Are you willing to consider that general human behavioral patterns are a key part of horoscopes?

@aspicco: "Of COURSE "general human behavioral patterns" play a part in doing astrology."

So astrology just states general things that can be applied to all human beings, to one degree or another? I see that as a admission that astrology can't say anything with any accuracy about any particular individual over another. General predictions about how people generally act only requires a little observation of the socio-cultural climate of the time/location.

"And BTW, there are astrology techniques involving world events, and astrology "birth charts" for countries and corporations... so in those cases "general human behavioral patterns" really don't apply."

And those world events, corporations, and the starting of countries are being caused by humans, no? Or do you mean the state of celestial bodies influence various forces of physics? A forest fire starting, a tectonic plate shifting, a storm gathering? Sounds very susceptible t

@Ursula: "What he doesn't understand is that there is an element of spirituality involved that can't be measured / tested which defies reason and logic."

And how can you be so sure of that? What observation or line of reasoning would allow you justified certainty in that conclusion?

It sounds like this "element of spirituality involved" is a placeholder concept for an unknown factor in an observed phenomena. Perhaps to support the interpretation of the phenomena that you've developed?

To assert that it is "non-physical" and untestable is bold indeed. It sounds very much like an implied appeal to incredulity. Ever if you believe you have inquired down every single available avenue(leaving only the conclusion of un-testability), new information could become available opening new directions of inquiry, and allowing the testing of the involved.

"...the fundamental gift of greater understanding remains the same."

A perception of &quo

@Ursula: "...the fundamental gift of greater understanding remains the same."

A perception of "understanding" can be contrived based on inaccuracies. It is far more important to establish that said understanding is an accurate representation of existence.

What actions do we take to develop higher degrees of accuracy in our concepts? And what do we do to develop higher degrees of predictive capability?

Independently verifying sources, the number of iterations of experimentation and observation, the normality of the evidence, reducing the number of confounding factors, the consistency of relevant factors between experiments, etc. All of those cumulatively result in establishing for us a degree of accuracy in predicting how a relationship will occur again later, after further change(predictive capability).

@Ursula:

The sense organs are a good example of iterations of experimentation and observation that lead to predictive capability. Since birth we have developed a heuristic for interpreting the billions of normative signals to your brain from your functioning eye organs. Based on an implicit experimentation and observation feedback loop we learned when they are reliable, and many circumstances where the photon sensing of the eyes is not. Like a changing refraction index(you'd be far less confident in reaching into a sink full of knives that has water than if it were without water). The degree of circumstance based reliability developed is paramount. And normal brain function is constantly experimenting on all signals for normality and reliability.

Hypothetically, imagine if every millisecond the signal to your brain from your eyes represented a completely different world, a different set of photons/surfaces. Those signals would not allow any predictive capability, and you couldn&#

...couldn't act based on it. The normality of our neural systems and sensory organs is take for granted, but very important for the degrees of predictive capability that we can justify. And luckily for us, there is a high frequency of the eyes experimenting on the photons available. We take special actions to develop higher degrees of accuracy, controlling for sensory/neural errors, and other potentially confounding factors. The scientific method is an application of this.

I appreciate the civility of your answer.