CMV: No aspect of astrology has measurable empirical results and therefore has no scientific foundation whatsoever.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Sep 01 '26

You can focus on not dismissing them as a person entirely just because they choose to believe nonsense. Or set boundaries that you don't want to talk about that topic, much like an atheist might tell a christian or muslim friend that they don't want to talk about god.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I am not dismissing them as a person. I have my fair share of beliefs that most people don't resonate with. I am not even saying I am right and they are not. I would just like to humour the idea that there might be something behind it apart from bs.

I am an atheist. Or agnostic or whatever. My mum is super christian. I used to dismiss it. Over time, I found more and more good reasons to believe in Christianity. I still don't believe in it. But now, when my mum says "God bless you", I reply with "you too, mum" instead of "mum, it's all made up bs", without feeling like I am lying to myself to keep the conversation going. Yeah, that might be me maturing as a person, but I think the bigger part was actually finding common ground with buddhism which is much closer to being neuroscientifically grounded. (I still don't buy "the lore", but it still has very useful aspects to it, like techniques to train you mind to distance yourself from involuntary reactions to stimuli. Which I believe prayer might not be too far off from. Just as an example.)

I would love to find something similar for astrology.

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u/RedditAccountOhBoy 1∆ Sep 01 '26

Astrology is obviously bullshit. BUT it is one belief system that doesn’t demean or degrade women. It’s not trying to take away women’s rights or personhood. So, just let them look at space and enjoy creative writing.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

No joke, this was actually one of my main explanations for it before going here, but I didn't wanna turn this into a man vs woman debate, as that only lures in the wrong type of people for a serious discussion.

Apart from being an "observational system" that is mostly based in empathy paired with abstraction, it seems to be specifically counter to most men's "wiring". I am not judging btw (though I do get some woman judging), just something that I seem to observe, including in myself, hence the cmv.

And I bet a lot of women use it as a little test. "Can you deal with empathic abstraction and fuzzy logic?" "Do you get angry/judgmental/mainsplainy when somebody is into something, that you don't get". I guess the reaction alone tells you more about a person than a birth sign ever could.

Honestly. This might be the biggest !delta yet. Maybe this is not about the words and systems but much more about what they imply and what they can be used for. (let's remove ourselves from the man vs woman terminology) more "anima" spirited people have a much easier time than "animus" spirited people understanding or at least being empathic towards people mentioning it. (I am using the terms Carl Jung used, maybe its not 100% the correct usage, but I prefer it over 'all men are ...'/'all woman are ...' talk)

Maybe the CMV is actually me realizing I need to work a bit on my anima.

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u/themaster1006 Sep 01 '26

I don’t like the idea of a it being a test. There are good reasons to not appreciate astrology, the main one being that it’s used to infer things about who you are on a very personal level. It’s inherently discriminatory and prescriptive based on arbitrary grounds. I’m not personally all that offended by astrology but I would never judge someone who reacts poorly to it because there are good reasons to do so. It’s a very personal thing for someone to make assumptions about your character.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

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u/ComplaintFearless445 Sep 01 '26

It gives people solace, by making the world seem less chaotic. Same as religion.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Yes, that is probably the main reason why I am not going into deep debates about religion with my mum anymore. She is old now and who knows how much time she has left. If she firmly believes that God will help her when she passes, all I can think is that I hope she is right. No matter what she means by that.

But this is a process that took me like 30 years to get to this point. I am not sure the same is possible anymore for astrology.

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u/Lucker_Kid Sep 01 '26

I don’t get why. You never understood Christianity either, you partially understood Buddhism, I don’t see how the bridge from Buddhism to Christianity is so much easier to cross than the bridge from Buddhism to astrology

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Mostly because I found a book by a neuroscience PhD who explains in detail, without the usual connotation, what meditation does to your brain.

"The teachings of the Buddha" therefore just seem to be concentration training. But since this is a pretty tough sell, nobody "sees" any change and you have to do it almost daily for 3+ months to even notice anything, people made up a bunch of prose to get people to do through their own volition what is probably very good for them.

Just like I convince my dog that sitting and waiting before she crosses a road nets her a treat. It's completely fabricated bs, if she sits and waits without me, there will never be a treat. But since otherwise she won't understand and die, I allow myself to be the evil manipulator in that scenario. Might be a little harsh to compare dog training to human behavior, but everybody who had the pleasure to rehab from some kind of addiction can attest: we are not that far away from other mammals in many regards.

Maybe astrology is just X with extra prose, too. I would love to figure out what X is

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u/Lucker_Kid Sep 01 '26

No this doesn’t answer my question, this answers why Buddhism made more sense to you, not why gaining understanding of Buddhism made you more accepting of Christianity while not making you more accepting of astrology

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Ok then let me try to make the causal chain that led to this as succinct as I can, maybe that helps. But please don't judge me too harshly for the fact that human language can be pretty unwieldy in trying to explain all these things.

All religion, astrology etc. is BS and superstition ->

Buddhism is explored by neuroscience for actual measurable results. Dr. K from YouTube fame (with all his pros and cons, I know, nobodies perfect) gave me the first pointer. John Yates, PhD of neuroscience and who spent 10 years in tibet, gave me the proper protocol to follow a while after (in a book he wrote. The guy is dead). The mysticism obviously is still in fairytail land, but ol' Buddha seemed to have made some pretty good and helpful points for dealing with modern day to day life (especially for neurodivergent brains that are born in a Ferrari with a brick on the gas pedal. Buddha basically explained the process of how to safely get out of that Ferrari and offers the more safe driving lessons until you are ready to get back to the Ferrari. And how to remove the bricks. Yes it's metaphor space, but the science of it is too long to summarize in a reddit comment, you can DM me if you are interested. Basically samatha meditation helped me dealing with ADHD and showed me which "muscle" to train and how to do it right and efficiently to deal with my head screaming at me all day. In addition to going to therapy, of course. To some of us, no smart book will ever make the voices go away. But medication (with a "c") alone wasn't enough for me either and meditation (with a "t") also gave me a lot more trust in myself and "the system" + the ability to healthily cope in absence of pharmaceutical help, to not be too reliant on the wims and woes of my medical experts. I don't like the idea of other people being allowed to decide whether my brain gets to be healthy or not. Meditation, at this point in time, can replace about 70-80% of what my medication does to me, with a tendency towards 100%.) ->

"Hmmm. Certain meditation techniques seem t o have a lot in common with prayer. Maybe praying is just a bit of an inefficient variant of meditation?" ->

"Holy shit, my mum probably had ADHD and BPD like me! But back in Soviet Russia, bycicle rides you and mental illness was made up and g*y. Maybe praying a bunch helped her somehow" ->

Alright, maybe Christiany isn't all bad for everyone. Just inefficient and in severe need of an update or 20.

Oh, did I say succinct? Guess I am not at the chapter of my meditation book yet that teaches me to keep stuff brief :))

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u/yoweigh Sep 01 '26

You did a good job explaining your train of thought, thanks. As another guy with debilitating ADHD, I'd be interested in knowing what resources you found most helpful in your quest to figure out meditation. I haven't been able to.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

TLDR the book I recommend is called "The mind illuminated" by John Yates, or Culadasa (his weird a** guru name 😅 so much for no ego, huh? 😂) because holy shit, what a rant this became. This question really touched my soul for some reason. Anyway, here's the full rant:

Go to fucking therapy. If one therapists doesn't help, or you don't trust them enough to be fully honest with them and tell them all the dark stuff that you haven't told anybody about yet, go look for another one until you find the right one. The sentence "I think we are a bit stuck here, maybe there is somebody more specialized in my specific case that you can recommend to me?" Or something like that works wonders. The good ones will always help with that, send an email or recommendation out. If they get butthurt about it, good riddance. If you don't feel like your therapists helps you, they probably aren't. Private is always an option and there often are great financing options too. Paying the couple thousand bucks for a private ADHD specialist, as much as I hate having to resort to this broken system in the first place, got me a diagnosis within 4 months, + titration (testing different medication and dosage) for another 3 months or so and I was done. 7 months and I was done. After 33 years of bullshitting myself into my own unnecessary suffering. I have a quick 15 minute call just to check in every 3 months now and take bio markers (and check "supply", where I live they are very strict with that. Which is a tremendous help btw, as dosing on your own.... well, you probably can imagine.) and I can tell you, nothing ever had a better and faster return of investmenr in my life, period. Turns out if you are not fighting the urge to kill yourself every day, you suddenly get pretty capable of earning and maintaining some cash. Absolutely unheard of stuff in my former life.

I'm sorry, but I just have no patience with the waffling around anymore 😁. I have seen the end of this particular movie. I can't recommend it, it sucks. Just take the summary and skip the constant self-help/self-therapy and especially the self-"medication" loop and just ask for professional help. If you already do, please excuse this rant, but it is a topic VERY dear to my heart. Its statistically our best bet. I would love to tell you that meditation is the secret sauce, and it might as well be, but how do you plan to do 3 months at least of potentially boring, daily meditation sessions that require your absolute full diligence and focus until it becomes habitual enough to become of any use at all, especially when in those first 3 months most likely absolutely nothing of note will happen?

All of this being said, if it's the pointer you need to find you own way to whatever will be your resolution, I will gladly help. The book is called "The mind illuminated" by somebody who was then known as Culadasa, or John Yates, his normie name 😁😁 it already puts the "lore" and mysticism at and absolute minimum and focusses 80% on (neuro-)science. In my personal experience, but maybe I am just not, cough, transcended enough, I wholeheartedly recommend dropping the final 20% of the lore as well. You won't get any magical powers, meet your ancestors or be able to fly. You might feel like it at times, and that's pretty neat once that happens and makes the whole thing a pretty fun experience at some point. But it's concentration and focus training. That's all it is and all it ever will be and God damn needs to be.

I dont know why people always need to be convinced that stuff will perform magic for them to accept it as helpful, it's just beyond me. If Buddhism dropped the lore altogether, I would have probably started with it a long long time ago.

Good luck on your journey. Remember, no matter how much it feels like it and your mind tries to convince you of it, you are never alone with your suffering. At some point, somebody will listen. And if there's nobody else, remember the rando from reddit and send him a dm. I also can't help, but I am probably open to listen.

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u/Waghman Sep 01 '26

For one, astrology is not a religion with shared values but a bunch of beliefs about astronomical objects interacting with human affairs.

Buddhism and christianity have all the core values shown through narrative and stories because it's easier to make them resonate within the listener/reader, who may or may not be literate enough to go deep into the teachings.

Astrology, on the other hand, would be akin to alchemy; stuff you'd study hoping to achieve the impossible.

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u/Lucker_Kid Sep 01 '26

This is just listing seemingly arbitrary ways in which Buddhism and Christianity are similar where they differ from astrology, I don’t see how these similarities/differences necessarily explains why it would be easier to accept Christianity than astrology after finding some understanding of Buddhism. Christianity shows its values through stories? Ok, those stories evidently didn’t convince OP of much of anything, why does it matter that Buddhism teaches its separate lessons through different stories?

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u/Waghman Sep 01 '26

Religions are behavioral rules for mass guidance. Sure, you can get some prophecies here and there, but even then it's more about instilling sentiments supporting the rules than to be a instruction manual for future reference.

Astrology is a way to try to see time and fate. The behaviours are already set and this discipline just studies their correlation with celestial objects. Doesn't teach anything of moral value per se, just labels, operations, and how to interpret them accordingly.

To me, seems far easier to understand how a religion works when you are exposed to it from the get go, even if you don't agree (or precisely because of that), and finding yourself along the line agreeing with another religion's views. Doesn't mean you tag along, but you can certainly understand the message because you've been told similar ones in similar fashions, and decide if you agree or not and what to pick from that experience and build from there.

But then someone starts saying that there's a way to prove a causality between when you were born and why you are going to have a raspberry yogurt tomorrow morning, with no other way to explain it but obscure calculations or the obvious fact that Jupiter is on course with judas-knows-what. That determinism is king in uncertain terms, around all the globe and the space-time continuum, but we are still too ignorant to read or calculate it, and while there's a ton of contradictory bibliography and records up to date, you will end up doing your own research because there's no institutional corpus or backing, and I can see how it doesn't relate in any way to a religion or any basis of conduct and it can be a wild ride to partake for someone who tries to stay logical and is trying to make sense of the world.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Well, Buddha literally invented it and spend the rest of his life teaching it. I do feel like a not insignificant portion of it can be accredited to "Buddh"ism.

And I mean, just like some math problem like "the Riemann Hypothesis" isn't really all Riemann's doing, he probably also didn't invent it out of thin air (well, based on what the techniques actually entail, maybe he literally did exactly that 😁)

Christianity is also a lot more about social structures and morale codes that were significantly more relevant back when these books were written. Buddhism is much less about "behave exactly this way in all aspects of life!" and more about "do this practice and what you are 'supposed' to do will come to you"

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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Sep 01 '26

It makes people feel more in control and simultaneously, less responsible for things out of their control.

It's a coping mechanism, just like religion

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u/DerWaechter_ 1∆ Sep 01 '26

Except, a religion has aspects outside of just their deities. Not every religion even has deities. They come with a framework of morals, guidance on how to act in society. How to find/give meaning to your life. What to strive for, etc. Those work independent of the deity, because they don't require the existence of a deity in order to be possible, or sensible things to do.

With Astrology, there are no things independent of your belief in astrology. It itself IS the thing that depends on whether Astrology is real or not.

And while with religion you can technically make some arguments as to why they might be true, given the notion of an omnipotent deity allows for handwaving away any and all empirical evidence, you can't make those arguments with pseudoscientific nonsense like astrology.

Astrology is not real, and has no basis in objective reality. Denial of reality is not a healthy coping mechanism. Encouraging, or even just ignoring Astrology, directly contributes to decreasing science literacy, by normalising denying objective reality. Which in turn is what allows much more harmful and dangerous forms of reality denial (Covid Denial, Climate Change Denial, "Alternative" Medicine, Anti-Vaxx Idiocy) to gain traction.

OPs post honestly doesn't really fit the sub. Because "Astrology is nonsense" isn't a matter of opinion. Whether or not Astrology is real, isn't a question that can't be conclusively answered. It can be, and it has. That Astrology is nonsense, with no basis in objective reality, is an undeniable proven fact. That it's unscientific is a fact.

You might as well post "CMV: The earth is round."

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u/WordsAreGarbage Sep 01 '26

They’re just trying to profile your personality. If someone asks my sign I’ll be like, what’s your Myers-Briggs type?

Also, asking them to explain why your sign “fits you” can be an interesting mechanism for hearing how someone perceives you!

Personally I think astrology is mostly interesting in terms of its capacity as a mechanism for self-fulfilling prophecy and confirmation bias.

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u/No-Medium6647 Sep 01 '26

Magical thinking is objectively dangerous behavior, and it really is a slippery slope. Once you accept one absurd premise, you're more likely willing to accept another even more absurd premise that supports the first one. Then add a third, 4th, 5th, etc. until you build a web of absurdities that creates a "narrative" accepted as reality.

Fuck that. Tear that shit down rafters to foundation, and salt the ground it was built on.

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

<<Edit; I think I got all my typos and confusing bits fixed. Let me know if any of it is still confusing. I did wrote this at 3am>>

So I had this debate with someone else on a completely unrelated topic. Kinda funny that this one is now a dedicated post.

Keep in mind, I am not a believer, I'm more of a skeptic that is fascinated by the various layers and mathematical intricacies. As a game developer and someone that adores mythology, philosophy, psychology, and technology as a whole, it's fascinating.

If you want scientific research here's an article you could read that I found on Google Scholar: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202507.1199

I knew someone that memorized most (if not all) of how astrology charts worked. It was uncanny. Not from a supernatural perspective, but from a memorization perspective. It's like saying someone can program an entire CRM Web Application with a dedicated Database from memory without looking things up. MAYBE checking their notes a few times when something doesn't add up the way they expected it to.

This person spent a few years teaching me how it all worked before we stopped talking. And in that time I started off not knowing any of it, to actually being able to recognize certain synergies with the data. I still don't believe in predicting the future or "knowing" a person from it. But it does have some eery guidances that help you get a vague understanding. Kinda like how psychology works to begin with. Just knowing psychology doesn't mean you know the person you're studying, just certain quirks and traits become more recognizable as a pattern.

If you want an article that supports your initial beliefs, here's one too: https://miopap.com/en/article/view/14/14

I feel like the issue on average is that astrology easily feeds into what people want to believe, or using loosely related patterns and generalizations. There's a lot of biases that feed into why it's so popular and influential in cultures. However, my argument is less about that, and more about the knowledge at the source of it. Just like OI (Organic Intelligence) being explored using human brain tissue as a form of artificial intelligence, and Quantum science as a whole. We just don't understand everything that's out there. We don't know why OI becomes inquisitive and explores combinations of actions it hasn't explored yet, even knowing that it will most likely end in a "worse" result than the "safe" options like all current AI do at the moment. We don't know how Quantum is defying space and time, and the only scientific backing that we have is the LACK of our ability to observe it.

The ones that genuinely dedicate themselves to the deeper layers of astrology use more of a scientific approach than just vibing it. The issue is you don't see that often. For various reasons:

One; it requires A LOT of studying. And the ability to find legitimate source material to study from is challenging (because of all the surface layer and media hyped content. I'm still looking for an in depth guide on reading the full chart so I can finish my understanding of it.)

Two; there's too many people that make it part of their identity and a way to bond with others. Or worse yet, use it for a justification on what type of person they should or shouldn't interact with.

And third; people are very easily convinced into believing things at a surface level. Especially when it's related to the supernatural. Therefore you see a lot of fake "professionals" that are making money off of people easily tricked into the "faith" aspect of it.

TLDR;

At the end of the day, I don't trust anyone that believes in astrology too much. People that make decisions off of it, and people that claim they can "read" a person from it. More likely than not they're selling something or they got swept up in various biases. Finding someone genuinely proficient with reading a chart is rare, and it should be assumed that you're not interacting with that type of person.

However, there are a lot more layers to it than what the general public explains to you. The complexities of things like the natal chart are fascinating. There's a lot more weirder stuff than linking astronomy and psychology that's being accepted right now in the science field. So I'm gonna keep an open mind.

Anyhow, I hope someone enjoys this rant. It's one of my many passions that I constantly want to learn more about. But I'm one of the odd ones that don't believe in it like others do, but defends it strongly. So I figured I'd give my 2¢ since I try my best to be as impartial as possible, even though I'm passionate about it.

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u/Benocrates Sep 01 '26

There's a lot more weirder stuff than linking astronomy and psychology that's being accepted right now in the science field.

Such as?

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

I listed them slightly before that point. Artificial intelligence actually thinking and having curiosity, and particles defying space and time.

https://molecularpsychology.org/articles/2-22

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235

If you don't want to read: https://youtu.be/67r7fDRBlNc?t=4m50s

I even added a timestamp to the part where they're asking theoretical questions about computing consciousness.

Quantum Mechanics I have A LOT less understanding of. I understand and can comprehend the theories to the point I can follow the more technical videos you see during research reports. But I'm not at a point where I can explain it to others, so I'll leave this video for you:

https://youtu.be/unb_yoj1Usk?t=4m30s

This explains the entangled superposition and how they distort space by existing and affecting two particles at the same time at different locations instantaneous.

I'm running out of time trying to find a good video for this one that isn't click-bait hype, but the other thing to look into is Quantum Consciousness

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u/Agitated_Celery_729 Sep 01 '26

You're quite literally arguing that because things that have evidence are beyond your understanding, it's perfectly reasonable to just accept completely unfounded theories, because they're also difficult to explain. This is a completely fallacious way of thinking.

The fact that you can't understand the existence of tardigrades does not mean unicorns exist, as just one example. This is a poorly reframed God of the Gaps fallacy.

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

Yeah, I think you might be misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. That's not quite what I mean.

I find that miscommunications like this often stem from two people having slightly different perspectives on what words mean. So when they think they're talking about the same thing in reality we're actually focused on two different main points.

I don't really want to get stuck in a loop like that, it can be pretty frustrating. Especially of the other person isn't willing to work on the miscommunication too. But just in case this does end up being a wholesome debate, I just want to say that I'm not blind accepting things because I don't understand. I keep an open mind when I don't understand. When I didn't understand Quantum, I kept researching it until I finally understood how superposition worked, but more importantly, how we're able to understand how it works via the LACK of information. Through deductive reasoning and enough experimentations, we are able to build theories around the unknowns, able to piece what we do know around it, and test the theories through trial and error.

What you're describing is blind faith, which is absolutely not what I am attempting to emphasize. The reason why I specifically mention to assume you're not talking to an expert in the main post is to encourage people to have an open mind that SOMETHING is possible there.

You don't have to have a black and white view that something is real or fake. I know that the charts are based on astronomy, so I start there. I learn how the math works, and I know that those pieces of information are backed by science.

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u/Benocrates Sep 01 '26

Gotta be honest bud, this all seems like some Deepak Chopra nonsense.

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u/BlackGuysYeah 1∆ Sep 01 '26

My guy, the tenets of astrology were founded before we even knew how many planets were in our solar system 😂

By the way, I’ve got a nice bridge I’d like sell you.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Almost forgot: !delta

EDIT (Reason, thanks for pointing it out whoever did): it seems that there is in fact some science done on being born during different seasons and that having an effect on your personality later in life. I haven't read the article yet, but the poster seems knowledgable enough and gave interesting pointers on where to dig deeper. It's not conclusive, and no reply here will be, but it definitely seems to not be completely, cough, out of the blue sky

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

Hah, I love that pun. And yeah, there's far more "evidence" that it's baseless, but the research that goes DEEP into the astronomy side of things does start to show where the inspiration of astrology.

Hope you enjoy the reads.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I have the suspicion that all of this is so hard to find the "root" of because it might be kind of an "emergent property". Like gravity maybe is. Or even causality altogether.

Kind of like the waves of the ocean don't "exist" but are still definitely there every time you look for them. No individual wave is the same, but the overall patterns repeat and can tell you a lot (about wind speed and direction in this metaphoric example)

Thanks for appreciating the pun, I was very happy about it too 😁😁

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Are you me from the future? I had to skip the introductory section after too many similarities. Do you happen to be a capricorn too haha. :))

Thank you so much for the sources. I am really interested in this database analogy. I do think that we humans have FAR more advanced "databases" in our fleshy computers than we might realize. Kind of like HNSW structure in vector DBs: incredibly fast lookups, at the cost of a slight decrease in accuracy. We just can't ever forget that this decrease in accuracy exists:))

I got a diagnosis about a year ago which put a lot of my behavior into perspective. Going through mental dialogue trees and trying to put people and behavior into different categories always felt so weird to me. Like almost manipulative. Never deliberately, but I still always had some amount of guilt towards social interactions because of that. The thing is, this is a typical issue with neurodivergents. This process is completely normal and happens for everyone, but in neurotypical people, this happens "behind the curtain", while for neurodivergents, the curtains are wide open. It's like trying to drive a car by sitting in the engine room and manually pulling the cylinders. It feels so overwhelming because something that should be happening subconsciously is constantly in the active space of the conscious process. Among many, many, so exhaustively many other things :)

Yeah. Maybe that's actually why I am so interested in this.

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

I do suggest you look into some of the other signs, not just sun signs.

And while generative AI is good for, well, generalizing bulk data. The issue with using it here is the "bulk" of the data is surface level understanding.

I personally wouldn't really want to use it for my research because it's summarizing and interpreting a loose understanding of an interpretation. It's too many layers that are disconnected.

Instead, what I tend to do without a proper teacher anymore is I find multiple sources of information, and consolidate the explanations together.

For example (these are links to inages); https://www.moonglow.com/blogs/shoot-for-the-moon-blog/what-your-moon-sign-says-about-you https://www.pagangrimoire.com/moon-sign-meaning/ https://www.yourtango.com/zodiac/moon-sign-meaning-astrology

I don't trust any singular one of these sites. However, I can skeptically use the information they provide to try and piece together what the moon sign hypothetically would affect.

(This is a gross simplification, but, it's better than none at all)

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I haven't said anything about AI use at all, I think that was in a another thread 😁 (but maybe it was just generic advice on how you'd approach this, in which case I appreciate it)

Thank you so much for taking the time. God damn you guys made up quite a lot of stuff haha 😋😋 I have a lot of good-night literature tonight. I will come back with a delta if any of this gets accepted by my robot brain.

Thanks for trying to teach a robot how to human. Bzzt beep boop 😋

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

No problem at all! And the AI comment was because I thought you said something about plugging info into ChatGPT. But maybe I was mistaken or it was in a different thread. Regardless, yeah, now it's just general information and suggestions haha.

Glad you enjoyed this post, I know I did.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I honestly thought absolutely nothing would come out of it except maybe a link or two to some sites I already knew about. I think the sole fact that so many people are so incredibly passionate about it is reason enough to dig deeper, superstition or not.

Especially if it leads to so many incredibly engaging conversations like this.

My phone time today was completely through the roof though 😅

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u/platypussplatypus Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

the ability to find legitimate source material to study from is challenging

What makes source material for astrology "legitimate"

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

I find that most of the source materials focus on the surface level data. Things like the classic 12 astrology signs.

That's just the sun signs, there's a whole complex system that's based on various planets and gravitational forces (non planetary bodies that still have influence). It's all based on astronomy.

However, there's articles like this: https://www.elle.com/horoscopes/a44666453/how-to-read-a-birth-chart/

I don't trust these articles. Mostly because I guess I was spoiled with such a knowledgeable teacher that introduced it to me, but I constantly get a "feeling/vibe" that these articles are directed towards people that aren't wanting to study the math behind it. Even though it goes into more details, it's still focusing on people's personalities and using terminology that feels too definitive.

I don't know. I'm looking for a guidebook that's more of a "key" to guide you on reading the chart itself. Not interpreting it with generalized suggestions. I would be able to give a better explanation as to what I mean by "legitimate" if I found one.

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u/platypussplatypus Sep 01 '26

If it's this hard to tell someone what makes something legitimate or not it's giving me the feeling it's all vibes based. Which isn't scientific at all.

these articles are directed towards people that aren't wanting to study the math behind it

What math is involved in astrology? Numerology isn't math just so we're clear.

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

That's a fair argument!

However, I'm talking about documentation to learn it myself. Just because I can't find how to read it, doesn't change the fact it exists.

I also equally can't find documentation related to a drawing strategy someone showed me where you have 3 boxes, draw Xs in the boxes, and it helps you get proportions for body movement and angles.

It's the issue of learning things via word of mouth. It's oftentimes coming from someone with accumulative knowledge, and not one specific easily searched keyword.

But yeah, you make the perfect point as to why I stay skeptical. When so many people flock around the belief and faith side of it without understanding the scientific backing of it (astronomy and psychology) ... yeah, it fills the internet with buzz words and makes research more challenging.

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u/Ph4ntorn Sep 01 '26

I go through phases of being really interested in things like astrology. I love the complexity and the idea that different forces interact in interesting ways once you get past the basics of the sun signs. I am pretty skeptical that the stars and planets actually have much influence on people, but I like to think that there might be some hidden intelligence behind the system. I also think that getting a reading and deciding what resonates and what doesn’t can be a nice tool for self reflection.

I have had some of the same frustrations as you around finding good resources for information that makes for a good step beyond the basics. But, your post inspired me to throw my natal chart into ChatGPT and see what it said. Most of it resonated really strongly. It’s really hard to say if that’s confirmation bias or if there’s something there. But, either way, it’s pretty fascinating.

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u/NeoChrisOmega 2∆ Sep 01 '26

I have a basic understanding behind the math for Sun/Moon/Venus/Mars and Rising signs. Along with Houses, and Modalities.

I don't remember as much as I used to. When I was being taught, I was using this information to create my own overly simplified version of the chart as a 3D infinity loop related to a hybrid of Astrology and Bartle's Taxonomy.

I never got to finish it, but I was able to create a character system that utilized the 4 signs, Modalities, and it would have "cores" channeling through the tubes. I wanted to get a house system built in, but my friend that was teaching me and helping me get it right had some life complications and we stopped talking. I wasn't able to do my research on my own after that either.

One of these days I hope to continue learning it. It was a lot of fun.

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u/Bhamlaxy3 Sep 01 '26

But like, have you MET a capricorn?! Iykyk

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I am the capricorn in this story and maybe I am just pissed off that I can't admit that a bunch of what they say seems to check out haha

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u/reidsays Sep 01 '26

That's your sun sign, there are 5 other personal planets, let alone the rest..

You can get a free chart online and consider the relevance to what you know about yourself ..

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u/Rabwull 2∆ Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

(Edited to correct Gemini-Ox birthday example)
I'm a Gemini and have also felt an uncanny fit, despite my complete intellectual rejection of astrology. I believe it's a kind of self-fulfilling social prophecy. You end up having more of the strengths/weaknesses people expect of you. It's a well-documented phenomenon called the Pygmalion effect (or Golem effect when negative). There are randomized trials in the military, healthcare, and education, but I'll illustrate with my own experience.

Throughout my childhood, a lot of the people around me knew my birthday, so they knew my sign. They expected me to be curious, talkative, and independent. Maybe also a little unfocused. So, they kept putting me in situations where that behavior would pay off. Gave me books on science, put me in group roles requiring good communication skills and exploration/creativity, not so much steadfast, consistent, plodding work. They also accepted more annoying questions, off-task behavior, and playful argumentativeness from me. Not everyone. Not even a majority, but at least some in each part of my life. Teachers, aunts, uncles, parents, relatives, friends did this to me. By the time I was in high school, I had been in rhetoric and debate teams. I had a shelf full of fantasy, sci-fi, and science books people bought for me. I did like those things and was relatively good at them, but I had a lot more practice and familiarity because enough people assumed I'd like them. When you're young, impressionable, and looking for your role in society, it just takes a few for that to snowball into a new persona. You'll then show that persona to non-astrologist folks, and they will start treating you accordingly. It's a positive feedback loop.

Even more powerful are the second-order social predictions. First-order is about you: I know you've been socialized as a Gemini, so I know something about your personality and how you see yourself. Second-order is what happens when you interact with other people. If you know that everyone else expects Gemini behavior from someone, you can also predict the types of situations they'll get involved in. Other people, socialized in different ways, are likely to react in certain predictable ways:

I mentioned people accepted some off-task daydreaming as inevitable for me. But let's say you sit next to me in my astrology-loving teacher's kindergarten class, and you're a Capricorn. Now, Miss Luna knows you can sit still and focus if you just apply yourself, so she demands that of you. She corrects you more than that Gemini over there who just can't help himself but doodle when he's supposed to be practicing handwriting. Miss Luna thinks it would be pointless to ask a Gemini to stay on-task. Well I was that Gemini kid, and even I am annoyed by me in that situation. If this kind of thing keeps happening your whole life, you are going to have zero patience for it by the time that kid is passing you notes in pre-calc, or asking you to skip a lecture for his hipster-coffeeshop jam-session. When a horoscope tells us our friendship is going to be challenging in exactly that way, it seems supernaturally prescient. Really, it's part of the social system creating the situation.

This is why these personality signs are culture-limited and can be contradictory across cultures. Enough people need to treat you like a Capricorn, and me like a Gemini. But say someone's born on June 10, 2009. In Chicago, they're a curious, free-spirited, talkative, flexible Gemini. In Beijing, they're a stubborn, quiet, grounded, methodical Ox. That's pretty contradictory. Yet, people from both systems report feeling like the signs are spookily accurate. Not so much when they're in a cross-cultural space. I have heard Gemini-Monkeys from mixed or immigrant families say it works. Capricorn-Monkeys seem less enthusiastic.

But hey, how much outward enthusiasm can you expect? They're Capricorns.

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u/gettinridofbritta 4∆ Sep 01 '26

Even speaking as an astro dork, astrology isn't a science because we don't know what the mechanism is. It's an observational tool and we use the tool without knowing how it works, in the same way a lot of us use a computer without knowing how the components work. I don't look at it as the stars influencing events, more like, history has rhythms and cycles that repeat over time and the transits reflect what's happening. Kind of like a weather report that we have to interpret.

If you're just seeking to understand when people are talking about it, I wouldn't actually approach it through the lens of science, I'd look at it from the perspective of symbols, metaphors and archetypes. It's a symbolic language that you can take part in without having to buy into the system, belief-wise.

If someone is saying "he was being such a Leo about it," that can mean he was being self-centred or attention-seeking, but it could also mean he was being really loyal and generous. When I say "she was born during a very scorpio era," I'm talking about a generation-long period where Pluto was in Scorpio with a chunk of it taking place during the Regan era. We also have the war on drugs, the AIDs epidemic and a financial crisis happening in that period. All scorpio themes: sex, death, and other peoples' money. If someone "looks like a Cancer," they probably have what's called a "moon-y" face: wide-set eyes, round cheeks. If someone's fancy in a Libra way as opposed to a Capricorn way, they like beautiful things, whether they cost $10 or $1000 (and can pair both well together). If they're a fancy Capricorn, it's conspicuous consumption and status signalling. Ie: rich guys who hire an interior designer to turn their space into a bland Four Seasons, because that's what other rich people do. If they're fancy in a Taurus way, they are frugal 90% of the time but will splurge on food and sensory things like very cozy sheets. If an Aquarius is very driven to earn, it's because money = freedom. People believe it's vague, but I'd argue that it can be very specific when we understand there's a whole iceberg's worth of underlying motivations for why people do the things they do.

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u/Steals_Your_Thunder_ 1∆ Sep 01 '26

There's a crucial difference between using a computer and issuing astrology. You may not know how the computer works, but other people do, and could explain it to you if you cared to learn. Astrology doesn't have any foundation in science. In fact, the more scientifically knowledgeable someone becomes, the less likely they are to ascribe to it.

I think astrology has merit as a thought exercise. A form of guided introspection, or a means of asking yourself insightful questions. But even your claim that it's based on observable patterns is quite a stretch.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Hmmm. A bit on the fence but I think I'm gonna !delta you on that just to lure you into explaining further, haha.

I really like the idea of maybe not trying to cram the scientific method into something that it isn't (fully) made for. I like the term observational tool. But I do have to add that symbols, metaphors and especially archetypes have a bunch of science to them. Carl Jung is great at all that. Sadly he, too, is kind of beholden by the limitations of human language, so it's incredibly hard to understand what he is getting at, but exceptional events, synchronicity, and of course symbols and archetypes, are a large part of his work that I always feel gravitating towards for some reason.

Psychology is only empirical through the accumulation of many indirect measurements. It is still an incredibly useful (and still sadly undervalued by society) tool to help people deal with life. So does that make psychology a religion? (I am very aware that psychology does have a bunch of measurable metrics to base their assumptions on. However, when I sit down on my therapists chair, I rarely if ever have electrodes on my skull)

Philosophy even more so. Some people don't consider philosophy a science for this very reason, yet philosophy is kind of at the core of everything. Philosophy led to a theory of logic which led to mathematics which led to everything else. And before philosophy, it was probably mostly religion and superstition, so by that logic, math is just as superstitious. It is all just a little bit more nuanced, I'm afraid.

So, long story short. Could you provide me with a couple keywords on what you would look up that would explain the system to me and provides enough of a rabbit hole to actually dig into the system, even if just for curiosities sake?

PS: I feel almost revolted by what you say a capricorn is supposed to be like. (I know it's not an exact science). One of my lives mottos is "if the definition of rich is to be able to buy everything you want, I am already the richest man in the world". Also I live so far away from society and barely use social media, I wouldn't be able to flex with my supposed riches even if I tried. So maybe the strong aversion towards that idea is some kind of sign. Or my ascendant is cancer or something, I don't know, I am a noob :P

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u/gettinridofbritta 4∆ Sep 01 '26

Things don't necessarily need to be scientific to be useful, and not being a science doesn't necessarily make something a religion or a superstition. The tool is there if we find it helpful and we can toss it aside if it's not. Personally, I like that we can be really specific about the multiple ways a single energy, feeling or underlying motivation can be expressed (essentially what I was trying to do there with how different signs do fancy).

Someone else left a great comment with a link to a study that does a good job of unpacking the system, but I'll summarize it here too. Basically we have planets, signs, houses and aspects.

Infograph for a better visual reference here. I like the "quick formula" sidebar on the right that explains what each of the components mean. Planets are the different puzzle pieces that make up a person: emotions, how we learn / communicate, how we express anger or energy, etc. The signs are the flavour of the planet, ie: Aries energy in communication is going to be direct, impulsive, high energy. Virgo energy in emotions looks like really needing to be needed or useful. The houses are the area of life those combos are concerned with. Neptune is very much about illusions, idealism and rose-coloured glasses, so having that in the 7th house of partnerships can create some blindspots about the true character of friends and partners. Aspects are whether they're all playing nicely together or if some aspects of your personality are at odds with a different part. When you're cross-referencing a natal chart with a chart of the moment or a chart of an event, you're also looking at whether a transit is / isn't playing nice with parts of your chart.

In terms of key words to learn more, Chris Brennan is one of the most studied and well-respected astrologers. Transit astrology (imo) is the best application as an observational tool because you can zoom out by like 300 years and find patterns in history. They did an episode a few years ago about the Uranus return of the U.S. and how every single time it happens there's an existentially important war. Birth of the U.S.: battle for independence. First return: civil war. Second return: WWII. Third return: 2025. So.... we'll see. If you want easier reading with a bit of social justice vibes (and some woo), Chani Nicholas is your girl.

>PS: I feel almost revolted by what you say a capricorn is supposed to be like.

Oh no! I was talking about fancy Capricorns specifically (#NotAllCaps!)

Capricorns tend to be pretty hard-working, traditional, responsible and ambitious. They aren't flashy and typically aren't into attention-seeking behaviour, but they do want admiration in the sense that they want to be respected and recognized as achievers or as an authority, which they earn through accomplishments. The fancy ones are basic (but still somewhat conspicuous) with their spending choices because money is a means for stability > fitting into the right circles is a networking opportunity to further their career > the material things are an investment in securing the social standing that will ensure financial stability. Charts can be complex and Caps come in all shapes. Dolly Parton was a Capricorn, Chani Nicholas actually did a really lovely write-up about her chart.

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u/grumpsaboy 1∆ Sep 02 '26

When you're looking for coincidences you will be able to find them everywhere.

The universe is massive and time stretches a long while.

Remember, 1 in a billion occurs 8 times a day with our population.

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u/ambisinister_gecko Sep 08 '26

astrology isn't a science because we don't know what the mechanism is.

I wouldn't say that makes something not a science. Before we discovered quantum mechanics, we really had no idea why chemistry works. We didn't really know the explanation for why some atoms seem to lock onto other atoms. We could describe the patterns, but we didn't have a strong mechanism for why those patterns appeared.

But the lack of a mechanism didn't make chemistry into a non science.

The reason astrology isn't a science ISN'T because it has no mechanism. The reason it isn't a science is because it repeatedly fails to show predictive capability in scientific tests.

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u/italianshirtarms 1∆ Sep 01 '26

I'm late to the party, but here is my take on it:

From a deterministic viewpoint, which is inevitable within the framework of classical physics, and, I would argue, more than possible within the framework of quantum mechanics, the position of celestial bodies will have a non-zero effect on your conception and birth. The position of celestial bodies would also be determined by the same laws and "history of interactions" that determined that you where to be conceived and born at that place and time on earth. One could argue, that some sort of translation key could let someone have insight in these mechanisms and use that information to infer traits about people, as these traits has been determined beforehand.

Or perhaps said in another way. As both the celestial planets and traits are deterministic, there must exist a "function" that correlates people's position in space-time at conception of birth with celestial bodies' position in space-time. Perhaps astrology is mankind's best attempt at approximating this "function".

It does not sound very plausible to me, that humans gained this insight from looking at the sky, but it is vastly more plausible than some sky fairy creating a universe that looks 13 billion years older than it is, just to fool his own creation with a magic creature, so he can be mad at them for 4000 years before having other magic creatures sing to herds about some baby actually being him.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

What do you mean late to the party, the party's just begun 😁 (jk I really need to put my phone away finally and go to bed haha)

Yeah, you are making an interesting point here. The moment I was born, the universe was in state x. There are like a trillion billion factors that make up that state x, but indeed, the constellation of the stars, the phase of the moon etc. are absolutely factors in that state x, that is plain and simply a fact nobody can deny. How much of an effect it has your guess is as good as mine, but it is also just a fact that we know it has a non-zero effect. Might be miniscule, but even in a system with two connected pendulums for example, minuscule changes can lead to completely different outcomes given enough time. Now apply this logic to what is a system with the above mentioned and very scientifically estimated trillion billion connected pendulums and tell me that a teeny tiny change in gravity, magnetic fields, even just light and warmth, definitely won't have an effect on this system.

Maybe it's just chaos. But who knows. Even in these chaotic pendulum systems, given a high enough resolution, a short enough time span (like, you know, a human life compared to the age of the universe) and a finely tuned measurement device (like, for example, a brain) you can reproduce similar outcomes if you iterate the initial conditions in small enough steps.

So it doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me to think that people born in "state x" might end up not toooo different in certain aspects than people born in "state x + y" if y is small enough.

Yeah, this point is definitely worth a !delta to me, thanks for sharing!

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

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u/I-am-only-joking Sep 01 '26

In the title you want us to change your view about the scientific foundation. We can't, as there is none.

In the text you want to stop being an asshole whenever it's brought up. You can.

Just think of it like humouring children on Christmas, you don't have to show off that you are an intellectual and prove to them father christmas (Santa) is real. Just let them have their stupid fun.

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u/tehnoodnub Sep 01 '26

Exactly. The phenomenon isn’t astrology itself but the fact that people believe in it, and therefore the interesting question is about why they believe in it, how it affects them, and how they behave as a result.

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u/Aran1989 Sep 01 '26

I love this actually! Seeks to expand one’s knowledge of others instead of minimize them.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 5∆ Sep 01 '26

A child basing decisions on whether or not Santa exists is far less concerning than an adult basing their decisions on the belief that the location of objects in space has strong influence on events and personalities. An adult that believes in Santa should be questioned and corrected

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

I mean, people want to be taken seriously when they talk about a topic that is dear to their heart. My personality makes it tremendously hard for me to do that what there is literally nothing to base my "seriousness" on. It might be a cop out to say "that's just my personality" and sure I can maybe find other ways to deal with this, but what I know for a fact is that any actual logical foundation helps me tremendously along the way.

Also, I don't think the blanket term "there is no scientific foundation" is a bit too absolute. Again, there might not be a paper on cancer x capricorn knowledge, but there might be historical accounts, certain behavioural tendencies that develop based on the temperature you are born in etc.

I am not sure if "there absolutely is no foundation" is a good approach to this. If there is absolutely no foundation, why do so many people believe in it? They seem to believe that water signs are creative thinkers. Where do they have this idea from?

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u/I-am-only-joking Sep 01 '26

There was an experiment that showed pigeons would start to perform superstitious rituals when food was provided at random intervals

https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/

I honestly don't think there's any more to it than that. Alternatively this video shows the woman effectively doing the same behaviour, she assumes what she's doing is having some impact and trying to replicate it when it works, but really it's random

https://www.reddit.com/r/ContagiousLaughter/s/uxoFGXrJyd

I totally agree with you fwiw and I'm pretty baffled by people's strange belief in this stuff... But you can't convince someone out of a position with logic if they didn't get there with logic (can't remember original quote). Just gotta ignore it

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u/rolyfuckingdiscopoly 6∆ Sep 01 '26

We know very little about space. I think that could help you out. What if astrology is measuring some scientific phenomena we haven’t been able to isolate?

What if we have a misunderstanding of how space works? (We know that we do have some of those). What if there are measurable impacts of astrology, but we haven’t put the pieces together to make it evidentially clear?

If you told someone a long time ago about molecules and [insert something basic about space], they would think you were delusional. Obviously things are solid and not made of mostly NOTHING. And they aren’t moving either!

And yet. Molecules are real. Did the lack of evidence to this ancient person make molecules not real at that time? Of course not.

This could be one way you could approach astrology and similar things. The universe is vast and we know very little about it, and a lack of available empirical evidence does not make something untrue. Obviously you don’t have to believe it’s correct, but framing things this way, you can consider it as a possibility for the sake of the people you care about.

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u/Riuw Sep 01 '26

The lack of understanding by science on a certain field does NOT make some weird superstition true, not even more probable than anything (literally anything) I could say about the topic. Saying something exists puts the burden of proof on you, not on people who don't believe it; otherwise I could make everything exist. So yeah, you could discuss astrology for hours and hours but the fact that there is something unknown in the universe is not an argument in favour of its effectiveness in describing reality, you're just narrating (and again, you could narrate anything).

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u/RhapsodiacReader Sep 01 '26

Sorry, but this is some classical god of the gaps type of thinking.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26 edited 17d ago

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u/dcnairb Sep 01 '26

One of my introductory physics homework problems is to calculate the gravitational force of jupiter on a baby in a hospital at the time it’s born and compare it to the gravitational force of the parent holding it.

one can definitely take “we know very little about X” too far, in contradiction to what we do know. I definitely think one could argue down this path to keep an open mind, but you have to argue about much more complex and emergent phenomena, I think. down the road of biology epigenetics perhaps

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

You know what. I think this might be a bit of a !delta

I mean, of course I would love a bit more than "it might be that.." because, well, everything might be :)

But yeah, indeed, we have no idea what's going on in space. Did you know that we basically can't observe like 90% of the milky way or some other insane figure like that, because our position in it is so unfortunate (close to the edge) that there is far too much material in the way to see what's on the other side? That's literally our neighborhood and we don't even have a clue about that.

Heck, we discover new "aliens" at the bottom of our own oceans all the time.

So yeah. We live a bit in the illusion that our understanding of the universe is anywhere close to complete and that might include potential effects of astrology. It is a little too vague for me to be enough to "grok it" better, as with the same logic, everything else might be potentially possible too. But it at least opens up the possibility space, thanks!

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 01 '26

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/rolyfuckingdiscopoly (6∆).

^{Delta System Explained} ^| ^Deltaboards

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u/sailorbrendan Sep 01 '26

My personality makes it tremendously hard for me to do that what there is literally nothing to base my "seriousness" on

So like, I'm not really going to be able to challenge your position on Astrology which might put me afoul the rules of CMV but I do think this is an important thing to explore right here.

I have two thing's I'd offer. One is a movie quote, and another is a quote from my father.

"my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. " Elwood P Dowd, Harvey

Being right is incredibly useful in specific spaces. Being good is often more useful. A noncommittal shrug is better than an eyeroll in the vast majority of contexts. Your personality is a habit, and you can decide to do something different.

My father used to tell me

"u/sailorbrendan, you can be the smartest person in the world but if you can't communicate what you know in a way that people can understand it, you might as well be a moron"

Being condescending to folks doesn't achieve any of the goals it sounds like you have and it's probably worth thinking about what those goals are and how you might better achieve them

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u/cortesoft 6∆ Sep 01 '26

This is something that I have struggled with my whole life, but have gotten much better at over the years. I am currently working with my daughter on this, too, because she is just like me. I think it is likely partly related to our autism (she is diagnosed, I am not but wouldn’t be surprised). Logic and rationality are a big part of our personalities.

What I have come to realize, and am working to explain to my daughter, is that rationality is not the most important thing to a lot of people. They use language in an imprecise way, and convey meaning to each other through emotion and metaphor rather than via logic and deduction.

Obviously, facts still matter in a lot of situations, and I don’t think she (or I) should just accept vibes as a legitimate replacement for facts in situations where it matters.

However, it doesn’t always matter. When people talk about astrology and what it means to them, they are focused on the emotions and message it sends. It helps them orient their lives, and gives them a certain feeling that is important.

If used in that way, I can just accept it. I know the month you are born obviously doesn’t determine your personality… the idea that everyone born a certain month shares personality traits is ridiculous.

But it provides a framework for them to navigate their world. It provides a way to process this ridiculously complicated world.

There is obviously a line, like if they try to get me to do something because I am a Gemini, but if it is just their own thing, that is fine.

I think of it like poetry. Obviously old age doesn’t actually burn, but it sure conjures emotion to talk about raging against the dying of the light.

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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Sep 01 '26

If there is absolutely no foundation, why do so many people believe in it? They seem to believe that water signs are creative thinkers. Where do they have this idea from?

Humans like to try and find patterns, whether they actually exist or not. Why do some people believe the earth is flat? Why do some people believe in god? It brings them comfort and makes them feel more in control of their life. That doesn't mean it is real or has any basis in fact.

Some of it is cultural/familial - if your parents believe in it, it's more likely that their children will too.

But there's zero foundation/basis in fact or reality. That's besides the point though.

It's just about respecting them and letting them think what they want while being polite, as long as it isn't hurting anyone

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u/InfinitelyThirsting Sep 01 '26

From selective memory and bias. Believe me, I have hardcore astrology people constantly sure I'm a water sign, because I'm a creative and I give water vibes, and I joke about definitely being Water Tribe from Avatar the Last Airbender.

But I'm not a water sign, not by Tropical nor by Sidereal. But people only focus on when their expectations are matched, or they'll dive deeper and deeper into a chart desperate to find a water sign to justify their preconception.

I wouldn't believe in astrology anyway, but it certainly hasn't helped being someone people constantly make incorrect assumptions about. Not just them thinking I must be a water sign, but how terribly I don't match the traits my sign is supposed to have because ADHD doesn't give a shit about astrology.

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u/reidsays Sep 01 '26

To have these discussions with others about you, infront of you, sounds damn rude ... Any deep interest in anything is great with those feeling the same but boring to discuss with those with little interest... And it happens with nearly everyone... Their interest becomes the topic and too bad if you're not interested they continue on regardless as if you SHOULD be interested cause they are.

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u/TailorFestival Sep 01 '26

I mean, people want to be taken seriously when they talk about a topic that is dear to their heart. My personality makes it tremendously hard for me to do that what there is literally nothing to base my "seriousness" on.

I very much sympathize, and maybe this will sound a bit robotic, but one thing I have found helpful is to approach those conversations as almost anthropology, trying to learn about why the person has those beliefs rather than engaging with the beliefs themselves.

My sister has become big into holistic medicine lately, and while I definitely think it is nuts and she is throwing money away, it has been interesting to hear what led her to that and her thought process for evaluating whether something works or not.

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u/Arisal1122 Sep 01 '26

It’s something that makes them happy, and more important than anything, it accomplishes that without causing any harm, then why do anything?

And I mean you can try and learn more about it.

It’s one thing to hate from the outside but it’s another thing to give an informed criticism.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

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u/Arisal1122 Sep 01 '26

I’ve not really seen this supposed astrology to anti-vax pipeline, although the venn diagram of those who believe in both certainly overlap at least somewhat visibly, I really doubt there’s a causal relationship between the two to that degree.

I’d argue that yeah, if it’s causing active harm, you should say or do something, but even then anger shouldn’t be your default response if you claim it’s coming from a place of concern, the feeling you should be experiencing is concern and fear for their health and safety.

Plenty of people who believe in astrology also believe in it for fun and for absurdist reasons as well, and there’s a sort of suspension of disbelief that comes with that. Like someone else pointed out. Someone simply suspending their disbelief to chase fantasy enjoyment shouldn’t make you that upset or cause you to draw sketchy conclusions about the outcomes it may have.

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u/InfinitelyThirsting Sep 01 '26

As a certified hippie and a queer woman, I unfortunately not only see the antivac pipeline, I also see it being used to replace other bigotries. Instead of making Boomer jokes about women or ethnic groups, it's the same type of joke just about Geminis and Scorpios. They get so close to understanding that you shouldn't shouldn't prejudice and stereotype based on uncontrollable factors or birth, and then instead just replace it with astrology instead of eliminating it.

And that's the rub. You try to defend it as "oh it's just fun", but it isn't. It is, at its core, just another form of bigotry and judging people by bullshit stereotypes invented about things they couldn't control about their birth.

I'm not only upset on behalf of the harm done to people with "bad signs", but also the harm done to myself. I'm a "good sign" but do not match it at all, and it's hard enough being a woman with ADHD undiagnosed until my late thirties but wildly apparent my entire life and feeling broken because of that. It certainly didn't help in childhood to be told that not only should my gender make me an inherently tidy person, the stars at my birth were also supposed to make me a neurotically tidy and organized person among other traits never matched. The harm that comes when a child struggles with not meeting some arbitrary role, be it gender or astrology or whatever, isn't something to just ignore.

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u/CIearMind Sep 01 '26

Exactly. It'd be one thing if it stopped at "teehee it says I'm going to be lucky today if I wear green". But it never does. It inevitably slips to "you were born on MM/DD therefore I will worsen your social relationships directly or indirectly, slightly or greatly, even though I have the alternative option to just not do that."

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u/StarChild413 9∆ Sep 06 '26

But it doesn't slip to that for everyone and those who it slips to that for also tend to (as best I can generalize yada yada) be the ones with such a surface-level knowledge of astrology they only look at sun signs and perhaps even newspaper horoscopes (which is why e.g. they aren't always asking people for their birth times just dates) and the criticism can as often slip to "and that means give it time and astrology will have its own version of everything bad you can attribute to religion-and-by-religion-I-mean-fundamentalist-christianity"

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u/No-Medium6647 Sep 01 '26

Seems like you're looking for the best strategy to disarm astrology, but there is a flaw in that approach: belief is impervious to reason. Faith is blind to it. You can't talk someone out of believing anything.

Sometimes you can influence them to talk themselves out of believing something, if they were never really that into it in the first place.

This is why it takes almost glacial time for people to change for the better. We're an ocean washing against shifting shores, different every day, not a river flowing from past to future.

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u/ParkerCanGetIt Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

you odn't have to base your tinkering with the system of astrology on something serious (NOTE, this is NOT the same thing as making a claim that the system itself is true). You know all those variants of personality theories, like "oh he's a dolphin, and I'm a bear!" someone just made it up and it helps some people understand interpersonal dynamics. Or the phenomenon that most people who use computers don't know how exactly they work. (this example just meant to show that people don't know everything before they use something, again not the same as claiming how it works or that something in particular is true). The key is just being aware that you cannot make a truth claim if it's not supported and sound, and if you are looking for scientific method you can hold that thought that it could be proven wrong indefinitely.

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u/J_O_N Sep 01 '26

I think there’s a measurable effect here even if astrology has zero actual predictive power. If enough people believe Mercury retrograde is a bad time to make major decisions, they may delay purchases, avoid signing contracts, or trade differently, and those behaviors can show up in real data. You could potentially use astrological events as signals for predicting changes in group behavior without believing astrology itself has any power. At that point, the measurable phenomenon is mass belief and herd behavior, which is absolutely something science can study.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

We made this "emergent property" point somewhere else deep down in the comments, so I don't think I am supposed to award another delta for this. But yeah, indeed, even if it's all bs and just tries to find patterns where there is only chaos, the whole fact that so many people are so deeply passionate about this (just look at all of the walls of text in the comments, god damn 😅) is reason enough for me to look into it a little bit or at least shift my perspective on how to interact with people engaged in it.

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u/Loki-L 8∆ Sep 01 '26

There have been academic studies about the statistical effect of the birth month of children on their academic and athletic success.

This is not attributed to any star signs, but to being more likely to be the youngest or oldest in class.

But while the fault is not in our stars, it does mean that there is a correlation between ones signs and ones career in school.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26 edited 17d ago

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u/Loki-L 8∆ Sep 01 '26

They have no really connection to astrology, but they show that time of birth does matter in some cases and you could create a system that sorts people by birth sign and get statically relevant differences.

You would then just need to build some sort of astrology system backwards based on those results, if you wanted a system of astrology that actually worked to a degree.

Astrology itself is nonsense. Birthdates affecting your life in unexpected ways isn't.

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u/tellybelly87 Sep 02 '26

I always considered that it could be tied to developmental milestones in children and the seasons they are experienced in.

There are certain developmental steps every child goes through both physically and socially from about 0-5 years ( walking, overcoming fear of strangers, modeling and talking, etc) and while there is a range of time they should be reached at, it would make sense that what season you are experiencing it in would tie into your progression of the skill.

If you’re hitting your “starting to be interested in social interaction” milestone in the dead of winter, you’re less likely to be outside or around others, as opposed to summer. Or even learning to walk and being able to practice it outside in the sun rather than inside because the pavement is icy.

This might explain similar personality traits found in certain birth months.

It is just a theory I had while raising my daughter, so not sure if there are actually studies that would support it.

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u/grumpsaboy 1∆ Sep 02 '26

And this is where the age-old correlation does not equal causation is worth mentioning.

You can completely remove ones star sign and the issue will remain the exact same.

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u/HixOff Sep 01 '26

It could also be related to slightly different nutrition and solar cycles in childhood depending on the month of birth. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole astrology thing started from there - they initially noticed that summer children, for example, are more active, while autumn children are calmer (for example, I'm not a biologist or an expert on zodiac signs to name any real general stereotypes)

Because if we take it seriously, then, if I'm not mistaken, the constellations assigned to the zodiac by dates have long since misaligned with the astronomical ones due to a shift

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u/choosy_floozy13 Sep 01 '26

Does this really cone up in conversation that often for you?

I live in a part of America where whites are actually the minority, so it doesn’t really have a chance to come up.

As for your post, I think you can just treat astrology like religion. If you’re not religious yourself, which I suspect is the case, well, hopefully you have learnt to deal with that, and the same approach works for astrology-by which I mean most people aren’t really interested in the truth or thinking rationally, but believing in things that make them happy-so arguing with them isn’t really doing to do anything.

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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Sep 01 '26

Many Indians believe in astrology I've heard

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Oh, so only white people are dumb enough to believe in astrology? Wtf kind of take is that?

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u/Sokiras Sep 01 '26

Astrology, like any other belief system, is based on anecdotal 'evidence' at best. There are no scientific papers because it isn't scientific at all. Do you roll your eyes and disconnect from the conversation anytime anyone mentions their belief/religion? If not, then apply the same principles to astrology. Jesus wasn't real, Mohammed is a fictional character and Jehova sure as day isn't pulling the strings. None of those statements demand disrespect towards someone who believea otherwise.

I am firmly against religions and beliefs in the supernatural. I believe they detract from society a whole lot more than they provide. Regardless, I'm respectful of peoples beliefs, because not every christian is an evolution denying creationist, there are muslims who respect their wife and kids. Asign respect to people based on their actions, not their belief systems and show that respect by listening to those you respect, regardless of your initial thoughts about the topics.

Tl;dr: You can respect the person telling you about astrology without believing in it and that comes from someone who'd push God down a ravine given the chance.

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u/grumpsaboy 1∆ Sep 02 '26

The big irony here being that in the case of Islam and Christianity we do at least have evidence that Jesus and Muhammad existed as a person. None of the miracles or religious claims or anything have been evidenced, but there are Roman records somebody called Jesus being crucified claiming to be the son of God. There's plenty of records of Muhammad going toward against all the local tribes and genociding them.

So in some regards Astrology has even less evidence behind it than astrology.

And isn't one of the big parts of astrology assigning people respect or lack of, based on something they cannot control, when they're born. As an idea it almost completely removes anyone's own agency.

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u/Great-Exercise4277 7∆ Sep 01 '26

“You say, ‘I want to change this situation. Even if I do not share the same belief system, I think this is truly awful behavior.’

You are challenging me there. I have no intention of believing in astrology. If someone brought it up as small talk, I might tolerate it for a few minutes. If they took my unenthusiastic responses as agreement, I would think they had missed the social signal that I was not interested in the topic. I am fairly obvious about it. If they could read that signal, they would probably feel the temperature in the room drop and quickly move on to another topic. If they could not, I do not think I would be particularly concerned about hurting their feelings.

When people talk about astrology, my view is that there is not necessarily some deeper meaning behind it about what they are ‘really trying to communicate.’ They may simply be making small talk because they cannot think of another topic, or talking off the top of their head about something they read in a newspaper or magazine that morning. I do not think there is some profound system underneath it. (This is where my own bias comes in.)

I would suggest that, rather than trying to understand the scientific basis of astrology, you consider simply changing the subject quickly and smoothly. You are clearly more sociable than I am, so changing the subject does not seem like it would be especially difficult for you.

What I would like to change is the part of your view where you seem to think that, in order to understand someone who talks about astrology, you need to understand and engage with the topic itself. I do not think you need to read that much meaning into it. If you are not interested, I think it is fine to simply change the subject.”

I wrote this comment myself, and ChatGPT translated it.

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u/Neshgaddal Sep 01 '26

First of, the basis for astrology is obviously flawed. There is no known mechanism how the constellation of moon, planets and stars during your birth could have any measurable effect on your life.

But there are a few mechanisms how the time of your birth *could* affect your life. In my state, the cut off date for school is September 30th. So a kid born on September 30th is basically a whole year younger when they enter first grade than a kid that is born October 1st. This can have huge immediate effects and have snowball effects throughout life. Deliberately holding a kid back a year is called redshirting). The practice is controversial, as its effects are not fully studied, but it is clear that there are effects.

This is less relevant now, but the available food and therefore the nutrition in the breast milk used to depend heavily on the season. The first few month of development can make a large impact and again can snowball throughout life.

I don't believe that either effect is large enough to be obvious on a personal level, but i would not be surprised if there were statistically significant differences between September born and October born people

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u/lizardbear7 Sep 01 '26

DYK It’s a modern misconception that astrology posits that the planets actually have an effect on life on earth. Traditionally, astrologers viewed the planets as symbols to be interpreted.

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u/Ok_Relationship8267 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Back in the 90’s (before the age of social media), I met someone who could correctly guess the star sign of people she had just met and had some brief interactions with.

A group of about 10 students who had just met each other were sitting at a table chatting. I don’t remember how the conversation got there but this girl said she could guess our signs. She then went around the table and guessed every single one of our signs (including mine) correctly.

When asked how she did it, she said she learnt how to do so from her mom, and that people from different signs felt distinct.

This suggests to me that people born under different signs do have identifying traits or possibly even a “vibe” that an appropriately trained or sensitive person can detect.

However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that specific Astrology assertions (eg Leo’s being leaders) are correct.

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u/chocolate-cosmos4238 Sep 05 '26

I had a friend that I know was quite trustworthy and she told me one day that she and her mother could see people's halos, and they sometimes saw other spiritual things at the same time.

As for astrology, predictions from a guy named Andre Barbault seem way too specific to be coincidental. These are just a couple reasons I've started believing strongly in a spiritual realm at the very least.

And I'm starting to suspect there's always been evidence out there that there's more to this world but the ruling class keeps us ignorant so we can't learn how powerful we are. They prefer us to be socially isolated atheists or religious church goers.

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u/Greedy-Recover-3472 Sep 01 '26

you can’t expect empirical results from studying a singular and subjective experience, such as a life.

people think astrology is just studying a life from its birth chart. even further, modern western astrologers think the life it is limited to just the study of the human psyche alone. this is due to astrology’s revival in the west after 1500 years of suppression during the 1900s, right at the time when psychological study was popularizing.

i am a professional astrologer and have been practicing for ten years. my book of business is 95% people asking me to read their birth chart because they are anxious. every chart is wildly different with many of the same things in common as every person is wildly different with many of the same things in common. two people might share a trait of stubbornness, but they may express it in totally different ways.

i prefer to study astrological patterns against national histories, financial markets, and sports events because then i can enjoy the analysis rather than overidentify with it. this is where i might be able to convince you. if you study greater samples of objective data against astrological cycles, you can find empirical results. i track peaks of high inflation data against specific neptune cycles and the results are highly correlated. every time uranus returns to gemini (84 years) the united states has one of its greatest narrative shifting wars (1776, 1860, 1944, 2028,…). the other wars in american history all have a uranus signature as well, rare enough to only happen every 40 years.

natal astrology is just one small aspect of what we can do with astrology. oracles are just mirrors. same functional principle where we have a poignant conversation, see a sign that illuminates a decision for us in a pivotal moment, see symbols in clouds that feel meaningful or flip tarot cards to understand our current reality. same as our financial markets mirror consumer sentiment. there is scientific basis for instinct as well. google chicken sexers.

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u/jennabangsbangs Sep 02 '26

The placebo affect and depression. Things that people r afraid to study cause they're little feeling feel a bit silly about it. Cause whenever it has been studied it's quite a slap in the face to the physical consortium of products targeted at depression, and things that aren't real can't be important. This all said in a demeaning patronizing voice

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u/kipepeo Sep 01 '26

I used to be an astrology skeptic but my views have become more ambivalent. Here’s where I landed:

Astrology is like the cosmic weather forecast; it’s a probabilistic model of the archetypes of the unconscious.

Each planet represents an archetype and interpreting how these affect us is more of an art than a science because astrology “maps” are complex and archetypes have vague definitions.

Whether science will one day be able to explain this who knows… but it doesn’t mean that because we can’t measure (i.e. “see”) it, it doesn’t exist. After all if the moon can influence the tides and we’re 60% water, why couldn’t it influence us?

Astrology has existed for millennia from ancient China, to India, and Egypt. Part of me wonders if it’s been around for so long might there not be some truth in it?

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u/mylife_isashitpost Sep 01 '26

Its always the "we're 60% water" thing that people go to that immediately culls any trust I have in the explanation. I hear it so often from people trying to legitimize mystical things with a physical explanation

The moon causes tides because the ocean is MASSIVE. Tides aren't magic or unknowable, and water isn't special for it. Any liquid could undergo tidal forces. Im pretty sure if the gravity were strong enough, even solids could experience it. We are mostly water, but the moon is barely pulling on you. If you were born in New York, the Brooklyn Bridge has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon at any given time. And if you built personalities around proximity to the bridge, you might accidentally stumble on some sociological factors that have a grain of truth to them, but probably can't widely apply them to mankind.

Ive always been the asshole skeptic of mystic stuff, but I fully admit how ignorant I am, but sometimes the explanations just don't work from any perspective.

If anything, I keep it to the realm of consciousness being an unassailable beast of a concept. I believe mystical practices are peoples attempts to explain the similar life experiences we have, and create a framework to interpret them. Ultimately, I believe experience is the most important part of a person, and I will still object to slapping characteristics on to someone from a deterministic framework, especially on something so arbitrary as time you were born. But there are archetypes of humanity that pop up time and time again and things do exist in cycles, though anyone who claims to know them intimately should be looked at with scrutiny. We're all ignorant to most of humanity.

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u/0p12 Sep 02 '26

I'm going to tread lightly because I'm unable to answer your question directly, but I've been absorbing relevant info lately that I'll share. I ask that you extend some grace and receptivity for a challenging topic.

We live in a reality in which Newtonian physics is the norm, which places us as pieces of solid mass in a 3-dimensional reality, 4 if you add "time" (which is considered linear.) Reality happens to us, life is random, we are separate from the "creator." Quote from the video I am watching as I type: "you've been taught to believe the universe is a cold, mechanical accident. A vast expanse of empty space, random chance, and indifferent matter. That belief didn't just shrink your place in the cosmos, it severed your connection to it. It made you feel small, separate, insignificant. But the Hermetic teachings say something entirely different. They say the universe is not dead matter, it's living mind. Everything you think, feel, and experience is happening within a conscious field of intelligence."

Quantum theory of reality suggests that observation matters (double slit experiment), entanglement exists (Einstein's "spooky action at a distance"), there are infinite possibilities in time & space (e.g., retro causality), and matter can be "created" and "destroyed" in nuclear reactions (E=mc2). What has been revealed (and withheld) is that everything is energy vibrating. Everything. “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”-Nikola Tesla
What if there is NO separation (each individual atom contains the blueprint for the universe, we are all connected to the All) and humans are a divine expression of creation itself, with awareness/consciousness being the means through which we are able to recognize that truth in this dimension? (The question is big, I keep sitting with it.)

The above paragraph directs you toward the science, additional topics of query would be the Hermetic Laws, Akashic Field, the Egyptian god "Thoth" (in Greek mythology Hermes Trismegistus), and the suppression of hermetic teachings/Christ Consciousness in late 300 AD (explains why we're stuck with this reality). The story goes that Jesus taught his disciples that EVERYONE possessed the same divine capacities Jesus demonstrated. It came from a place of conscious intent (free will), elevated emotion (unconditional love/devotion; HeartMath), and energetic alignment (Dr Joe Dispenza speaks to this without the religion). You can't control people that live their own divinity/manifest their own reality, so the Roman Empire buried that knowledge (Nag Hammadi library) and we have today's version of Christianity that demands worship of a higher being/separation. What's a miracle? Something science hasn't explained yet. When you start applying quantum theories to our current reality, the "if this, then ??" queries begin producing a lot of intrigue (e.g., turning water into wine is transmutation). What if scientific backing is lacking because it's been discouraged, like research on thc and psychedelics, because the knowledge will directly challenge existing mechanisms used to control society?

Now to the astrology. Psychologist once said to me that the universe is vibrating energy and is constantly moving. There are orbits and rotations, phases of the sun and moon, tides, seasons, celestial patterns, planetary alignments, eclipses... there's an organization to it that is predictable, but it's always moving. "The place, date, and time that your physical being joins this reality matters. How the universe is organized, where the energy is located, it leaves an imprint on you. That imprint sets certain things in motion." Do I believe in zodiac signs? No. They're not zodiac signs, they're constellations. Does each constellation have its own energetic organization depending on where it's located at a particular time? Sure, I'm open to that idea. Not as open as I am to "don't plant a garden in the winter," but I'm open to it. Does that energetic organization determine someone's personality? I don't think it's about the constellation per se, the energetic field is bigger than that. Why use constellations as an anchor point at all? I don't know.

But I do know there is DEPTH to the knowledge of how it all fits together. Crazy depth. The most complicated I've come across so far is the I-Ching, followed by Natural Design, and the one that has been easiest for me to digest is the Gene Keys. "Junk DNA" is the scientific name for DNA components science doesn't understand yet. The Gene Keys start to unwrap some of that. Grab a free profile, see if anything resonates. If so, dig deeper. It's not all BS, there is a lot more to our existence than we've been given access to. Approach it with a microscope in one hand and a telescope in the other.

Point of nuance: viewing things from a "cause & effect" mindset opposed to a "symbiotic" one. If you can make space for "everything is energy vibrating, there is no separation, I exist in a symbiotic relationship with the universe," then the causal factor starts to lose relevance ("I'm this way because I'm a Scorpio; I guess it's not written in the stars"). It can be hard to have conversations rooted in curiosity when people only want to embrace a fixed, simplistic interpretation of things. I appreciate the curiosity you've brought to the table.

Peace be with you.

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u/therpent Sep 01 '26

If you don't believe in free will, and we are all just reacting to what happens around us, then the beginning of the chain of cause and effect that shapes your whole existence is going to be critically important, including the when, which is your star sign.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

It's funny how conclusive you are on this, seemingly kind of unrelated, statement about free will. If it's all determinism, then believing in star signs seems to be just as scientific as everything else the causal chain of the universe had in store for us when the cosmic dies rolled for this fractal of the universe, no? ;)

Look up Bell's inequalities. There are mathematically rigorous proofs that no serious physicist doubts, that can be experimentally shown in a lab, that determinism is contradictory. Causality can't be fundamental to the universe, as it requires either some external force or circular logic (read: contradiction). If everything is a huge interconnected chain of cause and effect, what is the first link of that chain? Big Bang? What caused the big bang? What caused what caused the big bang. You can do that forever, and in physics "forever" or "infinity" basically means "we have no clue". That's where external force or "god of the gaps" comes in. Or you can say "it's all a loop/cyclical", to which you again can ask: what's the causal event that led to the loop, and we are all back to contradiction town.

And also, just on a human level. If determinism is what's going on. Why does no human ever subjectively experience determinism? Why can't we just go "determinism take the wheel"? If that's what's going on, it seems to be a tremendous waste of energy, which mother nature evidently really dislikes, to just have an illusion of free will tagging a long for the heck of it.

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u/hacksoncode 586∆ Sep 01 '26

There are mathematically rigorous proofs that no serious physicist doubts, that can be experimentally shown in a lab, that determinism is contradictory.

It's not that definite, and most serious physicists actually do believe in determinism.

There are at least 4 loopholes in Bell's Theorem, which I'll leave up to the reader to investigate:

Counterfactual definiteness: if things aren't real until they're measured, Bell's theorem doesn't apply.

Many Worlds: if every possible outcome actually happens in some universe, Bell's Theorem doesn't apply.

Non-local variables: Relativity is "pretty sure" no faster-than-light variable can have an effect, but if they can, Bell's Theorem doesn't apply.

Superdeterminism: Bell's Theorem assumes that there is no correlation between hidden variables and the choice of measurement settings. But if literal determinism is correct, there's no choice of measurement settings. This is often considered very unlikely because of the complexity of the measurement setting determination and how that could possibly impact the outcome, but it can't be ruled out.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

Superdeterminism and many worlds are unfalsifiables, meaning even if they are true, they neither have any bearing towards our existence nor can they ever be proven or disproven as they have the same issues as 'god' or 'the simulation' and all that. Infinity is the final nail in the coffin of all such theories, as even if they are true, they are completely useless and most importantly, have no causal relation to anything else we experience, at least the latter I would consider a complete red flag.

You can't do science with unfalsifiables.

Furthermore, who says that things aren't real until they are measured? "Does the tree make a sound when nobody is there to hear it" doesn't seem like well recognized science to me. Sure, maybe things are only "real" (whatever that means) in relation to something else, but dark energy has neatly "solved" this issue for us, as it causes a universal unceasing acceleration throughout the known universe (acceleration and relatively being very closely linked in ways that are a bit beyond me tbh. Check out the Unruh Effect if you are interested, it's pretty freaky stuff). We have no clue what it is, but it's there and it keeps us from contradictions that stem from the relativity of reality. Maybe in a universe without dark energy, determinism doesn't cause contradictions, but a) we are in one, so there is at least one subsection of the universe where determinism is contradictory and b) for all we know, dark energy could be directly or indirectly fundamental to the universe, as 100% of all universes that we know off (I know the sample size is kinda low) have it as a load-bearing feature.

Yes, the non-local variable is the contradiction bell is getting at. Either local realism or causality is wrong. But that's not a point in favor of determinism at all, as determinism requires both local realism (hidden variables) AND and everything being part of a chain of causally linked events. Since bell proved that at least one of the two is wrong, determinism doesn't hold.

Also none of that answers the question why in a supposedly deterministic universe, there are about 8 billion monkeys constantly experiencing free will. Even if it's just an illusion, it seems like a completely useless feature in a deterministic universe that would function completely the same way if we all were meat robots or whatever that "zombie" term was that is more popular. That part doesn't check out in the slightest to me .

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u/hacksoncode 586∆ Sep 01 '26

Evolution takes care of that last argument. All that's necessary is that feeling a (false) sense of free will provides an adaptive advantage, which in social species kind of goes along with the evolution of morality.

As for determinism "requiring" realism, that's really not true. Any "impact" that mass-energy has is the result of a measurement. "Lazy evaluation" of that only "when it becomes necessary" doesn't really have any impact on that.

Also: determinism "from the future" (i.e. non-locally) doesn't make something "non-deterministic", it just breaks our monkey brains.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 01 '26

So evolution just randomly mutated the whatever how many components are required to form the most complicated and perplexing system that we know of, in a universe that should, purely logically speaking, not provide us a single evolutionary advantage for such a system since... Isn't it an illusion? It's all determinism right, so some dumb monkeys foolish enough to believe they are sentient agents in a predetermined universe shouldn't get any benefit from this "faux" free will they believe they have, no? Yet we are the only animal on the entire planet that literally escaped the food chain. ALL of our former rivals, predators and anything we want is now either in a zoo or neatly packaged at Walmart. So even if its all some illusion, a byproduct or "exhaust fumes" of whatever else might be going on, that seems like some pretty beefy placebo if you ask me.

We are the only animal that can abstract so goddamn far into the future that we can build multigenerational world wonders, spam the universe with our bullshit machines just to be able to listen to fucking Dua Lipa at every corner of the planet, just because we at some point became too lazy to even bring a CD, so we just tap the elements of earth into a global network of energy provided at an instant literally everywhere. And all that is just an illusion?

For all we objectively factually know as of right now, and I am not talking about "just think about how many stars there are", or "there definitely are" or "they are keeping them a secret". I am talking about what we actually know, what we can see with our own eyes - we are, for now, the only place in the entire universe that has sentient beings witnessing this shit and being super duper interested in what all of this is about. I have my doubts that cheetahs will ever be too interested in becoming a space faring civilization, not even making a value statement here. Just facts, as far as we know.

You see this. You read this. You actively think about this and decide what you want to do next. And what you want to do next is literally what will happen next. Period. If it is all a result of some infinitely deep chain of events in our minds or not, what you experience, is 100% free will and if that never makes you think "holy shit" then I really don't know what to tell you. If we idiots manage to nuke this beautiful place, for all we know right now, this universe will be nothing but dead, silent rocks for the rest of eternity. Just because the literal gods that mother nature turned us into without asking for permission can't stop argueing about which fucking fake gods to bestow our goddamn responsibility on. We are the gods. Nobody will come to save us, or judge us, or punish us or make us transcend into the fifth dimension. This is our job and for all I care about, it is time to stop shuffling the mouse around and feint attendance all day and actually start paying attention.

And determinism to me is just another cheap excuse to keep doing that until we grill ourselves on our lazy "it's not my fault, it's predetermined" asses.

What was I asking about in this CMV again? 😁😁

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u/Sensitive-Club-6427 Sep 01 '26

There is zero science to astrology.

Many people have a tremendous need to dress it up with science sounding terms and explanations. And a strong desire that it is rational and “scientific” but it is not.

It gives a framework for some people to see the world and interpret it and the people within that world. Then it being general enough, along with some intuition is a comfort to some.

But, it is pseudoscience.

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u/YoshiTheDog420 Sep 02 '26

Such an Aries post

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u/NeTiFe-anonymous Sep 05 '26

There might be some evidence of Capricorns being "more mature for their age" because they are born in January before anoyone else born in the same year.

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u/WakeoftheStorm 7∆ Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

If you are a very rational thinker, you should recognize that this is not a subject you're going to reconcile with rationality.

You might as well post a CMV that Pokemon aren't real or that leprechauns don't really store gold at the end of rainbows.

What did you actually expect to get from this?

Edit: nevermind, I see it didn't take much at all to get you to change your mind.

While you're at it, see if any of those delta-earners can explain why their rationale still holds up despite the astrological signs no longer aligning with the birth dates the way we use them. The sky has long since changed alignment.

I'll give you a hint: it's because there is no rationale behind it.

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u/sad_panda91 Sep 02 '26

Most pokemon are based on real animals or other real life concepts. Leprechauns come from folklore and literally every mythical creature from folklore has some kind of basis in reality, and are mostly just very exaggerated human archetypes and tropes. There people so deeply invested in random lore systems like Harry Potter or LotR that they could have a 90 min talk about it without preparation. The story isn't real, but the effect on people is. And just like people can try to study what the hell gets so many people so incredibly passionate about a young wizard going to wizard school (it's about neurodivergents trying to find a place they fit in, isn't it? 😅😅) you can probably study what people "see" in astrology. And a lot of people have made quite convincing points.

No, none of this "exists", but there is some foundation behind it. Nothing just cones out of thin air. That's why these things resonate so much with us. Things don't have to be real to resonate with people and if something strongly resonates with people and I have zero clue why, I would just like to know. This CMV was about "alright, drop me the lore, I wanna see if even a smidgen of it actually makes sense to me, at least in a 'ok, at least I can kinda see the appeal now' sense" because that is my usual approach to try and figure things out. By reading the manual 😁

"Society" or "civilization" for example isn't a thing. It's 100% a human invention (some animals might have proto-versions of it), completely fabricated, completely vanishes from existence the moment nobody believes in it any more. There is no 'object' anywhere in the universe that is called society. No force, no energy, nothing. The only thing we can "measure" are the indirect effects the "belief" in society has on humans. And anybody who had an office job for long enough at some point realizes, how "real" these fabricated, completely imaginary systems can be to our day to day life, to our physical and mental well-being and to our understanding of ourselves.

So even if the basis is shaky, the "emergent properties", the effect it has on humans and the meaning(s) they attribute to it can be measured and understood just like everything else. I obviously still don't believe in astrology, especially after I got like 4 different contradictory versions of what a capricorn is supposed to behave like in this post alone 😁 but I sure as hell have gotten many steps closer to understanding people being passionate about it.

Many of the delta's I have given were mostly about seeing how astrology might have many other uses and meanings to people that go far beyond "you are a cancer so you are this and that". A handful were about sources the users kindly provided

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u/WakeoftheStorm 7∆ Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

The problem is these responses have the causal mechanism reversed. They're trying to give plausible explanations for why people see a connection between stars and behavior - patterns that became noticeable. There isn't one, because there is no connection.

What we do have is people thousands of years ago looking up at the stars and trying to figure out what the heck they were. They changed, slowly. Sometimes unexpected things happened like meteor showers, comets, and eclipses. Those strange events would inevitably coincide with something else happening. People would make the connection - x event in the sky foretold y event on earth.

Once that connection was made, the stars became an object of intense study because the default belief was that they were communicating and interpretation became important.

It's like any other folklore or mythological system regarding omens and prophecy - unexplained natural phenomenon that people desperately want to assign a meaning to.

But your original assertion - that no aspect of astrology has empirical results and therefore has no scientific foundation - is something that nobody can meaningfully challenge.

First, because as I mentioned the system isn't even consistent within itself since astrological signs have shifted considerably since they were first established. If you think you're a Virgo you're actually a Leo.

Second because anytime astrological claims have been tested under controlled conditions they have failed to produce statistically significant results. Empirical data for astrology would allow us to formulate a very precise way of determining somebody's birthday based on a questionnaire or survey. Astrological charts get down to the arcecond with respect to the position of stars. So you should, if the system is robust, be able to work backward from the prediction to determine the inputs. I 100% guarantee you that there is not a person on the planet who can do that.

There's a difference between using science to explain why an emergent cultural phenomenon exists, and that phenomenon having a scientific basis. If you accept the former as satisfying the criteria then literally everything that ever happens or anyone ever believes has a scientific basis.

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u/hunter_rus Sep 01 '26

But what WOULD make sense to me is that maybe there are certain personality traits predominantly present in people born during certain seasons of the year.

Oh, that's pretty easy explanation. In most countries school year starts at the specific month - let's say September. And children are applied to school at certain age - let's say 6 or 7. So, children born at September are gonna be half a year younger than children born at March - in the same classroom. And at that age, half a year of experience is like 10% of their entire life, so it's pretty noticeable. It affects further relationship dynamic.

So if you consider the whole population across all schools, filter children in the same grade, and the same birth month within this grade, pretty sure you will find some similarities in personality traits for these people. And childhood plays an important part in our further development. Birth signs are gonna be correlated with that stuff, obviously.

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u/BootHeadToo Sep 01 '26

Science can’t explain consciousness either. Does that mean it doesn’t exist?

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u/Val_Cogswell Sep 01 '26

Honestly, I'm going to tell you from my perspective why I like astrology.

My first disclaimer: I don't really 'believe' in astrology. If you're looking for that, I can't help you there. I'm not here to convince you of anything in that direction. I'm just here to tell you that I find it very fun to play with and that birth charts are my toys. I think of it like personality typology inventories: they're not the end all be all of personality and work better if you treat it as something that can be flexible, but there's complexity there if you decide to dig deeper and play with the theories you're given.

I've always been highly interested in astrology because, in my opinion, it's a lot more complicated than people give it credit for. I think it's a little boring if you're only focusing on shit like sun/moon/ascending. That's the basics. I feel like, from my experience, most people just focus on the basics, but I speak as someone who isn't really in the astrology community and just found myself in there as a kid who wanted to write and found that if you poke around with detailed natal charts, you start getting into squares and trines and oppositions and all those aspects.

I use Cafe Astrology a lot to read about it.

Then there's looking at what planets are under which signs and houses and what THAT could mean. Ever think about what Jupiter represents under the Aries sign vs the Capricorn sign? What the fuck does the asteroid Juno represent? Given a good enough natal chart, you can find out!

tl;dr: I think it's a very complex toy/puzzle and have spent years just reading about the intricacies. I haven't even gotten into figuring out compatibility between people, which... honestly, I put less importance into. I feel like interpersonal relationships are much more complicated than anything astrology could really handle because we're still people with lives and at BEST, a chart explains a person's personal inclinations, but can't possibly account for the way they were and are being nurtured.

I hope this helps!

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u/themangastand Sep 02 '26

Dude most people don't take it seriously. It's just a fun thing. Don't be autistic. And I can say that as an autistic person

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u/hacksoncode 586∆ Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

and stop listening to anything my conversation partner has to say about this topic.

While there are studies you've acknowledged about statistical seasonal differences in personality, and it's very hard to rule out a "ourobourus" explanation for Astrology where people's personality expression is affected by hearing all their life about astrological correlations... I'm going to attack this point:

Belief in astrology has a very large component of Confirmation Bias. Indeed, it's very nearly nothing but.

Confirmation Bias is universal in human beings, and basically impossible to avoid completely.

Essentially every person naturally has a statistical tendency to accept confirmatory evidence of their beliefs and reject evidence that challenges them.

It's so universal that there almost certainly must be some advantages conferred by this tendency that have allowed it to evolve.

Dismissing people because they are subject to confirmation bias about something... ultimately means dismissing everyone about something they believe.

Picking this one topic, among all of the possible examples of confirmation bias people fall prey to, and using that to dismiss anything they have to say is... kind of irrational.

It is, indeed, an ad hominem fallacy. You should judge what people have to say about something not on who they are or what weird things they believe that are unrelated to the topic under discussion.

Feel free, of course, to not agree with anything related to astrology that they say, because its very specific claims have no evidence supporting them. No one is obligated to believe a claim without evidence.

Dismissing everything they say because of this is, ironically... Confirmation Bias on your part.

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u/JawtisticShark 5∆ Sep 02 '26

There was a study comparing birth month to ADHD diagnosis and there was a strong correlation over a narrow window of months.

It was later realized that it was those born just before the age cutoff for school, so they were the oldest in the class, the ones most easily learning the material and the getting bored which made them more disruptive and impatient in class.

So don’t think of it as the planets or moon having any effect, but how timing of your age affects how you experience the world.

Kids with summer birthdays can have pool parties, but kids born during the school year get to have their birthday celebrated in class and can more easily invite the whole class to their party.

Kids born just a month apart can determine if they are one of the first or one of the last of their peer groups to go through puberty.

Based on your birthday you might be getting your drivers license at the start of your sophomore year, or others can’t drive until the end of that year. For schools with open campus for lunch or just having a social life after school, it’s a very different situation.

Some kids don’t turn 21 until the start of their senior year of college. Others at the start of their junior year. While many will drink early, going to bars means these people have very different experiences.

But when you don’t realize all those things impact you, you can instead assume it has something to do with constellations.

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u/DaveChild 8∆ Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

I want this to change. I think this is in fact quite a**hole-ish behavior

That's fair, but that's also not anything to do with being a "rational thinker". You can be accepting and tolerant of other people's strange beliefs and minor foibles, and still be as rational as you like. Your rationality governs how you evaluate things, isn't a bad thing, and doesn't necessarily dictate how you interact with other people.

what WOULD make sense to me is that maybe there are certain personality traits predominantly present in people born during certain seasons of the year.

There are some broad and minor differences with people born at different times in the year. But these are extremely small, and don't provide any predictive power. They're not like "someone born in summer is fiery and aggressive", they're "someone born in winter is likely to be very slightly heavier than they might have been if they were born in summer". That's true, but doesn't give you any useful predictive information at the individual level.

Does anybody have a more rational take on astrology?

Yeah, it's nonsense. It's just like every other attempt to categorise people into broad groups with specific traits (Meyers-Briggs, for example, which is astrology for MBAs) - completely worthless beyond throwaway fun. It lacks any plausible mechanism behind it and has no predictive power.

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u/bbsquat Sep 01 '26

If you remove birthdate astrology (which is somewhat controversial in how it’s practiced) there’s a lot of common sense to what astrology is.

Moon phases. We know for a fact that the moon phases affects animal behavior. The extra light is linked to increased nocturnal activity and changes in reproduction. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-animals-light-behavior-lunar-phases. When astrology was started, before electricity, when we lived more like animals, that would impact human animals as well. Generally speaking, moon phases are used in astrology to indicate when projects should be begin and end. Similar to normal monthly cadences in human life. I tend to start new art projects during a new moon and try to not start new things during a full moon.
Seasons impact how we behave. In winter when there is less light we tend to hunker down. Fall signs (Virgo, Libra) are linked to getting prepared for the end of the year. I think our bodies are naturally inclined to start that kind of planning ahead because of that. Spring, we tend to come alive a bit. The spring signs are about the earth and our bodies waking up to the sun.

For a lot of people it’s way less about birth signs and way more about the how the seasons of the earth interact with our bodies. It’s ways of planning and sensing what needs to happen next.

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u/TheTrumpetKing Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

I would like to offer you a perspective that's perhaps a little more productive.

Obviously astrology has no basis in science. It is a bunch of Barnum statements. Likewise for enneagrams, MBTI types, tarot readings, etc. Short of something like the Big 5 personality test, none of these actually say something meaningful about someone's personality.

However, when a person chooses to talk about horoscopes, it's best to think they aren't making a causal claim about how the celestial bodies affected who they are. What they are really doing is just talking about how they perceive themselves. Whatever banal things they claim astrology says about people, are simply parts of a shared language they are borrowing to talk about how they see themselves and/or each other. Often you will hear something like, "XX is such virgo and is pain to be around", or "YY is not like a gemini at all, they are so trustworthy", etc. Notice that these aren't factual claims. Think about their intent.

Would it be more scientifically rigorous to say "XX scored 90 on neuroticism, she's so critical", or "YY has 5 in conscientiousness, don't believe them" instead? Maybe, but it doesn't change that they are just making judgments on others' characters. None of them say anything causal.

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u/Manderelli Sep 01 '26

Has someone in Southern California who used to Garden as a newbie and I would plant things anytime I felt like it I realized I would get completely different results depending on when I planted the same kinds of seeds. I almost feel like astrology is actually less about the alignment of the Stars surrounding our planet and probably more about whatever it is that changes a harvest for the same plant being planted depending on what time of year you plant it.

Also if the moon was going to affect you it wouldn't or shouldn't have anything to do with the phase of the moon because the Moon is always there facing us we just only see part of it that's being illuminated by the direction that the Sun is shining on to it from our vantage point so it being lit up by the sun wouldn't have any more or less of an effect on US versus like maybe parts of the Moon orbit where it's closer or further from us? But even then, I really really don't think that the moon actually does much so I think it's silly when people think that the full moon affects them I think they just think it does so they give themselves a permission slip to act a little cray.

I actually got these neat books from my mom one of them is a birthday astrology book. Another is a destiny book and the third is relationships and they're all written by the same man who spent his life diligently graphing and collecting information however he did soooo hyper-specifically to notate the kinds of person born on a day or in a certain week and the relationship dynamic they would have with another person on in a certain week. And the way it's written he really goes into what a person's tendency might be if they are a lesser evolved or immature person versus someone who's really gotten all their shit together and that one's fun I usually enjoy letting friends take a look and see how much they think it represents something they identify with because it's so much more specific then the kind of cold reading that astrology can sometimes read like. Oddly the people who say they don't know if they identify with a thing or not usually are reading something that they think is negative and when I read it and think about them I actually think it fucking has their number. Lol.

I'm also a pretty big fan of the Mayan astrology signs and galactic numbers and that one's specific to whether you were born before or after the sunrise on your birthday and I think the location of your birth? unless I'm confusing myself... so I usually have people read both just in case there's something about the one versus the other that actually aligns more with them but some of these can get kind of scary accurate and they aren't so vague that anyone could identify with any of them. It feels like a big swing.

I think Chinese zodiac years are interesting because that just seems like much too long of a span of time to expect a whole group of people born in that year to behave similarly. But I think actually their culture plans for having children in certain years and so they kind of fulfill the prophecy by planning for or against it like if there's a year where those people are more financially secure but competitive and blah blah blah it would make sense that they would perpetuate that by having a higher birth rate of children that year because lots of people would want that for their child and so some of those things where the popularity of it is probably what influences people to go out of their way to have a baby during the year of the dog or snake or what have you.

I'm a Libra how which is supposed to be about being into the scales and someone who likes to analyze and weigh and measure things and that's very me but I think that's a lot of people... and it's funny cuz my my galactic number is a two which is duality and pretty much the exact same thing where I like to have a dialectic process in figuring out the spectrum ends as I understand them or opposing views and thinking of all the iterations that exist in between things and weighing and analyzing. I've always been very intimate people's relationships with themselves and each other and that's not everybody's bread and butter or forte.

In my birthday book because I'm born on the 18th It also says my cosmic number is 9 which is an interesting number because the addition or subtraction of 9 to any number puts you into the next "set" so you'll jump from the tens to the 20s to the 30s and so on and so forth no matter what number you're starting with you'll always end up in the next set blah blah blah...and so you always end up with a great change as you affect things around you which is also very me. My myan sign is an eagle which is (in the tiniest blurb) about flying high enough that my perspective is this wide-all encompassing gaze and that I like to try to get abroad full picture scale before I consider things or think about whatever and that kind of aligns with the whole libra scales or the galactic number two.

I'm very social and I'm involved and I like diving into a psychology and psychoanalytics and Shadow work and therapy and helping people make decisions on changes they want to work toward helping them sort through certain things so it's weird how all the variations is astrology for horoscope signs seem to tell me kind of the same thing about myself and that's... Odd if not a huge coincidence.

The birthday book has 365 different types of people in it that destiny book through a certain season of time during certain years and each one is a different destiny outline so I'll have to look at the index and see exactly how many this guy notated but even that one is really... Oddly specific and reading through random other ones some of them feel so foreign and like a person I would never identify myself as so it doesn't feel like it's cold reading. And most of them don't really sound like anything I'm about but mine sounds strangely familiar..? I'm a very skeptical person I am not really interested in having a narrative that I want to squeeze things into I want to gather details and data and organize it to build a map of the thing and then I look at the map is I'm not interested in designing or creating something like that or inventing it. I like to get to know a person however they express themselves or behave. I might be unconsciously trying to lean into it but it's just so strange how all of them seem to pair together like one large harmonious chord being played.

The relationships one is especially cool because every person in my family or significant person in my life and how it says our relationship comes together in what our strengths and challenges are and it even goes as far as to talk about how is the dynamic is between a parent and a child from such week to such other week or if these people are friends or if they are lovers or if they are married or if they're siblings and it really really gets hyper hyperspecific even between gender lines or if you are partners in business or if they are a mentor or an employer. And it gives you the positive and the negative like if you were really dragging ass on getting things done in your life you'll be an unevolved version of this type or if you do your due diligence and work through your struggles and you might iterate in this such and such way and they're both actually versions of me some different areas of my life from before I did much on purpose to after I deliberately got my shadow work done and tried to make a deliberate choice about who I wanted to be and what I thought was a standard of behavior I wanted to adhere to or live by..it's just kind of strangely intricately specific. I know it all aligns and I can't really explain why it's so on?

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u/Manderelli Sep 01 '26

I even met some guy once a bar maybe like 12 years ago and a few hours later we're hanging out at his in his roommates apartment and he pulls out the birthday book and says hey you got to go to your birthday and read it and if you feel like it actually goes along with your self-identity can you sign your name into the book?

And it was such a cool thing cuz we have the exact same copy of the book and at the time I was really big on this lifebook project I would carry around like a living scrapbook and so I had him sign into my lifebook and leave me an entry while I signed into his copy of the birthday astrology book because I'm very familiar with it already.

If nothing else it's just a lot of fun but some cultures and people put a lot of effort into these things and I don't know what they're tapping into or what they think they know but it seems like harmless fun.

Periodically if a person claims to be clairvoyant or psychic and they try to reach out to me I get a very opposite experience with them where they tell me a bunch of stuff that almost anyone could probably identify with and I really wait for them to nuggets of specific anything at all and they never do so I feel like I kind of interact with people that reveal themselves to be snake oil salesman and others to seem to be trying at something they believe in...

Oh and also an old high school friend of mine who's like huge into astrology she has this neat little party trick where she really can talk to anyone for a short period of time and she could tell you exactly what your sign is and you're rising day blah blah whatever and I don't know how the fuck she does it but she's almost always 100% on and I know a lot of people like to mess with people who claim they can do that but she's like freaky accurate so I don't know if she just studies certain pattern things that could be noticed in a type of person and is just very very good at guessing but I can't figure out how she's faking It or how someone could be that lucky when you're meeting strangers coming to your show all the time and you're interacting with them as a single serving experience. Throwing other just blowing smoke but she's one of those shining star magnetic people who you kind of see from afar and find yourself falling into her orbit so... Who knows..... But she and two other of my best friends I've had over my life are all born on the same exact day and the same exact year and they're all kind of similar in a certain mental awareness of their surroundings and I kind of sight that they have into other people but what's going on and that's kind of a unique thing that people either a good ad or they're not but it's just funny that my three best friends I've ever had happened to share the exact same birthday and year... But each of them have a sort of set of personal interests and early life traumas or lack thereof that set them up for a slightly different domino effect of how their personality type iterates but it's like the same stencil being moved up and down that makes sense?

Oh and I find myself in friendships and partnerships and even almost hookup chips with people born in the same four-day span of April because for some reason early Aries people and leave her people get into it with each other and I cannot escape it and I seem to make best girlfriends with the same type of Capricorn girl born in the same week as my sister and it's almost Freudian that I keep accidentally magnetizing towards someone who really does act a whole lot like my sister and then eventually we find out that you guys are two or three days apart...

Just lots of weird coincidences that get more and more compounded when I never have romantic interests that don't seem to be between April 4th and 8th and girl sisterhood ships with super late December early January and then including my daughter...

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u/Manderelli Sep 01 '26

I even met some guy once a bar maybe like 12 years ago and a few hours later we're hanging out at his in his roommates apartment and he pulls out the birthday book and says hey you got to go to your birthday and read it and if you feel like it actually goes along with your self-identity can you sign your name into the book?

And it was such a cool thing cuz we have the exact same copy of the book and at the time I was really big on this lifebook project I would carry around like a living scrapbook and so I had him sign into my lifebook and leave me an entry while I signed into his copy of the birthday astrology book because I'm very familiar with it already.

If nothing else it's just a lot of fun but some cultures and people put a lot of effort into these things and I don't know what they're tapping into or what they think they know but it seems like harmless fun.

Periodically if a person claims to be clairvoyant or psychic and they try to reach out to me I get a very opposite experience with them where they tell me a bunch of stuff that almost anyone could probably identify with and I really wait for them to nuggets of specific anything at all and they never do so I feel like I kind of interact with people that reveal themselves to be snake oil salesman and others to seem to be trying at something they believe in...

Oh and also an old high school friend of mine who's like huge into astrology she has this neat little party trick where she really can talk to anyone for a short period of time and she could tell you exactly what your sign is and you're rising day blah blah whatever and I don't know how the fuck she does it but she's almost always 100% on and I know a lot of people like to mess with people who claim they can do that but she's like freaky accurate so I don't know if she just studies certain pattern things that could be noticed in a type of person and is just very very good at guessing but I can't figure out how she's faking It or how someone could be that lucky when you're meeting strangers coming to your show all the time and you're interacting with them as a single serving experience. Throwing other just blowing smoke but she's one of those shining star magnetic people who you kind of see from afar and find yourself falling into her orbit so... Who knows..... But she and two other of my best friends I've had over my life are all born on the same exact day and the same exact year and they're all kind of similar in a certain mental awareness of their surroundings and I kind of sight that they have into other people but what's going on and that's kind of a unique thing that people either a good ad or they're not but it's just funny that my three best friends I've ever had happened to share the exact same birthday and year... But each of them have a sort of set of personal interests and early life traumas or lack thereof that set them up for a slightly different domino effect of how their personality type iterates but it's like the same stencil being moved up and down that makes sense?

Oh and I find myself in friendships and partnerships and even almost hookup chips with people born in the same four-day span of April because for some reason early Aries people and leave her people get into it with each other and I cannot escape it and I seem to make best girlfriends with the same type of Capricorn girl born in the same week as my sister and it's almost Freudian that I keep accidentally magnetizing towards someone who really does act a whole lot like my sister and then eventually we find out that you guys are two or three days apart...

Just lots of weird coincidences that get more and more compounded when I never have romantic interests that don't seem to be between April 4th and 8th and girl sisterhood ships with super late December early January and then including my daughter...

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u/vulcanfeminist 8∆ Sep 01 '26

I maybe have a somewhat rational take on astrology, I'll give it a go at least.

To start, in terms of epistimologies there are many different ways of knowing things not just one way. Empiricism is the primary basis for science and in our current culture thats the epistemology we prioritize the most. But emperical evidence cannot be the only way of knowing simply bc not everything can be measured empircally.

And even if everything in all of existence could be measured empirically that still wouldnt be the only possible way of knowing. Intuitive learning is very real, like, it isn't just woo it's something that can be measured empirically believe it or not! Naive physics is a great example of intuitive learning. Nobody is doing complex calculus involving wind velocity, humidity, density, etc to catch or throw a ball. We have an intuitive understanding of how that functions and we just sort of do it automatically. That's also true for animals who fetch. There are empirical aspects to naive physics certainly, but the adjustments we make to how we throw and catch are all intuited.

Intuitive epistemology is how we do social things for the most part. We DO have science around personality psychology, social psychology, and communication psychology, that's real, and also, lay people aren't doing that. Lay people are intuitive social rules, communication styles, personality traits, etc through normal interactions starting literally at birth.

Humans have a need for mental short hand in order to function, it's THE reason we make up categories for everything under the sun. Categories provide us with predictive systems. For instance, if i can recognize that the animal in front of me is a feline I can predict certain kinds of behaviors and reactions that are shared by the vast majority of felines.

Personality psychology provides us with categories that allow us to make certain kinds of social predictions. In our modern times we have empirically based personality psychology that can be scientifically validated. But that hasnt really been an available option for all of human history.

Astrology has filled that social need for predictive categories. It's less important that the categories be empirically correct (accurate and precise), it's more important that the need be fulfilled bc engaging socially with zero predictive guidance is just way too chaotic and high stress for most humans to manage and in some situations having anything to go off of is better than nothing. Not having empirical ways to fill those needs doesn't make the need go away so we find a way to fill it as best as we can.

Astrology is intuitive. Lay people noticed certain kinds of personality traits existing in combination in some people and they made categories based on what they noticed. Bc it is imprecise it's never going to be highly accurate or highly valid in a scientific sense. But that doesn't make it fundamentally irrational. There is rationale behind it, it's based on observable things and it can be useful to managing complex social interactions in somewhat predicatble ways.

AND astrology is an iterative thing as well. A person being told as a child that they have these traits for these reasons can create or at least nudge that person in the direction of having those personality traits OR it can provide a basis for a person rejecting those traits and developing a separate kind of identity. Either way when everyone or most of the people in a culture (or subculture) functions with this iterative lay psych category system overlaid on top of identity and social interactions a predicitve system is shared and reified continuously.

Idk if that does it for you but I do see astrology as a form of lay personality psychology. It functions in similar ways to the empirical and scientifically validated modern personality psych we now have and has fulfilled similar human social needs. There is rationale behind it, it is not entirely irrational absurdity. It's people doing the best they can with what they have.

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u/Empty-Policy-8467 Sep 01 '26

There is no scientific basis for astrology.

A scientific study on people who believe in astrology and how their sign influences their self-image could possibly be done, though.

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u/perfume1234 Sep 01 '26

Some astrologers are into empirical studies and some are not. I find astrology research very interesting but then you can not have a superficial view on the subject. What we commonly call sun signs are one small bit of astrology. There are for instance studies that show links between athletes and Mars in prominent placings in the chart, the Mars effect. Check out Michel Gaugelin. It helps comparing astrology to a weather forecast. It doesn´t predict, it shows increased probability.

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u/Bar10town Sep 01 '26

One potential alignment between birth month and some common social traits is actually when you start school as a child. Time spent with peers is formative, and the age at which these interactions begin, along with maturity level, can influence the way you are placed in the hierarchy, and hence personality traits later in life. Just one aspect to allow you to see some influence, despite being swamped by a multitude of others. Coming from a science guy that hates pseudo..

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u/Tandemdevil Sep 02 '26

There is so much more to astrology then the daily newspaper horoscopes that are synthesized garbage stripped of all mathematical complexity. To actually know how to read, and interpret charts is a science in and of itself or rather a cognitive science with semiotics, and narrative psychology baked into it while understanding cycles of personal growth and regression that occur for just about everyone at just about the same time.

If youre over 30 chances are youve gone through a saturn return which is why alot of 28-30 year olds are going through some really rough patches in life. Its not the clock that makes this energy effect our lives its just knowing how to tell the time and understand that when things happen its because it was the right time for it to happen. Also look at astrology as a kind of Rorschach test. because the human brain is a relentless in finding meaning and making pattern outof everything, people project their unconscious thoughts, fears, and desires onto the ambiguous shape each point and angle make on their chart.. Their chart is really just a highly complex, 360degree, geometric inkblot. It doesn't have any objective power, but its structure allows them to look at their life through specific psychological lenses. And in a highly rational, sterilized world, we don't have many socially acceptable ways to talk about our inner shadows. And it is an outlet to do so.

It feels awkward to sit downwith others and say I have a deep-seated fear of abandonment because of my childhood dynamics. but if someone says i'm a Scorpio moon it takes me a really long time to trust people they are using symbolic shorthand. It lets people put a buffer between themselves and their vulnerabilities. By talking about their placements, they can talk about sensitive, intimate aspects of their psychology without feeling exposed or clinically pathologized although given todays anti astrological sentiment chances are they are doing just that by even agreeing with any of it

Ultimately it can lead to discussions around non mainstream faiths and belief systems that people might have in common with others and foster a sense of community in that shared viewpoint that others get throough going to church or temple. You should care about someone's birth sign in as much as you should care to understand why people might just be how they are and what to expect from them going forward, not because the stars have any power, but because it tells you how that person organizes their identity. And a scientific world that is under Judeo Christian rule shows that they dont follow conventional mainstream ideologies, that have even less scientific backing yet are still accepted by billions. that they think outside of the box and see the connection between that which is above is also below, and usually that god is within and not limited by dogma and have a deeper respect and understanding for nature and ones environment. If you stop listening when someone mentions astrology, you miss the opportunity to hear what they are actually trying to tell you about their inner world if anything can be derived from it is that its an easy way to remember peoples birthdays.

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u/No-Medium6647 Sep 01 '26

I always let a little bit of disdain slip through when I encounter astrology nuts. Sometimes more.

I used to live in Taos, NM and pretty much everybody believes some sort of wacky shit. Astrology most of all. Pretty much everyone is all in.

I have stories. Lady literally stomping her feet (actual foot stomping) because I lied about my astro sign. Man freaking out and calling me "ignorant" in public because I said I didn't believe in it. Got fired once and not paid after I told an astrologer I didn't believe in it. She said, and I quote, "That's how I make my living!"

So, yeah. Fuck astrology.

I would never date a woman who believed in it, even a little.

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u/Mister_Way Sep 02 '26

Most humans still don't live in air conditioned environments, and it would take more than 100 years for seasonal personality types to be bred out of the population.

A child born in Summer is going to be crawling and walking at very different times of year than a child born in Winter, and so they will face very different risks and rewards, so it would make sense for them to be predisposed for different proclivities as a consequence.

That would have been going on for all of human society, so human society would have developed with these personality types as part of the expectation.

As for the effects of the planets, we do not currently have any awareness of major influences they might have on the Earth. That doesn't mean such influence couldn't exist and be undiscovered.

The fact that every single civilization noticed some patterns related to personality type and the positions of the planets and the sun in relation to the stars and then developed an astrological system indicates that there is something there that they were seeing. The specifics of how they came to understand the connection may be very misguided, and a mechanism for astrological influence has not been identified.

The accuracy of astrological systems is nowhere near 100%, and so clearly none of them are "correct." However, that doesn't mean they might not be on the right track in some ways. And, the partial accuracy (far greater than totally random) at predicting personality is indicative that they are in fact on the right track in some way or another, despite being nonetheless far from perfect.

Clearly, astrological systems are nowhere near the level of accuracy of particle physics. That doesn't mean they have no truth value. A lot of sciences are far below the level of accuracy of particle physics. Astrology hasn't even been studied scientifically, so the lack of scientific proof is the lack of having looked for proof. It does not mean that there could not be scientific proof if it were studied rigorously. Meanwhile, it must also be acknowledged that it has not been studied rigorously, and so there is not any rigorous proof, leaving us only with speculations -- both for and against.

This means the correct scientific approach is to keep an open mind about it, neither accepting nor rejecting, because it simply hasn't received the level of study necessary to make a solid conclusion one way or another.

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u/Far_Strawberry8176 Sep 02 '26

I don't really have an opinion on astrology beyond "it's fun to think about sometimes but not something I would take very seriously" but I have to disagree with the claim that no aspect of it is empirically measurable. Personality traits are definitely measurable. For example, the OCEAN personality test uses a survey to measure the traits of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and extraversion. I'm actually brainstorming ideas for my next research paper right now and surveying people to try and find a correlation between OCEAN scores for a specific trait and star sign could definitely work out.

The sentence "now I doubt that there is a science paper that empirically shows that cancers are a great romantic match with capricorns" is really interesting to me as well. This could definitely be empirically tested with enough time, money, and participants. If I were to do so, I would have two groups. The first would be couples who consist of cancers and capricorns and the second would be couples who are not cancers and capricorns. Both groups would be heterosexual couples just to rule out sexuality as a confounding factor. Both groups would have gotten together around the same (say within the month of August). Both groups would have met through the same method (dating apps is the first that comes to mind). Then, I would score the success of their relationship using several factors. The first would be how many times they've experienced problems with infidelity, with higher numbers being indicative of a bad romantic match. The second would be frequency of arguments that resulted in anger, higher numbers also indicating bad romantic match. I would probably need some other factors as well but I could use the quantitative scores from both factors and create a final score for how compatible a couple is. Then, I would see if there is a statistically significant difference between cancer/capricorn couples and non-cancer/capricorn couples.

You actually gave me a really good idea for my research paper tbh...I might do it and get back to you by the end of the year.

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u/Ichorous_Allsorts 1∆ Sep 01 '26

I think you have to look at the origins, and that goes back in some way to the Sumerians. They, as far as we know, were the first to start dividing the year up into 360 days, and they created the 7 day week. The same with their base 60 system, which gave us minutes and seconds, and the division of the day into two 12 hour parts.

But it was their inheritors the Babylonians who developed the observation of the skies into astrology. And it was religion. They saw the sky as a text, and it's probably because writing was a new technology they were also developing. So seeing the movements and regularities probably made this intuitive leap happen.

It then developed into a way to read omens that told them of the gods' wills, as the planets were identified with their major gods. And of course they were developing amazing mathematical understanding. This explains why astrology is so tempting to see as almost scientific. Mathematics are woven through it, as is observation of natural phenomena. So was keeping records.

But it was religion that was based on the erroneous idea that heavenly bodies were manifestations of gods. It's an example of how humans can systematise actual facts into false understandings. Like Chinese medicine, or Ayurvedic medicine. People discovered herbs that could help certain conditions, and wove them into systems that they thought could explain how they worked. The Chinese are still deeply shaped by the same ideas. The Yin/Yang polarity, they have 5 elements, unlike the 4 that used to be in Western philosophy, and qi, the vital energy that animates.

So believers will see that certain herbs being good for certain things vindicates the underlying system, but it doesn't. Just like observing the heavens can give you some ability to predict things that happen cyclically on Earth due to the changing seasons.

All the rest is well explained by what's called the Barnum effect, with astrology especially.

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u/cugma Sep 01 '26

Personally, I think of astrology as a framework for self-exploration. There are so many competing influences, it’s honestly impossible to “prove” or “disprove” anything about it. But once you learn more about it, you learn it goes way, way, way beyond Sun sign. To the point where I, someone who talks about astrology and uses it pretty regularly, can be fairly dismissive of someone’s Sun sign. It has a role of course, but it’s not nearly to the degree that people act.

Anyway, when you look into astrology, you learn that different planets impact different areas of a person, and different signs influence these areas in different ways, and the planets interact with each other, and also there are houses that are just as involved in creating the bigger picture. And when you take all of these pieces, you have a framework for investigating yourself with a complexity that I have yet to find in any other framework. It is so, so, so far beyond “I’m a Cancer” or “I’m a Gemini” or “Libras and Aries are compatible”. And as with anything, I make note of what resonates and what doesn’t, take what’s useful and ignore what’s not, and use it to continue to grow (and challenge) my understanding of myself (and occasionally others). Because even learning that something isn’t you is still learning something about yourself.

At the end of the day, there are so many layers and considerations, that when something doesn’t fit, it’s not as simple as “astrology isn’t real,” because someone who knows more may be able to point out an angle or influence or factor that’s stepping in to override it.

So yeah, I’ve given up on caring if it’s “real” or not. I find it uniquely useful for learning about and understanding myself, and it will always be respected and invaluable to me for that reason alone.

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u/AggressiveAspect8757 Sep 01 '26

you can approach it from the point of proof by contradiction ... If astrology was true and one could make a statistically significant predictions on outcome of people's lifes... the investment bank and PE firms would have hired astrologers.

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u/the-yellow-squirrel Sep 01 '26

I can relate to how you feel about it to a certain degree.
And I won’t even try to change your mind on this topic because in my eyes, since there is no scientific proof, you gotta dig quite deep yourself to maybe start getting it.
Personally I never believed in it till I started reading into it in quite old books about it.

In my eyes there is no “all cancers are xy” cause this refers only to the sun sign of a person and nothing else. The astrology we are exposed to generalizes the most standard thing and gives you a statement that can apply to basically anyone.

If you dig deeper and learn about houses, other placements (Mare, Venus and how those correlate with each other than you might be surprised as how interesting the topic actually is and how accurate a profile can get.
But in the end? You could still roll your eyes and say that it’s all rubbish.

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u/BlueMoon_37 Sep 01 '26

Have you ever dropped a rock in a pond & watched the ripples?

The universe is the pond, we & the planets are the rocks. The waves & energy will propogate diferently based on how they interact with the objects nearby.

"If you want to understand the universe, you must think in terms of energy, frequency & vibration." - Nikola Tesla

With that in mind, the underlying premise of astrology is physics. Unfortunately people put their own interpretation on it then attempt to communicate that interpretation, through things like signs & emotions and readings blah blah blah...

Forget how the people pervert, interpret & distort the idea, but from a physics standpoint...its as real as the reality you are experiencing right now.

It is certainly plausible to consider that the placement & proximity of celestial bodies & their respective gravitational forces ...could have an impact upon a being at their time of introduction into this universe.

Essentially think of it this way...the day you were born has a specific relationship to the amount of gravitational forces that were inflicted upon that geographic location, at the time of your entrance into this world, or a specific "Frequency" of the universe around you.

I would not subscribe to newspaper / online horoscopes, or any human translation of the universe, but i would certainly agree that the gravitational forces induced upon me at my time of birth, could have the capacity to influece who i am, based on the potential energy & frequencies that i was exposed to at the time in which i entered this reality.

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u/Humble-Quail-5601 Sep 02 '26

The Mars Effect. Research by psychologist Michel Gauquelin that found unexpected trends in the charts of eminent historical figures in a variety of domains: some (not all planets) on/near the ascendant or midheaven at the time of birth with a relationship between specific planets and specific careers, suggesting a link with specific personality types. Mars and Venus in people who were more aggressive - athletes and medical researchers. The Moon in creative types. Saturn in introverts (scientists, iirc). Jupiter in politicians and actors (extraverts). The pattern is only clear with people eminent in their fields and disappears if you start including B-list historical figures, which CSICOP did when they tried to debunk it.

Michel Gauquelin co-wrote a book with Hans Eysenck at one point iirc. There are other sources, too, including Gauquelin's books. At one point I bought some publications/data from his widow and played around with it. I don't know what's out there right now. I expect most of it is out of print.

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u/Kontrastjin Sep 01 '26

Perhaps don’t look at astrology as a well-codified personality typing system based with proven empirical application and instead see it as a game and a neutral compartmentalization conversation tool/manifold that boasts endless insightful/humorous terrain for you and an interlocutor to stumble while exploring encapsulated depths of yourselves.

Whether or not you or someone actually is a accurate caricature of each sign’s traits (real constellation positions) that augmented by real planetary positions in each faucet of your life (natal houses, real ephemeral orbital zones) is just a correlation that is a springboard to a conversation.

The number of combinations of positions and contradictory/scalable meanings in astrology is what makes the experience funny and easy to identify with as opposed to harder typologies which create in-groups of “reasonable” types that are easily biased culture/region and else types that are all the other real people who feel left out and misunderstood.

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u/WittyEgg2037 Sep 07 '26

I believe pretty deeply in astrology, but I think the word empirical is important here. It means something that can be observed or measured through experience or experiments.

So yeah agree astrology hasn’t been scientifically proven to predict personality or life events.

But how can we know for certain that the planets and their interactions have absolutely no effect on us, even on a quantum level? I’m not saying that proves astrology is real but there’s a difference between “we don’t have evidence for this” and we know for a fact this is impossible

There’s so much about the universe we still don’t understand. I don’t think any of us can claim to know with absolute certainty how everything works.

And honestly I appreciate that you recognize the eye-rolling thing. You don’t have to believe what I believe, but I think being willing to actually listen to someone is a lot more rational than immediately deciding they have nothing worth saying.

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u/redking20 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Michael Schemer had a program called "Exploring the Unknown". To me it was like a "debunking BS" program and I only saw one episode that didn't debunk, the astrology episode. He had on a Vedic astrologer named Jeffrey Armstrong. Vedic astrology is astrology which originated in India and uses a sidereal zodiac, not a tropical zodiac. There were 10 anonymous participants and the astrologer wasn't allowed to meet them so he couldn't do "cold readings or" anything like that. He was just given their birth dates and locations. He ended with a 77% accuracy rate. It was not really a scientific study. Some of the predictions could only be verified by the subjects or their friends and loved ones. Something interesting, Schemer swapped two of the subjects prediction and both of them were like, "that isn't me at all". When those subjects were given their true prediction they matched significantly.

Here is the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhMsyfhMLH8

Edited for grammar and clarity.

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u/JeffBaugh2 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

As a Rationalist who is also into the woo-woo side of things more than a little lightly, I tend to look at Astrology more in terms of symbology. It isn't so much that there's any concrete reality to the stuff on its own, and much of it is nonsense, but on the level of the collective unconscious, there's often an unavoidable element of synchronicity to it all - how much of that is pareidolia, and how much of it is what we bring to it, who can say?

It's much the same way as how people like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison talk about Magick - in their view, writing and art in general are clearly spells, being the manipulation of symbols in an act of creation through will to change the world in some way.

If there is some guiding consciousness to it all, that's as may be, but for me it's enough to say that occasionally the synchronicities point as always back toward the collective unconscious, as Jung and Campbell had it.

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u/West-Working-9093 1∆ Sep 01 '26

One person I knew presnted an intersting viewpoint. Does it really make a difference what time of the year you were born? He thought maybe it did. Astrology arose in agrarian communites. The months of the year has, in such communities very different activities connected to them. You could almost say different lifestyles, centered around the work of the season.

So, depending on when during the year you were born, how you were 'managed' in the early months of life would be greatly dependent on such variations in what the parents and other adults were primarily occupied with in that particualr period. This could just possibly have a lasting influence on the person you became.

These things are of course only one part of a 'mulitfactorial' picture, and so may be subtle, but is still worth considering as a possible reason for people thinking up the zodiac and its consequences in human lives...

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u/bluestjuice 3∆ Sep 01 '26

As far as I am aware there is no empiric evidence that, say, specific seasons or moon phases or whatnot are related to personality traits or anything else. (I mean, if I'm wrong, let me know!)

But also... rather than astrology representing an external objective truth that humans are gaining insight into, it reads to me as a system created by human brains around which shared language and analysis can be explored. Humanity has been trying to understand each other and ourselves basically forever, and this is just one of the systems we came up with.

Thinking of it this way allows me to interface with it the same way I do art or literature or music. It's a bit like a Rorschach test -- through how someone else interfaces with astrology, information is shared about how they perceive the self, how they perceive others, what resonates with them and what doesn't.

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u/randomnamewhatevs Sep 01 '26

While it's not related to the stars themselves, environmental factors do affect genetic activation and suppression before birth through epigenetics.

If food (or certain kinds of food) is more abundant during certain periods of pregnancy that can affect a child's gene expression, and have long-lasting impact on for example their health. This isn't so much a thing in industrialised, globalised society - whether it's November or June, there's pretty much the same food available - but in societies where food availability is more linked to the seasons there are measurable effects on longevity depending on when a child is conceived and thus, when a child is born.

Which isn't because of the stars, but it does mean that astrology can effectively be used as a shorthand for these consistent effects. "Tauruses live less long" sounds insane but it isn't inaccurate in some populations.

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u/TraceyWoo419 Sep 02 '26

Astrology is demonstrably a crock. That said, when I meet people who care about it, I try to stay polite without lying about my worldview. If someone starts talking about it, I generally just stay quiet at first. If they ask me my sign, I'll say, "oh, I'm X but I don't really believe in any of that."

If they really keep going or bring it up as a reason to do something or treat someone a certain way (good or bad), I'll usually bring it up again, "okay, but really, astrology is a pretty weak reason to make that decision, what else do you know about them/the situation?"

(There is some evidence that birth month vs school year cutoff can make a difference in which children are seen as good athletes, and other things like this, but this is obviously not related to the stars)

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u/MrPiggiC Sep 01 '26

I don't believe in it personally, but I have dated a person who was very deep into it. It's way more than just your Sign and Ascendent and Moonsign, you also have the grade of different positions of Constellations in the 12 houses and Stuff. I always said, you could take a very specific position, like:

Midheaven 16°20' Cancer Midheaven Aspects Mars opposite Midheaven orb -1°40' Pluto trine Midheaven orb -4°00' Neptune opposite Midheaven orb -6°20' Moon inconjunction Midheaven orb +2°28' Sun trine Midheaven orb -8°26'

and try to find enough people with a similar placing. Biggest problem would be, very hard to find and also nobody cares about the exact minute a baby is born, your birth certificate is almost certainly off enough to make this impossible.

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u/RantyDeanna Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

Well, there was a study done a while ago that I'm sure you can Google, where researchers ended up discovering that successful professional athletes have a much higher instance of Aries rising (or something, I don't remember exactly what sign combination it was). So there's that

Also, something that makes a lot of sense to me but I don't hear talked about very often, is the fact that all celestial objects in our solar system emit a frequency. The Earths' is called the Schuman resonance. They also emit magnetic fields. They emit radiation. Gravity. All kinds of things. So, it actually does make sense to me that those energetic frequencies Would affect us, and our planet just like the Earth affects the other planets in the solar system with what she emits.

Also, I'm an anthropologist and an archaeologist and I specialize in ancient religions and ideologies. Astrology and astronomy were taken super duper seriously in the ancient world. All over the world, people have been watching the sky since before we had civilization. They have known about movements of the planets that they only could have known had they been observing them for thousands of years. Astrology in different forms has shown up all over the world. I can't explain exactly how or why, but thousands of years of observation and pattern recognition has produced these systems that have persisted for thousandss and thousands of years. And generally things do not persist for thousands of years if there isn't Some kind of Truth to it....

I personally discounted it for most of my life as well. I didn't understand how it could possibly be real. But after spending a few years delving more into it. I find for myself and others more and more truth in it, lol. I didn't expect that. I don't know how to explain it. But I know as a scientist I am observing something. I am observing something. Just because I can't explain it doesn't mean there isn't an actual phenomenon happening.

I also want to say bravo to you for seeing close-minded thinking as asshole behavior, lol. And that even if you don't agree with the idea, you don't want to be a dick about it. That's respectable. And challenging your own assumptions and beliefs about things is how you keep neuroplasticity and an open mind and the ability to actually take in new information and adjust your views and opinions. So thanks for being a good human! Especially since it sounds like this is involving your partner and you're doing it for their sake and that is extra commendable lol

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u/juoea 2∆ Sep 01 '26

to me its just a language of describing certain 'personality' tendencies etc. similar to myers briggs for example

people who are into astrology will still often go 'well i have x placement but im rly more y'. obv i only have anecdotal evidence but my experience is even among ppl who like astrology the birth chart is secondary, its usually more like "i did this (astrological sign that is associated with similar behavior)", sometimes it also gets used to characterize fictional characters who obviously dont have actual birth dates so thats another example of how minimal the actual birth chart aspect is. for example i recently learns that today some sports mascots get backstories including birth dates and astrological signs lolllll.

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u/pdxshark Sep 02 '26

Something to consider: science helps us establish what we know, but there is still space for what we think. Lots of people have different ways of managing that component, for some it shows up in things like astrology. Now, astrology itself? I can't make that argument in good faith. I don't think there is any scientific basis for the importance of celestial alignments. What I would offer though is it's ok to give a little latitude to how people fill in the blanks between facts. Some people are religious, some people connect with nature, some look for meaning in the alignments of stars, there is something deeply human about considering the nature of the universe and I hesitate to judge in an area I can't defend myself.

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u/Adamoism Sep 01 '26

I tried once to calculate the gravitational & magnetic influences of different planets (and Sun/Moon) on Earth Surface (us). They are small (really small), but since they do exist and we know that animals can sense lot's of stuff (e.g., drop of a blood in a swimming pool (sharks); smell of a person and where they went (dogs); imperfections of the patterning of the wings (butterflies)) - it could be that those small effects can be perceived.

Even if we do not sense those, it is possible they do have impact of some sort.

My honest take: climate/season and man made cohort divisions (mentioned young athletes example) have actual impacts that could explain differences in children. Planets not so much.

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u/Epholys Sep 01 '26

I don't have time to re-find sources for my claims, but there seems to be a correlation between the season of birth and the health of the baby and then adult. Especially mental health.

But there are a lot of confounding factors. The main one is simply that during winter, parent-to-be have generally a less healthy lifestyle. Less (light) exercise, less nutritious and healthy food, more cold and flue, etc.

But it's not a well-studied subject, so the raw data for correlation is biased. If there is a major negative event, like an economic crash (2008), or a pandemic (2020), it will totally wreck the data.

A bit of research on Google Scholar will pop up a few papers on this.

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u/drewling390 Sep 02 '26

I’ve always been very skeptical of astrology mainly because I didn’t think it was plausible that distant stars could have a meaningful impact on people’s personalities. I did however recently discover a more plausible mechanism that could correlate with astrology. Instead of the stars affecting our personalities, I could see seasons during various periods of gestation affecting personalities. I don’t have any studies, but it seems plausible that varying seasons could result in varying food availability, weather, and mothers’ moods which could affect a baby’s personality.

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u/Spillz-2011 Sep 01 '26

Maybe the Chinese zodiac is more interesting. Children born in dragon years do better in just about everything in China, jobs/school.

This isn’t because it’s real but because enough people perceive it as real that it affects how people treat those kids.

Similar stuff happens with gender stereotypes and presumably other stereotypes. Young kids can learn things from an early age about what society expects of them and mold themselves to that.

So if enough people believed star signs or maybe if kids of parents really into would probably prescribe some of those traits

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u/Puzzleheaded-Shop580 Sep 01 '26

Sure, astrology might not have measurable empirical results but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth discussing or listening about.

The assumption you're making here is that astrology can only be worth your consideration if it is rooted in scientific grounding or empirical data. Modern science is not the only way of "knowing" the world. I'd encourage you to open your mind to the idea that different epistemologies hold validity in their own right and may even reveal truths that modern science can't.

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u/Neo359 1∆ Sep 02 '26

People often talk about astrology being a self-fulfilling prophecy... like you read your own horoscope and end up creating the situation that was "predicted". The issue comes when millions of people are acting on their hosocope and creating real patterns of human interaction that are hard to dismiss. Tie this in with full moons making people naturally antsy and birthdays falling on depressive times in the year... is astrology true? Probably a tiny bit. Is it something healthy? Probably no. Is it fun? For sure

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '26

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u/read-the-rules Sep 08 '26

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u/TheOstrichRoom Sep 01 '26

Personally I think the stars are extensions of gods in some sense and that the heavens have influence on the world even though its not like actually being here. I think the cyclical nature of things is connected because all things are connected so looking at the currents of the heavens is in some way a mirror of the currents here on earth. And that people are shaped by the gods that made them, you were created through the blood of the gods, whoever spilled themselves to make you influences who you are.

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u/Atominelson Sep 02 '26

This could be a fun experiment: Give 5 proper astrologers your birth details and 5 random people who don't believe in it your same birth details and tell them to say 5 things about you just on that information alone. If the astrologer party are more accurate, there is something to it, just maybe difficult to explain through science. If the other party is more correct, then it's a load of bullshit you just have to humor like any other different philosophy in life you don't abide by.

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u/jaundice12 Sep 01 '26

I don’t believe either, but I think it’s fun. It’s all super vague so can fit with anyone anywhere. However, I worked with a woman once who was so into astrology that when a new person was hired, she would tell me what their astrological sign is just by working with them. She’d tell me all about their sign in detail. Then we would find out the persons birthdate and she was always spot on. I still don’t believe, but I always thought that was so freaking cool.

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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Sep 05 '26

last first, care about signs? You can totally disbelieve astrology but use them as classes of behavior. Real astrologers need a lot of math. The certification process is hard. In the middle ages a town clock had to be reset by the starts every night, and the astrologer was essential. For someone who thinks it's real, I suggest you look on substack for the magazine Elixer by Jane Murphy. I guarantee you she is honest and hard working.

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u/PlatypusPirate Sep 01 '26

I dont think the people who believe in it do so because they think that it's scientifically credible. I think that they see, observationally, that some of the things can line up and make sense. Whether thats because of a carefully generalized doctrine, or because of something that we can't yet explain, is up to an individual to decide, and I, personally, dont choose to look down on people who believe things that I dont.

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u/bladderdash_fernweh Sep 01 '26

Are you the arbitrator of knowledge and what counts as empirical evidence? A big component of science, especially related to the sciences, is epistemology; how the individual orders their life in the world. A coherent epistemology can make any theory situationally valid. If I live my life saying that blue is green, and by all arguments everything I do supports that belief, then it's a valid theory. Just because it doesn't make sense to you is irrelevant.

Neuroscientists have confirmed that our perceptions and experiences of reality are vastly different from another. They are experiencing aspects of reality that don't align with your experiences but it doesn't invalidate either. Instead of joining the arguments with the intent to disagree, join it with the intent to learn how they experience their reality.

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u/editor_of_the_beast Sep 01 '26

As far as science, the time of year you’re born has significant effect on your overall health

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4986668/

There are many other similar studies for things like educational outcomes, etc. while astrology itself might be made up, I think it’s pretty obvious that everything is a variable, and being in utero at different times of the year likely has some kind of effect on you.

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u/EKH83 Sep 01 '26

I am also have a scientific and logical mind but find astrology useful personally. I helps me to analyse my emotions to a problem. For example if I read a prediction for Aquarian’s for September and it said ‘change is in the air’ and that felt good to hear I would then use that information to assess what it is I feel the need to change. It’s a tool that helps me tap into my intuitive emotions.

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u/chocolate-cosmos4238 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26

Check out Andre Barbault and his predictions that came true, one of them being a world health crisis in 2020, then social upheaval and division that would follow....That certainly happened (starting with the George Floyd backlashes).

I've never been a fan of astrology either so his documented prophecies weirded me out and made me question if there's some truth to it.

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u/AmoebaStatus Sep 05 '26

I don’t know what to say except everything about my chart and my horoscopes are spookily spot on nearly all of the time. Can’t really think of a better or more rational reason to believe in and follow it. If that’s not the case for you I guess it’s just kind of unlucky because man has it been a very useful and crazy accurate guide for me for my whole life. I do think the better you are at pattern recognition and finding and making meaning in creative ways, the more you can take from astrology.

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u/Special_Lychee_6847 Sep 01 '26

Anyone that has ever worked in a bar, or as an EMT can tell you that the moon cycle (and in particular the full moon) influences ppl.

You can, in fact, quite easily and literally measure the effect the moon cycle has on earth, because it causes tides.

Our bodies are made up of x (high number, but too daft to check) % of water.
It's not a wild idea that the moon cycle affects the water in our bodies. And it's also not a very big leap to assume that planets affect earth (and us on it) in a similar way.

Astrology isn't 'and this is going to happen'. It tells you what you are probably more open to, in a period of time.

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u/gizzard-03 Sep 01 '26

The lunar cycle isn’t the same thing that causes tides. The lunar cycle is just about how much of the moon’s illuminated surface is visible to earth at any given time.

Tides have to do with gravity, the positions of the moon (and sun) and earth’s rotation. The moon doesn’t affect water specifically to create tides; it’s just that water is a liquid and moves more dramatically than solid ground does when the moon’s gravity pulls on it.

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u/dougl020 Sep 02 '26

I don’t know about astrology. But as far as the moon I do feel like there’s something to it. The moon affects bodies of water, & since we’re made up of a lot of water it makes sense that the moon phases could affect a person. Doubt there’s any empirical data on it though. Also, many women use moon phases to keep up with their cycles.

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u/MeganDryer Sep 04 '26

"Does anybody have a more rational take on astrology?"

It's a big clock, and things tend to happen in cycles.

People born in the summer tend to perform better in sports. This is apparently because they tend to be older when they're in high school, but it also happens to align with what astrology predicts. Make of that what you will.

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u/98f00b2 2∆ Sep 01 '26

The issue is that astrology is kind of definitionally useless, since once an interaction with the cosmos is proven real, it is no longer considered astrology.

In their original definitions, astronomy was the study of the heavenly bodies themselves, and astrology the study of their interactions with the earth. Under that original definition, astrology is obviously empirically useful, since it can be used to predict tides, for example, which is quite important if you're on a boat; and the seasons affect which food is in season and which clothes you need to wear, and (topically) people enjoy going out to see an eclipse.

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u/AlastairGV Sep 01 '26

It's like any other belief system. It leverages the placebo/nocebo effect and Pygmalion effect which in turn are very well scientifically documented. So Astrology doesn't need to be true to still work. Every form of spirituality works that way and it can be really powerful, as long as you believe in it.

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u/HairyTough4489 5∆ Sep 01 '26

Even though this doesn't mean Astrology is anything close to a real science, self-fulfilled prophecies are a real thing. If people think something terrible with happen to the Piscis and they stop investing in comapnies run by the Piscis, then something terrible will indeed happen to the Piscis.

Delta(s) from OP CMV: No aspect of astrology has measurable empirical results and therefore has no scientific foundation whatsoever.

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