it, and post any resolution to this dilemma I can think of.

reply to post by MissInformation

It is all about patterns. Astrology is personally my favorite way to study divination but there are of course many other ways as well like numerology, palmistry etc. They're all connected and just different ways to understand the bigger picture.

A good way to conclude my night marathon of posting, Missi.

I think you say it all above. It is all about complex patterns, and figuring out what “is”, what “was”, and what “will be”. They are all interrelated, as you say.

Question: Do patterns even exist outside of human thought? We say that patterns exist in nature – but it seems to me that patterns actually exist only in the human intellect, which finds regularity in mathematics, language, art, and science.

All the forms of divination you mentioned are actually looking at patterns. The same is true with Tarot and I Ching. Actually, the only form of divination I can think of, which does not seem to rely on interpretation of patterns, is reading a crystal ball.

I wonder. Is the essence of divination really in the human mind, and nowhere else?

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So -- that is it for tonight. It is now 3:52 AM. I've managed to reply to every respondent, as I said I would. I sincerely thank everyone for posting your comments. I've really enjoyed contemplating your responses and composing mine. It is actually a selfish and guilty pleasure.

I know it is a real stretch – so unlikely that any groundbreaking theory might actually appear here at ATS – but that is what this site is for, and I can’t think of a better place to meet with similar minds. You can’t really discuss something like this, with any depth, anywhere else can you?

I will check back in a few days, and perhaps provide some closing thoughts.

I remain most appreciatively, and truly yours. Thanks for participating in this thread!

[edit on 15-3-2008 by Buck Division]

I have drafted some final comments on this subject. I now call for any additional comments before I post my summary conclusion.

Any questions, criticisms, suggestions, agreements and ridicules are all welcome. I will read and respond to ALL replies before posting my final closing statements.

Note -- after I've made those closing comments, I plan to put this thread to rest. I will post my conclusion tomorrow evening, approximately seven days after starting this thread.

Please check back at that time, if you are interested.

Thanks and regards!

Originally posted by Buck Division
Question: Do patterns even exist outside of human thought? We say that patterns exist in nature – but it seems to me that patterns actually exist only in the human intellect, which finds regularity in mathematics, language, art, and science.

All the forms of divination you mentioned are actually looking at patterns. The same is true with Tarot and I Ching. Actually, the only form of divination I can think of, which does not seem to rely on interpretation of patterns, is reading a crystal ball.
[edit on 15-3-2008 by Buck Division]

Yes, patterns do exist in nature. My math genius friend tells me that you can easily find the Fibonacci series in flowers, for example.

Also, the crystal ball DOES involve interpreting patterns. Things are not always clear-cut with crystal gazing, and so intepreting patterns is a needed skill for that, as well as all forms of divination. The ancient Druids held that a person who could detect patterns in things had a very valuable gift, indeed.
Buck, I DO agree with your theory, now that I understand it a bit better. And that's how the Ancients developed astrology. It's just that I don't believe in predeterminism. I do believe that certain major events do seem to be predetermined, or fate. But mostly, I think we all have free will to make choices. Just because of my past, doesn't mean that I'm doomed to make certain choices because of that. I can look at my past and decide that I want things to be different in future. Yes, transformation is in my chart, but I don't HAVE to accept the challenge to transform and may well fight it, due to other aspects in my chart. I don't think the choices are predetermined in the chart, that's up to the individual.
For me astrology is a roadmap; it influences, it doesn't direct it and force anyone to do anything. It's a road map you can choose to use or not, but it's still there, influencing your life.

reply to post by forestlady

#1, Yes, patterns do exist in nature. you can easily find the Fibonacci series in flowers, for example.
#2. Crystal ball DOES involve interpreting patterns. Things are not always clear-cut with crystal gazing, and so interpreting patterns is a needed skill for that, as well as all forms of divination. The ancient Druids held that a person who could detect patterns in things had a very valuable gift, indeed.
#3. I don't think the choices are predetermined in the chart, that's up to the individual. It's a road map you can choose to use or not, but it's still there, influencing your life.

Very interesting points above.

#1. I stand corrected about the patterns in nature. I can see you are right. (I was going to say that the patterns exist in the mind, not in nature, but that is just making something simple into something confusing.

#2. Crystal balls -- I am fascinated by this idea, and I am going to do more study. Unlike any form of divination based upon watching nature, this is something super mysterious to me. I will probably start a thread on this at some point. I don't see this as an object of discussion here at ATS.

#3. Astrology is a roadmap, no doubt. My concepts of "predetermination" are still fairly complex at this point. Saying that everything is predetermined is a bit like saying "patterns exist in the mind" and not in nature. I might be making my viewpoint unnecessarily confusing. But I am stuck with this viewpoint right now. See my closing, which I will post next.

You were a great help in making this thread work for me, Forest Lady. Sincere Thanks!

My Theory, In Closing

As I promised, I would like to create a final summary of the ideas I’ve stated here, before committing this info to the eternal annals of ATS. I appreciate those members that looked the points I have been trying to make here (to whatever degree is actually possible). For anyone that comes after, perhaps you can take these ideas and elaborate here or in some new thread. I know it is very dense, and I haven’t done a perfect job explaining my viewpoint. But however unlikely you may think my theory to be, I have a clear picture of how it works, and why it may be valid.

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To summarize, here is my theory explained once more: You can predict the future USING ANY means of measuring time. It doesn’t have to be astrology. You can develop a system various ways. All you need is a way of mapping time to events, and you can do this with ARBITRARY PRECISION to make as accurate a prediction as you possibly want.

The reason this works: it is based upon the nature and properties of time. Specifically, life is made up a series of causes and effects. These effects (or events) are agreeable to analysis by Fourier’s theorem with arbitrary precision. That is, the past is unchangeable. The future is solely based upon our past. Therefore, the future is unchangeable, and can be known by extending the various “harmonics” of our past into the future.

To illustrate this, I have come up with an explanation that I think is better than anything I have suggested so far. It involves a hypothetical situation. It is a thought experiment. PLEASE note that this is hypothetical, but I believe it illustrates my point.

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Consider you have a digital clock, and a television set. You take the clock, set the time, and then begin watching TV news.

Whenever something significant occurs on the TV, you make a note of the time of day displayed on your clock. You begin looking at these results very carefully. Certain patterns begin to emerge. You begin to notice distinct patterns, over the course of months, and perhaps years. You write these patterns down as a series of rules. This is your “mapping” function, which I have alluded to over and over again during the course of this thread.

The mapping function looks something like this. (Of course this is hypothetical, but I contend that you would actually come up with some sort of mapping function that has similar characteristics to what I provide below):

Rule #1. Anytime a three appears as the last digit of your clock, then event “A” happens.

Rule #2. Anytime a five appears as the next to last digit of your clock, then event “B” happens

Rule #3. Anytime both a zero and a one appear as the last digit of your clock, in any order, then event “C” happens.

...

Over the course of time, the rules become more complex. After months of fastidious analysis, you might begin to compose highly complex rules to map to events, such as the following.

Rule #212. Anytime the sum of the first two digits of your clock equals the fifth digit of your clock, then event “X” happens.

Rule #213. Anytime the sum of the first and third digit, minus the second digit of your clock equals the fourth digit of your clock, then event “Y” happens.

Rule #214. Anytime the sum of the first and second digit, multiplied by the third digit, and subtracted from the fourth digit of your clock is less than the second digit plus the third digit, then event “Z” happens.

...

If you are really intuitive, and greatly skilled at detecting patterns, the rules become excruciatingly complex in order to achieve both precision and accuracy. In this hypothetical situation, after dedicating vast amounts of study and attention, you become quite adept at making these rules (since this activity has become the central focus of your life!) The rules become something like the following:

Rule #97162. Anytime Rule #1219 and Rule #6328 occur within one hour of each other, then next time Rule #2123 or Rule #8121 occurs, event “ABCDWXYZ” happens, unless condition Rule #128 has occurred prior to Rule #7211 within the elapsed time of Rule #17

...

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And so on. (Hopefully you get the picture here.) Eventually, you have a long list of incredibly complicated and intricate rules. You have driven yourself half insane – you are beginning to resemble Russell Crowe in that movie “A Beautiful Mind” (the real life story of John Forbes Nash Jr., if you haven’t seen the movie.) People may think you are crazy. And maybe this effort actually HAS driven you a bit crazy in other aspects of your life – you lost your job – your wife left you. Whatever.

Yet there is a secret bottom line to all of this. You see – because you have been a careful scientist -- you have documented this hideously complex lacework of rules to such a perfect manner that you can actually go back and demonstrate the truth to others! Look! Any time event “QRS” occurs, the first digit has incremented 1110 times past the sum of the second and third digit for the fourth consecutive time, minus the first digit divided by the second digit plus three, etc. etc. etc.

And as people check your work, they are amazed. You may be crazy, but you have created a working formula. To what end?

And now -- using this code, you show them that particular end! For those who scoffed, you make a single and detailed prediction!

But the prediction, while close, isn’t quite right. Ouch! You now go back and adjust the rule set to compensate for that. You had to factor in a few other terms, but now the code is better! You make more predictions, more changes to your equations and code, incorporating more terms and more factors. You are achieving ARBITRARY PRECISION in your predictions.

Eventually – after much work – if you live long enough to complete your life’s mission, you begin to make predictions correctly, with uncanny results! You devoted your life to developing patterns, based upon your digital clock. These patterns can be used to predict when certain things occur.

(Continued...)

Final Comments. In Conclusion....

Now please consider, from the above senario: Is your digital clock affecting you? Maybe this is due to gravitational influences? Maybe electrical waves? No, not at all! The digital clock is just a clock, one of many. You can substitute the clock for some other clock, if you wish. What is making the predictions is the “formula” you created, which just an engineering calculation of strange sorts.

At a physical level, I can explain what has happened in this scenario as follows: all the little details of life, which constitute causes and effects, are following harmonic patterns. Fourier proved this. These minute patterns, generated each time someone breathes or moves, or every time a leaf falls, ALL are summing up to a consequence that manifests reality in some way. Some of these harmonics are trivial, and have no major effect by themselves. Other events have major harmonics, extending from the distant past into the distant future. Your formula, through trial and error, has captured a usable aspect of that summation – using just a common digital clock.

I contend that, if you understand the above, you will not be able to disagree that astrology CAN work. Now I will answer the question: DOES IT work? And what form does it take?

So I will make my final comments on this: You would have to be totally crazy to do what I suggested above – waste your life looking for patterns in a digital clock! Insane! It would be a severe type of obsessive compulsive disorder – counting disorder – you would waste your life to such a sad extent that you probably would – as you might guess – end up in recovery in some institution – under the care of a psychiatrist, talking anti-psychotic drugs. Needless to say, I discourage anyone from trying to develop such a set of rules.

But this is my final punch line. Please note this, even if you have skipped over everything else I’ve said so far.

I contend that, for nearly 4000 years, people have completely obsessed on creating an equation QUITE SIMILAR to what I described hypothetically above. Innumerable people, for 200 generations of man, have spent their lives, just as the clock-watcher in my scenario above! And that equation that has been yielded by this awesome and near psychotic effort is what we today call the “astrological method”.

When Venus is in Capricorn and the Sun is in Taurus, you subtract the position of Jupiter from Saturn and if the angle is between 40 and 50 degrees – you have situation “PQR”. Now take that situation and contrast it with the ascendant sign on the day that you were born, etc. etc. etc.

People have already devised this method of prediction, based not on a digital clock, but upon the position of celestial objects.

We arrive today with the product of a vast obsession with getting this formula right, in a usable and teachable form.

While I can only guess, I would suggest that this astrological formula is not very precise. Perhaps it could be (and one day will be) further refined. And I want to further qualify this statement by asserting that this is a GUESS of mine, distinguished from my THEORY. But I think it is a good guess, given the genius, dedication, and spirituality of humanity, which does not diminish by looking backward into time four millennia. Those people were smart, and they were searching for answers, just as we search today. And they had a focus. They were not distracted, and had plenty of time to work things out.

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It is agreeable to further research. Questions that I have left unanswered: What is the effect of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? How does “Catastrophe Theory” fit into the astrological method, and how is it explained? I will leave those for further analysis and speculation, perhaps by some future reader to solve.

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One final thanks. It is a great thrill to touch all the open minds of members here at ATS. I thank you for the opportunity to write this, and hope that it has some small measure of enlightenment, which enhances this site and the experience of all those who participate in it.

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“To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The End.

reply to post by Buck Division


Okay Buck Division, I think I see what you're saying. Your argument resembles how the I-Ching is supposed to work. Every moment in history is unique. Unrepeatable. A human being conceived at a unique moment in time and space will have a particularly character, and possibly future (the two can considered quite separately) depending on those coordinates. Astrology seeks to interpret those coordinates. This makes sense because it means Chinese and Western astrology can both work. They are both merely measuring-sticks.

I suppose it's possible. I'm not sure. Incidentally I was interested in your posts about M-theory and how the dimension of time is non-Cartesian. I presume this is the latest variant of String Theory. Now that is interesting stuff. It seems reality has either 10 or 26 dimensions (not including time?). Very strange.