Does Astrology Work?

I always find myself coming across a new (to me) personality test with a heavy dose of skepticism. More often than not I get to the results and am surprised with how well the results seem to describe me in great detail. I never know whether to shake my skepticism or if I just got taken by a way more clever slight of hand than astrology offers.

Astrology feels like a show from the early 00s that I can't remember the name of. It was setup as a live audience show with the host claiming to talk to dead people. The problem was he was so insanely generic that it was just basic statistics combined with basic skills at reading people's responses. He's often point to half the room of a few hundred people and say "I'm feeling someone...the letter S? ..."

They are latitudes of the Earth (although the obliquity of the ecliptic can change over time, so they are not always the same latitudes of the Earth). Specifically, they are the latitudes of the Earth that the Sun will be directly above if the ecliptic longitude of the Sun is 0 Cancer and 0 Capricorn (when the Sun is at 0 Aries and 0 Libra, it is directly above the equator).

> your sign is the constellation the sun was "in" when you were born

It is not. "Your sign" usually means your Sun sign (at the time you were born; this can be any time of day or night), and it is not the same as a constellation, even if it has the same name as that sign. If your Sun sign is Aries, that means that the ecliptic longitude of the Sun at the time you were born was greater than or equal to zero degrees and less than thirty degrees, counting from the spring equinox as zero. That is what it means. It does not have to do with the constellation named Aries, although people who are not familiar with astrology often confuse it with that.

Astrological signs are a measurement of ecliptic longitude. One sign = 30 degrees, therefore 12 signs = 360 degrees.

You can also determine the sign of the Moon and planets, which would be their ecliptic longitude, like you would with the Sun. For example, if Moon is in the sign Libra then the ecliptic longitude of the Moon is greater than or equal to 180 degrees and less than 210 degrees. Libra is the opposite direction from Aries, so if Sun is Aries during a full moon, then the Moon will be Libra, since the opposite directions are 180 degrees apart. This is not having to do with the constellations named Aries and Libra, which is different.

Sometimes it does not matter that much if the method of divination involves random selection or not. And, sometimes it does not matter much if a pseudo random number generation is actually deterministic anyways. Sometimes these features are beneficial but sometimes not.

That is, any given astrological methodology has a fixed set of inputs (e.g., birth signs, ascribed qualities). Arbitrariness (I'm leaning away from "randomness") is introduced both by the subjects seeking an astronomical prediction, and by the application of signs, charts, and divinations by a given practitioner. If the results of TFA are to be believed, the results of this are randomness.

Contrast with, say, the I Ching in which straws are used to create hexagrams which are then consulted from the I Ching itself, or Tarot in which cards are drawn (at random) and interpreted.

I'm reminded of Suzanne Vega's song "Predictions", which is a compilation of divination methods:

  Let's tell the future
  Let's see how it's been done
  By numbers, by mirrors, by water
  By dots made at random on paper
  By salt, by dice
  By meal, by mice
  By dough of cakes
  By sacrificial fire
  By fountains, by fishes
  Writings in ashes
  Birds, herbs
  Smoke from the altar

  (etc.)

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=L7TklT11fA8>

As to how astrology came to be associated with predictions, my suspicion (somewhat informed by reading though I can't find specific sources presently) is that astrology emerged from early astronomy which was principally associated with timekeeping and navigation, and could make predictions about regularly occurring events, such as the coming of floods on the Nile, or monsoon rains elsewhere, critical for early agricultural empires. A combination of factors probably made it useful for both astronomers/astrologers and rulers/priests to presume that other sorts of predictions could also be made: of military conquest, personal actions, and the like. The motives might have been comfort in making decisions, as a propaganda tool, or other tools of control. Belief in this may have been sincere (see the "Clever Hans" case), or hypocritical (practitioners / users were aware of the bogus nature but saw the pragmatic political use). Eventually the idea that the heavens influenced personal affairs on Earth came to be commonplace. Researching this response, I'm learning Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos is apparently the basis for much modern astrological divination practice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrabiblos>