The First Church of Mises

Miscellaneous General
141

Cool - I think that we definitely need to inculcate a sense of spontaneous order within ourselves because it really is not intuitive. Human history is nothing if not a record of what you call the “knee jerk” reaction to resort to central-planning measures. Cf sacrificing to the rain gods to end a drought, etc. etc.

Yes, the left-mind is the expression of the ego, the expansive sense of cosmic importance. It’s the part that wants to make a name for oneself, to make others see our importance and grandeur. The right-mind is introspective and unconcerned with the external world one way or the other. It’s the part that just wants to curl up in a cave and take a nap and let the rest of the world do what it may. Needless to say, there is precious little place for right-minded living in the modern, “developed” world.

Clayton -

142

Suits you, word

143

Fascinating lecture on precisely the subject I am most primarily interested in:

He basically presents a view of the soul that is modeled after the Aristotelian view of potential and actual self, where the potential self is what the individual would be if he were self-actualized, whereas the actual self is what he really is. On this view of soul, he argues that the goal or purpose of living is to achieve self-actualization by reducing the distance between the actual and potential self and that all suitable means to the attainment of this end are, therefore, moral.

Liberty, he argues, is not freedom from all constraints (a common theme in liberal philosophy), nor is the goal to escape the bonds of the physical world (contra Christianity and Plotinus and Porphyry which he quotes), rather, liberty is achieved at that point where the actual soul has fully attained the potential soul and the individual is “here”, that is, completely and totally present, while remaining connected to his higher (mystical) origin, and actively participates in the creation (I assume he means of reality).

This reminds me of the almost anti-climactic moment in Buddha’s life where he attains Buddhahood in the face of the armies of Mara, the Tempter. Sitting under the Buddha tree in Lotus pose, he simply reaches down and touches the Earth, and the Earth shakes - Mara retreats and vanishes. Buddha, in this myth, has attained Buddhahood, that is, he has attained the full expression of the potential soul. So powerful is he in this state that the Earth itself shakes at the mere touch of his finger.

Epicurean philosophy takes a more realist/pragmatic view of self-actualization, arguing (as the liberal philosophers would later echo) that self-actualization is permanently elusive - Epicurus’s ataraxia, unlike the Nirvana of Buddhahood, cannot be attained. The lecturer here leaves the question open and I think we can safely leave the question open without being guilty of superstition. There’s no reason we have to close the matter - unless you intend to fully attain absolute, mystical self-realization, what difference does it make whether it’s actually possible, or not? Everyone agrees that it must at least be fantastically difficult to attain, else everyone would be attaining it easily.

I am most partial to the Epicurean view. On this view, I think of satisfaction not as a point but as a direction on a compass. You can be moving toward it or away from it, but you never get to it, at least, not so long as you are a human being. Morality, then, is simply the compass, it’s that thing that tells you whether you are moving towards your own satisfaction (self-actualization) or away from it. Wandering without a compass is a failure to exercise moral discipline (the virtues) and comes with its own natural punishment. Intentionally moving away from one’s own satisfaction is pathological.

The need to have a moral compass and to consult it was brought about by Man’s trek out of Paradise after the Fall… that is, the effects of the Agricultural Revolution on the suitability of the human brain for living in an environment completely unlike that in which his brain evolved (the African savanna).

But this all fits well within an astrological context in terms of connecting it to all the “intangibles” of one’s life that simply lie outside of any real, methodical science such as economics, sociology, physics or psychology. Satisfaction is holistic, that is, it is a result of the combination of all causes impinging on the self, including one’s past and even one’s future (think about how true negative expectations or false positive expectations lead to suffering, for example). So, only a truly holistic picture of life can function as the “moral compass”. The problem is - as Aristippus has noted above - that what it is to be human is more complex than the human brain can contemplate. This isn’t surprising since we didn’t evolve to comprehend what it is to be human - we evolved to comprehend and respond naturally to our environment in a manner suitable for our survival and reproduction, without the need to engage in intensive introspection and consultation of a moral compass.

PS: On the misuse of astrology, I think it is fascinating to look at the clear evidence that astrological symbolism has been in many places “encrypted” into the Bible and Christian doctrine and that the uses to which this has been put are clearly evil - insiders understand that the message being taught is actually a reference to the heavens, where the uninitiated labor under the false impression that there is a literal God, literal Jesus, etc. who are demanding his acquiescence and obedience, and so on. What more evil of a use could astrological knowledge be put to?

Clayton -

144

OK, coming down to the meat of astrology - the 12 signs of the Zodiac and their mystical connection of the heavenly bodies with the life of the human being (and, from thence, other things).

  1. We begin by noting that the day/night cycle, the progression of the seasons and the orbit of the Moon are determinative of many cycles in living things. This is uncontroversial. The Earth determines the day/night cycle by its rotation (something the Ancients did not know), the Sun determines the annual cycle in the Seasons by virtue of the Earth’s tilt and revolution about the Sun and the Moon determines the tides and may have other, less well understood influences on the Earth through its interchange with the Earth’s magnetic field as well as charge exchange between the bodies*.

  2. The idea that the planets also have effects on life on Earth is simply an extension of the first point. Excluding purported astrological “evidence” of the influence of the planets on Earthly affairs, I am not aware of any scientific (measurable) evidence that the planets have an influence, as do the Sun and the Moon. That said, we know that the planets all influence the Sun and each other (including Earth) at least gravitationally. The configuration of the planets affects the behavior of the Sun and affects the orbits of the Earth and the Moon, as well. So, at least through these mediate connections, we know that the planets do, in fact, affect events on Earth**.

  3. Given that all the heavenly bodies have an influence on Earthly events whether large and immdiate, as in the case of the Sun and Moon, or small and mediate, as in the case of the planets, the configuration of the planets is significant, that is, their effect cannot be completely neglected on the strictest view of causality.

  4. There are a variety of identifiable human dispositions or personality types. These types are not determinative of behavior but they are characteristic and they are recognizable. Every individual is as unique as a snowflake - that is to say, every snowflake has six sides (at least, most of them do). In other words, there is commonality and diversity in the human mind.

  5. Unlike physiological variation which can be measured and characterized in terms of its geometric or topological form or other observable characteristics, psychological variation is not amenable to any simple categorization. It is inherently problematic. If we say “he is an outgoing person” what do we really mean by that? Do we mean that if you counted the number of words spoken in an average day by this individual, it would exceed the population average? Even if it were true, this isn’t really what we have in mind. We mean something more intangible about his forwardness, willingness to enter into potentially awkward social situations, and so on.

Hence, there is nothing to “grab hold of” in describing the variation of human minds. But this variation is actually the most significant variation within human beings. Sure, there are races, there are tall people, short people, strong people, weak people, people with a tendency to keep more weight and some to keep less. And so on. This kind of variation constitutes the bulk of what biologists primarily study in other animals but it is actually pretty insignificant in humans. What really matters is how you think, your values (choice of ends), what kinds of attitudes you have, how you act (plan and apply means), your stances towards other people, etc.

  1. The Zodiacal metaphor of the human mind begins where astrology begins - with day and night. Like the day and night, there are male and female minds. There are positive, active minds and there are negative, passive minds.

Next, the metaphor moves into the seasons which begin in Aries. It begins there because Spring equinox*** is the beginning of life on Earth. It is when seeds spring from the ground and the barren winter of death is over. Hence, the Arian mind is the mentality of the first. (e.g. the characteristic independence/self-assuredness of the firstborn). It is the most tempestuous (like Spring rains). In addition, the sign of Aries breaks the equilibrium of the equinox… this is why it is symbolized by the god of War, Mars/Aries (strife). It is a time of new beginnings, which can be taken in a positive (growth) or negative (destruction) light.

The next sign to consider is not the sign after Aries but 3 signs later - Cancer. Just as Aries starts the new cycle of life, Cancer changes from the warm and wet spring to a hot and dry summer. Like Aries, Cancer is active, creative and foremost because it changes the season (though not quite as much because Aries is the head of the entire Zodiac). Cancer is the beginning of shorter days, so it is reductive, unlike Aries in which the day continues increasing in length.

The next sign to consider is Libra, the counter-point to Aries. It is at the vernal equinox. Like Aries and Cancer, it is a sign of change. Like Aries, it breaks the equilibrium of an equinox and this gives the sign a striving quality (though less than Aries). Aries and Libra together form the “hinges” or “cardinal points” of the celestial sphere.

The last sign in this series is Capricorn. It is also a sign of change, the sign that ushers in Winter. The Sun dies in Capricorn, to be raised again in Aries. So Capricorn has elements of activity/change/creativity like the other signs mentioned, but it is also a sign of finality/closure, which may explain why it is symbolized by a dualistic creature (goat/fish).

The 4 signs I have mentioned form what is termed a quadruplicity, of which there are three: Cardinal (creative/initiatory), Fixed (sustaining, dependable) and Mutable (flexible, adaptable to change, preparatory). The three aspects form a trinity in that they express beginning, middle and end but of one process/thing, therefore, triune. Aries (cardinal) is the beginning of Spring. Taurus (fixed) is the middle of Spring. And Gemini (mutable) is the end of Spring, the ushering in of Summer. As you go around the Zodiac starting from Aries, simply mark this pattern - cardinal, fixed, mutable - and you will have all the quadruplicities.

  1. The qualities of the Seasons were also related to the classical elements by the Ancients - Spring is warm and wet, so it is of the element Air; Summer is hot and dry, so it is of the element Fire; Autumn is cold and dry, so it is of the element Earth; Winter is cold and wet, so it is of the element Water. Heat and wetness are aspects of life, so they are positive, male. Dryness and cold are aspects of death, so they are negative, female. Hence, Spring and Summer are positive (male) seasons and Autumn and Winter are negative (female) seasons, just as they Day (ruled by the Sun) is male and the Night (ruled by the Moon) is female.

The signs of the Zodiac are not affiliated with the elements in the order of seasons but, rather, by a more metaphorical assocation. The repeating pattern is Fire (+), Earth (-), Air (+) and Water (-). I find this association less aesthetic (and less persuasive) than the others but I’m withholding judgment until I study the issue more.

The elements are independently assigned psychological characteristics - Fire with the fiery temperaments, Water with the cooling/diminutive temperaments, Earth with the grounded/practical temperaments and Air with the spiritual/mental temperaments. Association of an element with a sign imparts that quality to the sign, in addition to the other qualities it derives by virtue of its position in the Zodiac.

  1. The essential personality characteristics of the signs, then, follow primarily from the nature of the Sun and Moon (male/female, positive/negative) and the qualities of the seasons and the motion of the Sun through the seasons. The classical elements also contribute to this model of the human spirit/psyche by virtue of their immanental characteristics (that is, that we have direct experience with them). These are the grossest and least changeable facts of human experience, so it is reasonable to imagine that the human soul is in some way oriented around them.

In the case of the qualities that are acquired from the motion of the Sun through the seasons themselves, I think we can entertain a more literal association. Spring really is a new beginning, so it is not completely unreasonable to argue that there is some kind of “strife” or “unbalancing” associated with entering the world in springtime. Infancy is the most formative point in your life. I don’t see how this is unreasonable or inconsistent with any other aspect of scientific knowledge.

In the case of the qualities imparted by the Elements, I think we have to take a firmly metaphorical stance. I will address this more in point 10 below

  1. In the Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy acknowledges the dominant role of genetics in determining the gross characteristics of things - seeds of different species planted at the same time will still bring forth their several plants in accordance with their nature. But between seeds of the same kind, he argues, the time of planting makes a difference. Of course, with modern genetics, we must extend the reach of the DNA and grant it more role in determining even a lot of the variation between living things of the same species. However, for the reasons I gave above, we cannot rule out the influence of the planets, though it may be small and mediate.

  2. Returning to the issue of the Zodiac as a metaphor of the human soul/psyche (“As above, so below”), I want to note that I think we have to see the entire Zodiac in all of us. You spend 3/4ths of a year in your mother’s womb and for much of that, you are well enough developed that you could survive outside of it. If the planets are influencing us at the moment of birth, clearly, they must be influencing us before birth, as well.

It is my view that the Zodiac, as a metaphorical map of the variation in human minds, is a map of all of us not each of us. It is a systematic, reasonable and aesthetic way of mapping out a “state space”, if you will, in which we can meaningfully speak of different personality types. The individual undoubtedly expresses different minds at different times, thus, it cannot be the case that an individual is literally “Aries” or literally “Cancer” to the exclusion of all others.

  1. The Sun, as a metaphor of self (“Know thyself”), is rightfully placed at the center of the astrological cosmology. Astrology is egoistic. The planets are arranged in prominence in order of their distance from the Sun and the “houses” of astrology are likewise arranged from 1-12 in descending order outward from the Sun, that is, the self. This is useful as an organizing principle in arranging one’s own thoughts about oneself and one’s relationship to the rest of society and the natural environment. It is an aesthetic and persuasive metaphor, in my opinion.

  2. Astrology encompasses a great deal more than just the basic “sun sign astrology” discussed here. A full horoscope encompasses the influence of all the planets - based on the location of each in respect to the signs at the time. The meanings and influence of conjunctions, comets, meteor showers, unique astronomical events, etc. all fall within the umbrella of astrology. The further we get away from the real effects of astronomical objects on conditions on Earth, the more metaphorical I think it all necessarily becomes.

In conclusion, I think that astrology provides an egoistic, partly literal and partly metaphorical map of the variety of human mind. This map is a map of all of us, not each of us, so the validity of saying that “I’m Aries and the stars are why I have a fiery temperament” is probably very low. But, at the same time, thinking about all the different ways that your possible minds can be expressed, as well as the ways in which they are usually expressed (temperament) is definitely useful and the Zodiac provides a powerful map that is suitable for this kind of self-reflection. It is a pscyhological mirror made of metaphor.

The mapping of the constellations to myth and “stories in the sky” fills out the psychological skeleton of the Zodiac - we see revenge, envy, passion, and all the “basic archetypes” of human relationships played out in a drama in the stars. Learning these myths and their corresponding constellations, if nothing else, will at least give you a powerful command of the features of the night sky through the seasons, allowing you to appreciate the stars in a much more meaningful way than “Wow, that’s purdy.” In other words, astrology helps you make this part of the the world yours. How many billions of people have lived their entire lives, not knowing the details of the night sky? What a waste of beauty and drama, available free of charge, right above our heads.

Clayton -

*Plasma cosmology posits that the Moon continually faces the Earth because the electrical charge on that side of the Moon is opposite to the Earth’s charge. This makes more sense to me than that the Moon was set rotating about its axis at precisely the right speed so as to keep its one face toward Earth even as it orbits the Earth. Consider the effect of lunar libration, for example… if the Moon is merely gravitationally linked to Earth, shouldn’t that wobble cause a shift in the side facing Earth over time?? Consider that the same side of the Moon has been facing Earth for at least centuries.

**Plasma cosmology, again, posits a much stronger connection between the heavenly bodies in the solar system, namely, that there is a continual electro-magnetic exchange occurring between the Sun, the planets and their satellites which has a significant impact on all the bodies. While elements of this cosmological theory are, indeed, part of mainstream astrophysics their net effects are usually simply “neglected” as being too tiny to bother mucking up gravitational equations with - this kind of factor is also known as “decimal dust”.

***Equi nox, “equal night”… the day and night are of equal length.

145

Steven Pinker talks here about Intuitive theories of physics embedded in language. Elsewhere, he has discussed intuitive theories of other subjects - psychology, social behavior, etc. This is in line with the evolutionary psychological view of the human mind, which is that we have specialized “modules” that contain operative theories of our environment along many different dimensions.

Neglecting the accuracy/validity of these theories (sometimes, though infrequently, they are contrary-to-fact), we can think of them as a somewhat scattered, built-in library of scientific knowledge. Some of this knowledge has been formalized but I think we can safely say that the vast majority of our “built-in theories of the world around us” are actually not formalized by any science.

If we think of these mental theories as atomic entities in analogy to chemical elements, astrology can be thought of as a kind of “memetic alchemy”. By making reasonable, aesthetically compelling connections between “unrelated” disciplines, the ideas we have can be recombined in systematic ways. If nothing else, this provides a “combinatoric space” in which to operate so we understand a) how many combinations there are to deal with and b) whether all the combinations have yet already been covered. Dan Dennett talks here (sorry, don’t have time to locate the timestamp at the moment) about different ways that memes are recombined in people’s minds and particularly notes Bach’s use of folk melodies as an example of “conscious/artificial selection” in the realm of memes. I see astrology as an art of methodical, memetic recombination of the intangible, intuitive theories of the world that exist in our heads, whether or not they are or even can be formalized.

Human ends are the primary concern of human beings (by definition) so the bulk of our “intuitive theories” regard the selection and attainment of ends. The fundamentally subjective nature of ends and our attitudes regarding whether our chosen means have succeeded in attaining our ends creates a permanent obstacle to formalization of the selection of ends and means. It is inherently an art, not a science.

The formalized sciences are so useful precisely because they are not concerned with ends. But this makes them liable to absurdity, that is, total disconnection from human ends. Consider the Large Hadron Collider, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that is purported to be answering the “final questions” in physics, which from the point-of-view of practical applications is no more useful than medieval arguments between theologians over the filioque (conducted in the Latin, which today is called “Calculus”, of course). These clerical “intermediaries” to the truth form a de facto clergy who dictate to the rest of us the “rules of reality” which we have no choice but to accept because we can’t even read the language they speak. And just like modern money with all its flash-bang experts and voodoo economists, modern physics has become detached from human ends and is mostly unintelligible and inaccessible to the individual. It, indeed, is rigorous but much of it is pointless rigor.

By starting with the self, astrology (or, at least, astro-liberalism… wink, wink) starts with the end (satisfaction, actualization of the will) which makes it constantly grounded in meaning, meaning to oneself. What it lacks in rigor, it makes up in the removal of intellectual intermediaries and connectedness to human ends.

Clayton -

*Humans are notoriously bad at reasoning about economic issues. I speculate that perhaps this is because We didn’t need an intuitive theory of economics in the ancestral environment because how our actions affected others was presumed to be their concern… they’ll complain if they don’t like something.

146

Meaning is a category of valuation and is primary in determining context of an event. For example, consider the meaning of a TSA pat-down - it depends on who you are. For the victim of sexual assault, it means something much different than for someone who is indifferent to being touched by a stranger. This kind of meaning is mostly subjective because there is little if any objective correlative to it. The same situation with different meanings can and often does look exactly the same to an outside observer.

But meaning is not assigned solely by subconscious factors, it is also assigned consciously whenever we choose (valuate). This kind of meaning at least has the potential to have an objective correlate (whatever was the result of the act of choosing - this is the basis of “catallactics”). But - most of the time - meaning is merely a feeling, a subjective disposition towards something.

Religious beliefs can act as a context for the conscious attribution of meaning. Note that science is no less a function of meaning. Studying patterns where there aren’t any (one definition of religion/superstition) is no more irrational than studying patterns where there are. That is, it is only meaning (as it relates to purposes, ends, goals) which differentiates between superstition and science.

But whenever the conscious attribution of meaning does serve one’s ends, it is not irrational even if the attribution is not causal, that is, unscientific. For example, if a planetary alignment occurs and you take this as a “good omen”, this is neither irrational nor scientific. It is not irrational because the subjective disposition which you have chosen to associate with the planetary alignment serves your ends, that is, it satisfies you. And it is not scientific for obvious reasons… there is no causal theory or even a route to an eventual causal theory.

Superstitions can be thought of as “random guesses on things that might lead to individual satisfaction.” For example, let’s say someone says “don’t leave the fireworks in the car overnight, the cold will make them hard to light”. Scientifically, this is simply false. Unless the temperature is getting way down where it could actually alter the chemical bonds in the fireworks, it will not have the slightest effect on their performance. But let’s say the superstitious recommendation just happened to be true. “Don’t wash your cotton in hot water, it will shrink.” The basis for this superstition may be no more sound - in terms of the causal theory in the mind of the individual who first invented it - than the false recommendation on fireworks. Nevertheless, it happens to be true.

In the large majority of subjective factors affecting human happiness, there simply is no causal theory available at all and we have no line-of-sight to a causal theory ever coming into existence. So, any recommendation in this department is necessarily superstitious in the sense that it cannot be based or connected to a causal theory beyond subjective, anecdotal correlations. “When I wear bright colors, I feel happier. Try it.” Who knows, maybe it really does work. We’ll never really know until people try it and it either works out or doesn’t work out.

My contention is that astrology provides a basis for systematic experimentation (what I’m calling memetic alchemy) on these kinds of correlates of subjective disposition.

Clayton -

147

OK, so given that we agree that subjective meaning is a category of valuation and that religious meaning can be unscientific (without being false) and rational (serving one’s interests), why astrology? Why not just stick with the religions that are already out there? For example, if you’re from the Middle East, why not just be Muslim? Or if from the US, why not just be Christian?

I’m not going to argue that people should not follow their native (or adopted) religion - religious belief (like meaning) is a personal choice. The question I’m interested in is not that of personal choice but whether most religions actually serve the interests of their adherents. I have argued that the monopolization of the major religions by States has resulted in their corruption, that is, that they have been reoriented from serving the religious needs of their clients to being just another part of the apparatus of control. So, if an individual is particularly interested in looking for a religious context (a discipline/tradition that attempts to meet the religious needs of individuals) that has been almost entirely free of corruption by the State, astrology is it.

And that leads me to the most interesting part - astrology is to religion what gold is to money. Fiat money is defined by the government to be whatever it says it is. So it is inflated to oblivion. But the government can’t just wish gold into existence. It is “there” in the Earth and can only be appropriated through digging. State religion is defined by the State’s priests to be whatever they say it is. We can predict praxeologically that it will be twisted around to suit the purposes of the State. But the stars are “up there” and the major cycles affecting the Earth are just “there”. Knowledge of the stars and the major cycles is solely the result of “digging” up their astronomical truths. There is no room for fiddling the basic ideas of astrology.

Clayton -

148

Clayton,

A lot of this is very interesting, but I think I’m missing the point of astrology. I know that you have touched on that a little, but I’m just not seeing the point. I can see the point of studying philosophers from thousands of years ago, as even if they were flawed, many of them still had great ideas. You usually mention Epicurus, but this time I will mention Hillel:

Even though there are sections of the Torah that do not actually support this, we can see that the Jews (through various Rabbis and the Talmud) steered the religion towards this viewpoint. So while the text itself may be flawed, the people interpreting it largely tried to make it make sense. And take capital punishment in Judaism too:

So, even though I consider religion to be heavily flawed, I do see how (wise) people can still come up with good judgements. But I’m not seeing how the stars and planets and seasons do this.

149

Johannes Kepler (the man arguably most responsible for the fact you and I today understand that the Sun is the center of the solar system) wrote Harmonies of the World to explain his belief in a harmonic relationship between the Platonic solids, music intervals and the orbits of the planets. Let me quote the introduction:

The modern mindset which applies the razor of “true in every detail*” or “not true in every detail” to every theory it meets is overcome by disappointment upon learning that a theory such as Kepler’s is “discredited”. Into the dustbin with it. But this misses the true value of Kepler’s work: the rigorous exercise of intellectual discipline guided by aesthetic sense and the conviction that everything is interrelated. And the author of this introduction inadvertently notes a by-product sense in which Kepler was right all along - that Jupiter, Saturn and other bodies in the heavens emit harmonic frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum! After post-processing (down-conversion of the frequencies in order to make them audible), you can even listen to the Musica Universalis, the Music of the Spheres:

It turns out that some of the planets and other bodies have orbits that are closely correlated. For example, Earth and Venus orbit in an 8:13 ratio that creates the Venus pentagram traced out by the orbit of Venus as seen from Earth. Modern astronomy largely ignores these resonances because of the fact that they are not exact - but then they ignore the potential electromagnetic explanation of the exact ratio of the Moon’s orbital-rotational resonance, explaining it instead in terms of “locked tides” in the Moon and Earth.

In other words, Kepler may be more right than he is given credit for. His mathematics might need further adjustment but the principle that many of the heavenly bodies orbit in resonance with one another because they are affecting each other (modern plasma cosmology even gives us a mechanism for this: electromagnetic interaction) may turn out to be correct and conquer the modern astronomical view of the heavenly bodies as essentially exclusively gravitational in their causes and effects. The pursuit of aesthetic connections between the sciences is not superstition nor is it merely aesthetic. It actually drives scientific discovery and exploration.

Clayton -

*The caveat “as far as we know” should always be appended to this, but rarely is…

150

Speaking of music of the spheres, I read a fascinating paper a few years ago that discussed in detail the astonishing features of our solar system that appear to be in-sync as opposed to just random. I can’t think of the title of the paper a the moment (maybe it was “Music of the Spheres”) but it showed patterns in the distances from the sun, sizes of the planets, ratation periods, etc. to all exhibit strong signs of being in a very non-random harmonic relationships to each other, leading to the idea that the entire solar system is an actual functioning system. I’ll have to do some searching and find it again, but again, we see more evidence in favor of electromagnetic properties describing the phenomena of nature. (:

151

Well, let me break the positions down as I see them and then address your point:

a) Rejection of religion. Religion promotes falsehoods (which is immoral) and it does this through immoral means (emotional manipulation, captive-audience (children) etc.), therefore, it is immoral on two counts (I’ll call this the Dawkinsian view). The only way forward for mankind is science.

My response is that there is always an ineradicable “mystical” element behind whatever structured knowledge (science) we have. The character of this mystical element should not be ignored simply because it is not scientific. But to not ignore it requires dabbling, in some sense, in religion.

b) Adherence to a particular religion. A particular religion (e.g. Judaism) is taken as the framework for the mystical element of human experience.

In this case, I think the individual has no use for astrology. He already has a religious context in which to frame the mystical element and needs no more.

c) Neither a nor b; This leads to the quandary that I personally face and that I think a significant minority of people face. I don’t accept my native religion because I think it teaches corrupt morals that I don’t want to impart to my children and because I think it is intellectually bankrupt.

When I survey the other religions in the world, they all have one thing in common: they’re alien to me. I wasn’t raised Jewish… so I just don’t “get” Judaism. Even though I can see the wisdom in many of the teachings and so on, I don’t think I could “convert” - I just wouldn’t be being myself. I would have to don some kind of artificial persona.

That’s what motivated the opening of this thread. I was initially thinking to start from scratch - just found an organization that teaches liberal philosophy and tries to make it personal by actually meeting people face-to-face and having community activities, etc. But the more I looked at astrology (h/t Bonacci), the more I realized that it already has all the personal religious aspects built-in to it. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

And as I posted above, it is the fact that astrology begins with the stars - the most notable and unalterable facts of human existence, barely changing over millenia of human history - that makes it so attractive. What more obvious beginning point is there? You can begin with introspection but then you’re stuck “going it alone”, that is, forsaking the valuable experience and knowledge that others have acquired over time. Astrology combines the introspective and the astronomical aspects into a cohesive whole, providing a way for the individual to translate the introspective insights of others into his own experience so he can compare and contrast and actually learn from the insights of others.

As a side note, Judaism also has an astrological tradition - it’s called the Kabbalah.

Clayton -

152

Ahh, I remember now. It was a paper called “Dirac’s Equation and the Sea of Negative Energy,” by D.L. Hotson. It had a part one and part two (there was a part three that did not seem to add too much, if I recall correctly). Absolutely fascinating read, for anyone mildly interested in some of the things Clayton has spoken of. And as far as Paul Dirac and his equation (and dismissal of literally half of its solutions by “mainstream” scientists of his day and today), it agains demonstrates a dogmatic streak in the scientific community and a tendency to shy away from something new that is not entirely intuitive and would rattle the foundations of Einstein’s work and the “science” based off of his theories. Here’s the address to part 1 and part two:

http://openseti.org/Docs/HotsonPart1.pdf

http://openseti.org/Docs/HotsonPart2.pdf

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Exactly. And I think it is inevitable that there is going to be a big shift in the sciences as this realization becomes more and more unavoidable. The current view of the planets as “rocks hurtling around in ellipses but otherwise indifferent to each other” is just completely bogus. The more I read/study the subject, the more I realize that modern astronomy has lost sight of the forest for the trees on this point.

Their justifications for ignoring the systematic relationships between the planets and other bodies are completely circular. Take the most basic question you can ask about the solar system, for example… why do the planets all orbit in the same plane and all in the same direction? Gravity operates in 3-dimensions, spherically in all 360 degrees equally. It has no planarity and it sure as hell has no handedness (disposition to spin in one particular direction over the other).

Electromagnetism, on the other hand, explains both phenomena easily. Look at the orbit of the Moon:

And we see that, in fact, this same “spiral” is the actual path being traced by all the planets around the Sun:

Clayton -

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I’d like to just mention on the subject of Joseph Campbell, monomyth, and Jungian approach to mythologies, that this line of thinking is very rooted in a romantic Golden Bough-esque conception of myth and is not to be trusted as rigorously historically accurate. Campbell has many interesting insights but do read some more modern histories of the mythologies in question, someone more modern than Eliade and Kerenyi for example. I have a personal thing about this, I think it’s unfair to the cultures in question to try to force their beliefs into a universal mold.

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I have exactly the same sentiments.

Part of the problem, I think, may be the idea that the State should be funding scientific inquiries and endeavors (whether through direct grants or indirectly through universities). It seems many of the projects, take CERN, for example, just seem like something a bureaucrat would devise that looks so grandiose and magnificent to those that don’t care too much to study science on their own, cost ridiculous amounts of money, and in the end, look for, in my opinion, ghosts that are fabricated necessarily because of faulty paradigms held to be absolute. Obviously, this is not to say all such projects funded by the State are purposefully wasteful, but many are, IMO, even if unintentionally.

It actually resembles the monopoly on the training and practice of medicine held by the AMA and their cronies what might be referred to as the medical-industrial complex. Heaven forbid that more people educate themselves and gasp discover that much of medicine is based on the favor given to pharmaceuticals (that make large profits because of the immoral intellectual property laws) and their financial and political allies. I mean, we still have the State clinging to the notion that cannabis has “no known medical benefits” (aided by a still a few “reasearchers” in state-funded universities), even though it was one of the most widely used ingredients in medicines for hundreds and thousands of years. But oh yeah, a plant cannot be patented, and it grows so easily that many wouldn’t need to buy it from Big Pharma. But I digress.

Have you read theories on the link between gravity and electromagnetism? Essentially an “electromagnetogravitism” where all (electricity, magnetism, and gravity) are functions of the same source, if you will? I mean, it’s just a quirk that:

F=k(Mm)/(r^2) &. F=k(Qq)/(r^2) ?

I would think it would be odd if gravity and electromagnetism weren’t linked in a functioning system.

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This is my concern, too. If you’re going to say something is “universal”, you have to be able to account for this universality - is it biological? Is it astronomical (as in the use of 12-division solar calendars arising from the ratio of the lunar to the annual cycle…)? Just pointing out lots of similarities doesn’t say that much, IMO.

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees the parallels between Dennet’s ideas of cranes vs skyhooks and the idea of the market order anarcho-capitalists talk about vs centralized state “order”

It seems so obvious, but I believe Dennett is himself some kind of socialist. It’s not entirely clear because he mostly criticizes rather than recommends politics

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@Phi: Yes, it would be nice if they were linked and I think everybody (even the mainstream guys) would like to find this link. The trouble is that gravity as we understand it just doesn’t behave ilke electromagnetism as we understand it. Let’s suppose that you are clinging to the Earth because the Earth is a charged body and yours has the opposite charge. Then you should be lighter whenever standing above a deposit of conductive materials or whenever you are standing above any significantly massive, conducting object. That is, we should be able to “shield” against gravity but the fact is that there is no gravity shielding. It acts with the same force on all bodies regardless of their electromagnetic shielding, etc. Also, gravity is charge neutral. Charge an object however you like (positive or negative) and gravity pulls it down just the same.

The 1/r2 connection is only a weak motivation to try to find a connection between gravity and EM; I have seen it pointed out that if you take two point sources and extend rays from them in every direction, the “intersection density” of those rays will be 1/r2 as you vary r between the points. The real motivation is causality, in particular, locality of causality. We have a local, causal theory of EM. We do not have a local, causal theory of gravity unless you consider “bending spacetime” to be causal, which I don’t (I think it’s a metaphysical bungle).

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I will note that what I’ve read/watched of Dennett so far, he seems to exhibit the grace to keep his opinion to himself on matters that he doesn’t actually understand - that is, I’ve not heard him express dogmatic opinions for or against socialism. That said, it is always disappointing when these leading biologists who so intimately understand the power of distributed variation and selection fail to make the connection to economics.

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But there has been some experimental evidence to suggest that gravitational shielding is possible. Quirino Majorana in the 1920s and 1930s reported to observe that a lead sphere experienced a reduction in weight when a large piece of lead was placed beneath it and the earth and no shielding effect when the large piece of lead was place above the sphere. Of course, I myself haven’t tested this, but you can imagine the Einsteinians dismissal, since general relativity had become widely accepted and it does not allow for gravitational shielding.

There is also the alleged Allais effect, where an anomaly is said to have been reported by some in pendulums during eclipses. This could be an example of gravitational shielding. The point I’m trying to make is that the grip mainstream has on science and what gets pushed as plausible, and something’s even truth, is biased in so far as sticking with the paradigm and the establishment, if you will (much like many areas of academia, take Mises or Hazlitt or Hayek or Rothbard in their respective fields and times), where it is better professionally to “go with the flow” rather than to go against the grain in search for truth. I don’t propose that these experiments are proof such shielding exists, but more to ask how likely would mainstream (those that everyone else who is a layperson assumes is prophet-like and the colleagues who wish to gain by sacrificing courage and integrity) be willing to even look into ideas that would demolish their positions and “legacy.”

Even a few report gravitational phenomena in the presence of high voltage or high frequency rotating or revolving electromagnetic fields. T.T. Brown, J. Searl, and countless others. There’s lot of evidence of the military of the US classifying the work that Brown did. Hell, even major aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed were talking about advances in antigravity and electrogravitics that would revolutionize air travel forever in the late 40s and early 50s (turns out there was good reason our parents’ and grandparents’ generations thought that we would have flying cars by now) only to mysteriously say nothing on subject ever again.

And I could be remembering incorrectly, but in the other thread “…Madame Blavatsky…” didn’t you speak of a belief in radioactivity being EM in nature? If so, we would be saying that in some manner the strong force, the weak force, and the electromagnetic force are functions of the same source, but the force of gravity is not? That paper I posted the addresses to has interesting ideas on how to tie together these forces as well as undo some of the damage done by the “fudged-numbers” science of mainstream. Even if that theory isn’t totally correct, it’s a great way to show errors in the old paradigm and see the possibilities of the emerging paradigm.

Also, Viktor Schaueberger did work with water, rotating it in a natural spiral-motion and was said to have observed mass-reduction effects in some of his machines. Of course, he had an unfortunate meeting with American business interests towards the end of his life that helped keep most of his ideas out of the light and minds of almost all modern thinkers (much like another great thinker, Nikola Tesla).