Oy.

I spent several hours trying to ignore a long conversation between my SO and a beautiful, vivacious woman I have a slight crush on, while on a trip. The crush is into astrology. I'm hoping my SO doesn't go there, but she got all excited by the conversation.

Now, I'm a big fan of tools for understanding yourself and others. However, as illogical as I may often be, my belief system is as Carl Sagan talks about in "This Demon Haunted World", that science is the best tool we have for finding what's true and real in the world. It may not be the best tool for finding what's true and real inside ourselves. Probably not.

Anyway, I think astrology is a big load of bunkum. What most people think they understand about astrology is based on watered down mistranslated misunderstood bad 3000 year old "science". Popular astrological readings consist almost entirely of what Thomas Sebeok called "Barnum statements" -- vague, often self-contradictory statements which may be taken to mean whatever the listener wants them to mean.

Here's an example of readings for the sun signs -- which one is yours?

• You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
  
• You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
  
• You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
  
• While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
  
• Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
  
• Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
  
• At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
  
• You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
  
• You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
  
• You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
  
• At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
  
• Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
  
• Security is one of your major goals in life.
  

Here's somebody else who's beat me to this rant more effectively using almost the same words... I guess we share a belief system!. And here's a page about Barnum statements . A good resource: Astrology & Science. Just searching a bit, Barnum Statements, and
Debunking Astrology


So, then I get into a discussion with another passenger about yoga, spirituality, reality, energy... and here're two things I'm thinking:

First, belief systems evolve. Surviving systems have evolved to the point where they appeal to some near universal human emotional/psychological need. They are symbiotic with the host human. The best systems increase the survival chance of both the host and the belief.

Second, while I personally believe that we don't know near enough about actual reality to dismiss cosmic vibrations, psychic aura's, telepathy, etc., I have a feeling that if these things exist, they are mostly entropic... is that the right way to say it? I believe that a person's psychic (or physic) energy is dampened by natural forces and fades to near-nothing in a way similar to the gravitational forces exerted on us by heavenly bodies. In general. I can shout as loud as I want, if you're a mile away, you won't hear me. Maybe your dog will. If I'm five miles away, neither you nor your dog will hear me. If I shout at you, I may create a psychic effect which travels with and near you and ripples outward much farther than my own physical proximity. But a hundred million Chinese people shouted really loudly today, I'm certain of it... and they had no discernable effect on my life. That's the general case. Somewhere in some piece of clothing I will own, there's a tiny spec of blood from the pricked finger of a young Malaysian woman who was distracted by how angry her mother was this morning (which was actually last night, in my world). Somewhere in Thailand, women are being given birth control pills to suppress their menstruation so they can't get pregnant and miss a day's work at a sweatshop factory which exists because the university at which I work can't be bothered to make sure that the logo'ed t-shirts they order are sewn by people who make a living wage.

On the other hand, one Chinese person in a position of power could move one finger a quarter of an inch and destroy human life as we know it... my whole day would be ruined, but chances are pretty good that the orbit of Jupiter wouldn't change by even a millimeter... even the orbit of our own moon wouldn't change...


As local cartoonist Joe Lee put it, if the gravitational influence of a body is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, then I was born under the sign of Dr. Kavanaugh, who, being rather hefty, and very close to my mother as I came out, was exerting approximately 6 times more gravitational influence on me than Mars.

Kavanaughs are warm and considerate but occasionally insensitive to the needs of others. We are inventive, but don't always follow through with our ideas. We love water, but sometimes wish we could fly like we do in our dreams. When we don't get enough sleep, we tend to get cranky.

-gs