The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #89208   Message #1686494
Posted By: Bill D
06-Mar-06 - 12:35 PM
Thread Name: BS: zodiac/star signs.. do you believe?
Subject: RE: BS: zodiac/star signs.. do you believe?
*daylia*....I'm not sure if you read carefully either my post of March 5- 1:35PM or Wolfgang's directly above. I make the point that 'expertise' within astrology is not what the dispute is about. The world's most famous and widely recognized 'authorities' on Ether Waves.... or on Atlantis ....or on the nature & habits of Elves... must still be asked what ***PROOF*** they have that their subject matter actually exists! Since we haven't FOUND Atlantis, I don't have to be an expert to ask IF the information about it is relevant.
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Subject: RE: BS: zodiac/star signs.. do you believe?
From: Bill D - PM
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 01:35 PM

(Einstein & Jung had important stuff to say ....that doesn't make them the final answer on matters outside their areas of expertise. I could find as many quotes from equally famous folks on the other side of the argument.)

"accurate sources of wisdom and truth .... on the subject of astrology! "

That's not the point...we...or at least I... are not commenting directly about Astrology per se, but about rules of logic and scientific method and belief systems in general which require certain presuppositions and mindsets. It is not about whether someone can write a description of me based on complex rules about astrological positions, but whether ANYONE can show that ANY system of this nature is objective and relevant, or subjective and inapplicable.
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Wolfgang notes an additional problem with the Einstein quote: namely, he doesn't seem to have said that!!!!

According to Alice Calaprice, Senior Editor at Princeton University Press and an editor on the Einstein Papers project for the press for the past 20 years, this astrology quote, like so many others attributed to Einstein by people in order to gain credibility, is totally bogus.

(things like this are why the Snopes.com website is so useful...it investigates whether widely held factual beliefs are actually true)
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lastly: *sigh*....

"I look to my own personal studies, first-hand observations and real physical experiences. Because in the end, that's the only way anything can really be known."

...not exactly. One's own experiences are certainly important, and cannot be ignored, but you only have to interview 6 'witnesses' to an auto accident, or ask your spouse what happened on your first date to be reminded that certain aspects of our memories and our knowledge of how we got those memories is regularly flawed and inconsistent.
There are, unfortunately, many ways in which presumed 'experience' can be faked, mistaken, mis-remembered, distorted...etc.

Drugs, dreams, fear, peer-pressure, pain, (and pleasure)etc...can all convince us that we saw, heard, felt and remembered stuff that is not quite accurate. This is why rules for testing, comparing, verifying and repeating experiences are developed! People who 'saw' a ghost have no reason to doubt that they 'had an experience', but they DO have reason to wonder what the precise cause of the experience was.