Anesthesia

Ahh, so which of you is right? kelem_ryu said that it is when you first take a breath. He's read 24 books on the subject. Also you are wrong, since coming out of the mother's womb is a drawn out process. Not possible, since you were coming out of the womb for more than several seconds. You haven't said how the position of the stars affects your character traits - only that they do. Why not say HOW they affect character traits? Look at the video Mercifull posted. That shows how people interpret horoscopes to apply to them. Look at it. Look at it.

If I go fishing for food then I save the money which I would have otherwise spent on that food. That is then money I can spend on other food. Strictly speaking you don't really need to do anything other than work for a living, but doing other things can help your situation. They are an alternative and not just a supplement. Fishing can also be for fish that aren't available in shops. Catching fish to eat can be fun, but there is no wastage. Everyone wants a better quality of life, however when that quality of life involves needlessly harming animals it is selfish. Catching a fish to eat isn't needless because you get sustenance out of it. It provides you with a nice meal and it doesn't have to continue with an injury, it is dead and it can't care. Catching a fish, harming it, then releasing it is wastage because that fish now has a hole in its mouth for nothing more than your entertainment. Would you agree with snaring a rabbit, piercing its face, then letting it go? Are you trying to make it sound like you're benevolent for injuring it and deciding to let it live? It would have been better off if you just hadn't caught it in the first place. That argument only works if you are against fishing and hunting full stop, in which case I guess you must agree with me about sport fishing being bad.

Indeed you could. The thing is though, my argument against astrology doesn't rely on that flawed 'proof'.

That video posted by Mercifull proves exactly why astrology is BS. For those who can't be bothered to watch it, a room of 20 or so people are given horoscopes based on their exact time and place of birth. They are asked to rate how accurate they are on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the most accurate. Almost all of them rate them as 5. They are then told to swap horoscopes and read each others - they are all exactly the same. This shows how people who want to believe something interpret it so that they can, and it shows how astrology is BS.

Evidently you DON'T all know about selective perception, just look at what Ltfairy has been saying. When it comes to the first breath being the time of birth, how many people know exactly when this was? Ltfairy said you need an accuracy of minutes and seconds - can either of you tell me at what EXACT time you took your first breath? If so, where did you get this information? Birth certificates are filled in after the birth. :shock: You are serious about believing in magic aren't you? I am not the one proposing something which cannot be proven.

This is very simple. Pay attention and you may finally understand. An astrologer publishes an analysis of a person's character. A person who believes in astrology reads that analysis. That person, because they believe in astrology, subconsciously interprets what is said so that it can apply to them. Example: "x is impulsive when it comes to shopping" - the reader will think of times when they have been impulsive. Because they don't want to see their belief structure come crashing down they subconsciously interpret things to apply to them. Another example: "x is careful with money" - the reader will think of times when they have been careful with money, not calling to mind all those when they haven't. Because they don't want to see their belief structure come crashing down they subconsciously interpret things to apply to them. It happens with all beliefs, faith healing, alternative medicines, fortune-telling and so on. Because a person WANTS it to apply to them, they interpret it so that it can. That is one of the reasons self-reporting is considered inaccurate in psychological experiments. There is no exact time of birth. Birth is drawn out over several minutes. It takes that long for a baby to come out of the womb, from the time the top of it's head emerges to the time the umbilical cord is cut. You have still not said how it works. You have only said that it does. You have said that it controls aspects of you, that is not saying how it does that. You have not said WHY your character traits are already determined, or how. I am not interpreting horoscopes to see whether they apply to myself or not. I am looking at the subject critically and objectively with regards to evidence of how it works. There is no room for bias since my opinion has not entered into it.

You interpreted what I said wrong. You will notice that the two parts are separated by a full stop. In English, that is the end of a sentence. If I wanted to accuse you of wanting to make a fast buck I would have said "They started out just like you, they just wanted to make a fast buck". I don't know how many times I've said this now, it is getting boring because you still don't understand. People who believe in astrology are biased. They can interpret things to apply to them. Self-reporting is not a reliable form of evidence because of this bias. I never said anything about lying about their personalities. By your rationale, someone who believes in god saying that god answers their prayers/talks to them is objective proof that god exists. Why not say *roughly* how it works then? Fortunately the real world does, and that's why astrology is confined to sideshows and gossip magazines nowadays.

It is not black and white. You have already said that people can have elements from other horoscopes, yet you have not explained what determines what characteristics they have or in what circumstances they can have these extraneous characteristics. Quote where I said that. You cannot trust peoples' own judgements on whether a prediction applies to them. They are biased and can make almost anything apply to themselves if they want to. How many times do I have to say this? This. Is. Not. Proof. You've still not explained how any of this works. It's just the same as kelem_ryu - you're sitting there saying "it works, honest!" with no explanations.

That is not proof. That is people who believe in astrology applying things to themselves. By your rationale, someone who believes in god saying that god answers their prayers/talks to them is objective proof that god exists. The newspaper astrologers started out just like you. They just wanted to turn a fast buck, if you're going by how people claim predictions apply to them then the newspaper astrologers must be the most accurate of all.

I am not saying that the science behind it is vague; I'm saying it's non-existent. I'm saying that the 'predictions' and personality analyses made by astrologers are so vague that more than 1/12th of people could apply them to themselves, should they want to. Let's not say it's a theory. It is not a theory. Theories either originate from or are supported by experimental evidence. Maybe you could respond to these points which I made earlier? Astrology is not possible at all, how can the position of planets affect peoples' personalities? I'm sure the newspaper astrologers believe they are right and you are wrong. That's how erroneous belief in something works - you think that your belief is right and all others are wrong, just look at all the religions that think their god is the only true one and all the others are false. The simple explanation is that you're both wrong. I do not need to provide evidence for my claims that your 'predictions' (predictions of peoples' characters) can apply to more than 1/12th of all people because they are true prima facie. That means that the burden of proof is upon you to support your claims which are contrary to common sense. That's how the burden of proof works - you're claiming something that is not true at face value, therefore it is up to you to prove it.

Overclockers has also usually got more super-high-end stuff, but since this is computing on a budget that doesn't apply.

I don't need to claim it applies to everyone in the world. I only need to claim that it applies to more than 1/12th, which common sense dictates that it does. Then again, I don't think astrologers are too hot on common sense - given that kelem_ryu believes in magic. Is astrology magic? Can YOU say how it works?

Turn that around - can you say all 500,000,000 Leos are like what you said? Oh wait, you already weaseled out of that one by saying they can have characteristics from other horoscopes. What an exact science!

You go to the router's setup interface, usually by entering either 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1 in your browser. You enter the admin username and password. You then go to wherever the security settings are stored. You then select WPA encryption (not WEP) and choose to use PSK (pre-shared key) mode. Type a reasonably long key there, something like 15 characters or more. An ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) ping is a single packet sent to a host which tells the host to reply to the source address. It is used to check whether devices are responding and if so, to check the time it takes them to respond. Many hosts block ping. It also has a TTL (time to live) value which prevents it taking too many hops before reaching the destination. This can be used to trace the route a packet takes from the source to the destination by starting off with a ping packet with a TTL value of 1 then increasing it each time - that way every host along the route will reply, showing you the route a packet takes. I think it's called ping because of the noise a submarine's sonar makes.

You can probably get better if you look at scan.co.uk - overclockers is generally overpriced.

I use a program on my PocketPC called SPB time. You can set as many alarms as you want, each can be set to only go off on certain days, each can have its own snooze time, its own sound, how long it plays for etc. I mainly have that program for a cooking timer.

I'm starting to wonder if I need to post any more arguments against this astrology quakery; you've already debunked it more than I could hope to.

Strongly biased towards magic? I'm strongly biased towards rational enquiry. I was giving magic as an example of something which is on the same level of plausibility as astrology. Here are some other examples: Santa, the tooth fairy and the bogeyman. "Why is there a synchronity between the planets and the happenings on earth?" - if you are referring to a synchronicity between the planets and people's personalities or the events they encounter then the answer is that there isn't. You say there isn't an answer that I wouldn't tear into pieces, is that freely admitting that your pseudoscience doesn't stand up to tests or questioning? So far all you've done is say "it really works, honest". I believe the quote you were referring to is along the lines of "There are more things between heaven and earth than we can perceive with our normal senses" - which implies that you believe astrology works, but that we just don't know why. That is contradictory to what you said before about it having a solid foundation. Make your mind up...

Explain that then? You've still said nothing of this solid foundation. You've hinted that history repeats itself and that's hardly an explanation. How does that have anything to do with what peoples' personalities are like? How does it have anything to do with how different people will supposedly have different experiences each day? How does it explain how, when you look in different newspapers, the horoscopes say different things for each star sign? Surely if it was any form of prediction it would have to be based on reasoning - and if it was then all predictions would be the same. You don't seem to be saying HOW these things happen, only that they do. That's no more credible than saying it's magic.

Don't know about others, but that's not how I have killed fish. As soon as we got them out of the water we whacked them over the head very hard - either with something we had to hand, or by holding the tail and smacking it on a railing. It then got stuck in a bucket. Out cold whilst it suffocated. Either that or we cut their heads off immediately. What you are describing is totally unnecessary; it's not as though they would spoil in that time.

So you are saying that the position of stellar bodies affects how things work on earth and hence gives you the ability to predict what will happen in the future? It gives no explanation of the solid foundation though, that's still wishy-washy and only talks about what happens; not how it happens, which, from the sound of it, might as well be magic for all you care. It doesn't say how the positions of stellar bodies dictate personalities and happenings on earth. You made the claim that it had a solid foundation and that's why I am pursuing this line of questioning.

My god, I never thought of that. Thread over. In case there's any mod who's having an off-day and misinterprets that as my being serious: it's sarcasm.

An interesting quote on the subject: "How happy are the astrologers if they tell one truth to a hundred lies, while other people lose all credibility if they tell one lie to a hundred truths." - Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), a papal adviser.

Unwilling because you're unable, I can only guess. The fact you had to resort to using bad language further proves your inadequacy. You're doing the internet equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la la la". You're in stark contrast to most other users, who try and give an argument even when they don't know what they're talking about.

Yet you are unable to explain this supposedly solid foundation, or counter any of the points I made against it? They must have been pretty poor books. Either that you you were just looking at the pictures.