In defence of astrology against snakeoil salesmen

In continuation of the de-bunking of the astrology is pure science myth of the previous episode, I spent a sleepless night imagining what a logically sound explanation for the origin and prevalence of astrology might be. I do not claim to be the first to come up with the theory that I present below but I reckon that this could be the "science" behind astrology.

Evolutionary psychology, a branch of science that attempts to explain the origin of particular mental and psychological traits as the functional products of natural selection, shows that two important natural tendencies in humans are results of evolutionary pressures; namely,  

1.  agency (an event is caused by someone) and
2.  pattern recognition  

These traits are not confined to human species but we can understand the development and strengthening of these traits by imagining the forager experience. The first, agency, was essential for human survival as a threat identifier – you hear leaves rustle, you think there is a predator or competitor in the bushes. All early apes who thought that it was probably the wind got eaten quite rapidly. From a survival point of view, it is better to mistake the wind to be a lion, rather than the other way round. So this leads to a fairly basic heuristic – all things that happen are caused by someone.

Similarly, it is easy to imagine the need for pattern recognition. Humans do not develop pattern recognition because they are so special but rather because they aren’t. Home sapiens have not yet become the apex predator that he is now and is in the middle of the food chain. Pattern recognition, such as the hour at which deer or other prey goes to a particular watering hole or the location of predator territory are all basic survival strategies and are therefore adaptive. Adaptive traits gets passed along to the next generations, just like physiological traits such as opposable thumbs. Given that the early humans who are still hunter-gatherers have these tools in their toolbox helps them in their transition to farmers. It should be noted that modern anatomically correct homo sapiens are at least 200,000 years old but the beginning of farming is relatively recent – 11,000 years ago, representing just over 5% of the history of mankind.

The origin of pattern recognition as a predictive tool becomes even more essential for the farmer as his survival depends on knowing when is the right time to plant or harvest the newly domesticated crops. The passage of time which were basically separated as day-night and hot-cold needs further classification. The calendar is born and months and seasons are carefully divided to maximise their yield. But unpredictable events such as floods, droughts, pestilence occur fairly regularly. Here is where the adaptive traits of agency and pattern recognition result in the formation of certain beliefs – floods are caused by flood-gods and droughts by drought-gods. And appeasing these pagan gods with sacrifices (usually human sacrifices) results in the alleviation of their sorrow. Basically the heuristic is that I sacrificed a virgin at the altar of the flood god and three days later, the rains stopped. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. After this, therefore because of this. Confusing correlation to causation is one of the logical deficiencies intrinsic to the otherwise adaptive traits.Just because one observes a pattern does not necessarily mean that a pattern (with causal link) exists.

Simultaneously a predictive model however simplistic is born out of the hard-wired pattern recognition algorithm. The humans who had already become accustomed to marking the passage of time with celestial movements (sun marks day and night, lunar phase marks a month, etc) notice that particular human events occur after certain celestial events. The most famous example being comets, which were seen as harbingers of death and destruction (up until Newton and Halley). So, a simple model is developed – When planet A is in position B, x occurs.  This model is validated when the next time the planet is in the same position, x occurs again. Of course this doesn’t mean that the location of planet had caused the event to occur but merely that they were simultaneous. However, the model is brought to question, when the planet comes to position B the next time and x does not occur. The question then is what is different this time. Then one of the elders points that though planet A  is indeed in position B, planet C which used to be position D (when the event did occur) has now moved to position E (and the event did not occur).

Thus the model is updated at each instance that a given combination of inputs does not produce the expected outcome resulting in increasing complexity. More and more terms added to the equation. A simple three-body interdependent problem will yield

A1x1 + A2x2+ A3x3 + B1x1x2 + B2x1x3 + B3x2x3 + C1x1x2x3

It is like a Fourier series - the more terms you add the more complex and (probably) more accurate. We can therefore understand the sun signs system as a first order approximation, lunar sign system as a quadratic system. And each time we add a planet we increase the order of complexity.

We have what can be described an emergent phenomena where simple rules gives rise to an ordered behaviour in what is a complex, even chaotic system (some notes on deterministic and chaotic systems in next post). Then, predicting what is fundamentally an unpredictable multivariate phenomenon – the future of an individual - is analogous to the prediction of  planetary motion based on simple rules such as gravity. Astrology, then becomes  a predictive model not based on a causal relationship with position of stars - it is an analogous relationship. That is, two complex systems that are equally unpredictable can be solved with same algorithm. By studying the motion of celestial bodies, we study human behaviour -  as long as we can assume that the external and internal pressures in a multi body problem are analogous. Just as planets exert gravitational forces on each other, we can suppose that an individual has pressures and influences of different members of family, society, past, present and future. The planets are incidental to the prediction of the future. One could arguably use Game theory and computer programming to create a model of vectors of numerous interdependent variables to create an analogue but our ancestors did not have those luxuries. Instead they used the only analogue that they had access to and developed a phenomenological model based on observations of celestial phenomena that they updated or fine-tuned over at least 2000 years.  So one believes in astrology not because it is an exact science but because it is an iterative numerical model that has been around for long and has gone through enough iterations to be presumed accurate.

And that is the historical and scientific story of astrology that one could arguably use to believe in it.

But…

This version of history is not conducive for astrologers or the faithful. Firstly, it is important to understand that the democratisation of astrology is a recent phenomenon – astrological models were developed to predict large natural phenomenon. It is the same problem as using macro-economic models to predict individual behaviour. It simply doesn’t work. One can make fairly accurate predictions of populations of people but the models weren’t meant to and aren’t good to predict if I will impulse-buy a purple jumper on a Saturday afternoon in May next year. It is like the climate models that show global temperatures increasing over a period of years. One cannot use those models to predict if it will rain tomorrow. And the models aren’t technically disproved if you have a cold winter.

The second problem is of course that doing penance or visiting a temple dedicated to a particular planet is not going to make the planet forgive your sins or allow you to buy the Mini Cooper that you have always wanted. So the predictive models, while interesting intellectual exercises are not prescriptive. There is no ‘do this and everything will be fine’. Unfortunately.  We live in an indifferent universe. This is our future. The future is uncertain for the most part and the only thing we have is the now, this moment. And to spend this precious moment on hypothetical futures is futility. We could succeed. We will fail at times. We might be happy. We will be sad. Yes, Fear and especially the fear of the unknown is a strong emotion  and knowledge (however imperfect) can empower us. But it can just as easily lead us to fatalistic despair.  The only certainty is that we will definitely die. We will be forgotten. To quote one of my favourite authors’ view on oblivion -  “There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it“  

Also, some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

Subjective optimization

I am reading a book called "You are now less dumb" by David McRaney. Like Incognito, it is a brilliant work on the inner workings of the brain. It is so filled with Aha! moments that I am having Ahagasms. Repeatedly.

Take for instance, the section on subjective optimization. A couple of psychologists set up this study where a bunch of students enroll for a photography course. The instructor tells the students to take pictures of what they find the most memorable and beautiful moments of their university life and to showcase two of the best pictures from the lot. This is before the time of widespread use of digital cameras, smartphones, Instagram, etc. The students develop film rolls (you remember those things from the ancient past?). And this is where the scientists come with a  twist. They split the students into two groups. One group is asked to choose one of the two photos which will be printed out and given to the students as souvenir. The other photo will be left behind with the instructors (and they will have no copy of it). Essentially, the student has to pick photo A or photo B then and there and he or she gets to keep the picture they chose and not the other which is lost forever.

With the other group, the scientist offers the same choice between photo A and B but they get to take their time and even reverse their decision once it has been made.

A little whiles later, the two groups are asked about their choice. The group that was forced to make a pick instantly across the board expressed happiness about their pick. The lost photo was forgotten. They had settled for one and it was the right one. On the other hand, the group that was allowed time to choose were more likely to be unhappy about their choice and were filled with regret. Maybe they should have picked the other one. They wished that they could go back in time and change their choices.

As McRaney puts it, "Getting locked into a situation with no hope of escape activates subjective optimization", i.e. "seeing life as it is as being the best that it could be" . This great tool of the psychological immune system makes what you get stuck with seem better than that which you no longer can obtain. Scientists find that it is relatively very easy to induce subjective optimization in a lab setting; offer the participant a series of possible outcomes and rig the system to ensure that they get a crappy outcome and observe how that suddenly changes to a desirable outcome as if by magic.

The book further explores this topic with another study on song choices and I am sure there are plenty of research papers in this field. But the Aha! moment for me was that this explains the relative success of arranged marriages. The strictly confined choice of partner allows the mind to make metaphorical lemonade out of lemons. They are more likely to be happy with the person they are stuck with than a system where people are free to choose their partners (and change their minds). Folks who marry someone out of their volition will be more likely to rue their choice and wonder if they made a mistake by not choosing this girl or that guy from their past. That is not to argue for or against arranged marriage but one more piece of the puzzle falls into place. I understand it better.