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Young people are flocking to astrology

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#741

Post by klyrs »

candiddevmike wrote: post #602
harimau777 wrote: post #575

I have a pet theory that things like astrology, tarot, the I Ching, Myers Briggs, etc. are valuable (and therefore stick around) not because they have a supernatural or scientific ability to make correct predictions, but because they provide a useful framework for discussing topics. So for example, even if tarot doesn't give you supernatural insight, the discussion it generates with the card reader may allow you to r…

I do solo tarot card readings all the time as it forces you to think about situations in a different way via the card imagery. I find it helps with decision making. Nothing mythical about it, just a weird form of brain hacking.

Indeed, an old life hack: "If you can't decide, flip a coin. If you're disappointed by the result, follow your heart." Tarot is just this with more bits of entropy.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#742

Post by kergonath »

throw0101a wrote: post #507
4gotunameagain wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is impossible to prove such thing. All arguments of this kind rely on some kind of shaky or dubious foundation.

> All arguments of this kind rely on some kind of shaky or dubious foundation. No, they do not. Aristotle's Argument from 'Motion': 1. Some things in the world are changing. (Observation) 2. Whatever is changing is being changed by another.[1] (Lemma 1) 3. There cannot be an infinite regress of instrumental changers.[2] (Lemma 2) 4. Therefore, there must be a changer that is not itself being changed by another. * htt…

Aristotle had a poor understanding of quantum mechanics, didn’t he?

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#743

Post by kergonath »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #695
throw0101a wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See perhaps "Causality and radioactive decay": * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/12/causality-and-radio...

Is it my imagination, or does Fesser always leap into an accusation of the poor reading skills of people who disagree with him? Anyhow, I can't really find a decent answer in that blog - my understanding is that he hand-waves it away by declaring that it is beyond physics and thus can't be confirmed or denied by such. Not a satisfying answer to my mind and I consider that tower of logic to be on shaky ground.

> Anyhow, I can't really find a decent answer in that blog - my understanding is that he hand-waves it away by declaring that it is beyond physics and thus can't be confirmed or denied by such.

Which is right, in a sense. The fallacy is to use that as a proof of his proposition even though it’s a non sequitur.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#744

Post by Alex3917 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #632
Alex3917 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm reading it too literally, but I think the question is just badly formulated. It's not. The definition of astrology is literally the study of how bodies in space affect life on earth. And if you don't believe in astrology, how exactly do you explain tides?

This is silly. Astronomy and physics perfectly explain the tides. Just because there's another belief system that also claims to explain the influence of celestial bodies on the earth, doesn't mean I need to believe in it to explain the tides.

Astrology is a subset of astronomy, since astronomy is the study of things in space. But the part of astronomy that deals with how things in space affect life on earth is astrology. It's literally the definition. You can't just attribute a bunch of random bad things to astrology and then change the definition to make it fit your preconceptions. Literally just type "astrology definition" into Google.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#745

Post by HelloMcFly »

jprete wrote: post #658
FishInTheWater wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the trick. It's about feelings of certainty, not actual measurable reproduceable predictions. Most long-lived divination methods are very vague. Anything providing concrete predictions is easily proven wrong and discredited, only the vague survives. But people rarely take ambiguous answers for what they are, and instead interpret them into something more certain. And this lets divination exploit all kinds of b…

Nitpick: The five-factor scale (extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism) both reproduces and makes good life predictions. MBTI and most other personality tests unfortunately seem to be astrology for the scientifically oriented.

The biggest issue w/ MBTI and others like it is the desire to put you into a category as an outcome. This is really bad for reliability of the test - take it again and change just a few answers, you may be in a different category altogether! But it's often great for sparking team discussions on norms, behaviors, etc. But the sheen of science and validity can be misleading.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#746

Post by nitwit005 »

seer wrote: post #164
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity. Like the “flat earth model” is actually extremely useful if you don’t intend (can’t) travel significant distances - gives you a coordinate system, maps and ways to predict where you’re going to be tomorrow if you tra…

> it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

Sure, people made money off of it.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#747

Post by Velofellow »

Loughla wrote: post #663
FishInTheWater wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with them is that it's not simply "looking at oneself". If you were using divination for that purposes then it's no issue. Harmless superstition is fine. But things like personality tests and other pseudoscience see regular use in hiring and promotion. And that's just ridiculous, damaging for both "honest" applicants and the company, as such processes favour dishonest people.

Do personality tests see regular use in hiring and promotion? What are some examples of that? My workplaces have offered those sorts of things as professional development, but not for direct promotion or hiring practices. I would be fascinated to see the outcome of a place that does use those things in that way.

In my experience yes - At an earlier role, all employees were subjected to a DISC assessment at hire. This was at the headquarter office of a large real estate franchise. Results were kept in your file, and were a big component during reviews.

The biggest flavor-aid drinkers at the company used their assessment results as shorthand to either justify shitty behavior: "oh, person X is a 'High-D', of course that's why they co-opted the meeting, were abrasive, made everyone else feel small and insignificant". If you did not test with a high decisiveness level, it was absolutely brought up in promotion conversations. High-D, High-S etc. all became quick qualifiers to know where someone's career was headed.

Knowing strong dominance was likely an attribute valued by the company, I took the assessment with that in mind, resulting in a high dominance level (I'm probably middle of the road). That it was so easy to game made me loose all respect in their application of these assessments.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#748

Post by kergonath »

caeril wrote: post #560
4gotunameagain wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is impossible to prove such thing. All arguments of this kind rely on some kind of shaky or dubious foundation.

Prove, no - but the best argument for a "God" is the simulation argument. Space and time is quantized at the planck scale, which strongly suggests that our known universe is a simulation. Simulation implies a simulator, which would by necessity be an omniscient "God". Obviously this God would bear no resemblance to any of the popular Abrahamic Gods. Nonetheless, anyone who subscribes to the simulation hypothesis cann…

> Prove, no - but the best argument for a "God" is the simulation argument.

It’s not “the best” argument; it’s just a popular one mostly publicised by people who think they know quantum mechanics. I am sure there is some sampling bias, but I have never seen someone who knew a lot about Physics believing in it (quite a lot of them are religious, though, but mostly in a classical deist way).

> Space and time is quantized at the planck scale, which strongly suggests that our known universe is a simulation.

There is no proof whatsoever that “space and time is quantized at the Plank scale”. You can build thought experiments about this being the smallest distinguishable length because of black holes, but even that implies making quantum mechanics and general relativity work at scale about which we know nothing. And even that is a far cry from spacetime discretisation.

It’s exactly the same mechanism behind the creation of gods: at the time the most powerful things people knew were themselves and awesome natural events, so they imagined them that way. Now that we’re all about computers it is tempting to see them everywhere, but believing that it is the case because of some tenuous superficial similarities is a fallacy. In exactly the same way that von Neumann machines are poor models for a human brain even though on the surface they have similar functions.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#749

Post by RetpolineDrama »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #303
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone takes astrology seriously, I automatically assume they are not intelligent, irrational, and I find it impossible to take them seriously. I consider them beyond reason so I don't even try. If a person's logic and epistemology lead to him believing in astrology, it shows a deeper problem and I don't hope to have an intelligent discussion with them any more than I expect to have an int…

>Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone takes astrology seriously

I agree. One potential rub though is the time of year you're born impacts your relative age to your peers when entering school. This absolutely _would_ shift things subtly, but it has nothing to do with star patterns.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#750

Post by kergonath »

Georgelemental wrote: post #579
varjag wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no qualitative difference between belief in astrology and any of the world's religions. Not saying you're not entitled in disregarding astrology believers but the cut-off point is completely arbitrary and dare I say irrational.

I read a survey once (can't find it now) that measured people's belief in astrology vs religious convictions. Committed atheists were least likely to believe in astrology, but committed religious people (go to church every Sunday, etc) were close behind. Most likely to believe in astrology were agnostics and the weakly religious.

I would like to see the survey, but what you say is not really surprising (which is why it would be interesting to check, of course).
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