Shared Birthday

Astrologers are understandably prone to making predictions, because no one would be interested for long if astrology were only able to provide character profiles.

If accurately valid predictions of the future are possible, then they must be fated. That is, all circumstances must recur unchanged and endlessly in a process that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called the Eternal Recurrence of all things, or there must be an unalterable cause-and-effect relationship of the circumstances of past and the present to those that will occur in the future. In short, if accurate predictions of the future are possible, free will cannot possibly play any part in how circumstances come into being, simply because a small act of free will could easily undo or destroy a major piece of fate (destiny).

For example, we all know that Hitler had an immense effect on the world. The entire world would now be a completely different place if Hitler had not lived, or had died before he came to power. Over a hundred million people would not have died in the Second World War for a start and they would have had the children they didn't live to have. The entire living cast of people on earth would now be different. But Hitler could easily have died before he came to power in Germany. He could have been killed by circumstances created by innumerable possible, seemingly insignificant acts of so-called free will, and, consequently, all that is history now would never have come about as we know it.

Therefore, all of the circumstances surrounding Hitler's life had to be fated if he was a piece of fate himself, otherwise just one small act of unfated free will could easily have resulted in his early death and the Second World War would not have occurred.

For example, on a whim, his mother might have decided to take him shopping with her instead of doing what she actually did, and as a result both of them could have been killed, say, by a truck at a pedestrian crossing.

However, as anyone who has listened to or read the output from astrologers, they are very fond of having their cake and eating it. According to them, fate and free will do coexist and work together perfectly happily. Events, they say, can be fated and hence are predictable, but we, on an individual basis, are nevertheless able to influence events positively or negatively by free acts of our will.

This stance is obviously nonsense. If astrologers have any right to make predictions, they have no right to say that we have free will, because, as the famous French philosopher, Voltaire, said, fate and free will cannot possibly coexist.

In any case, how can free will exist in a universe that is completely conditioned?

There is will, but it is conditioned by the past, by our genetic and cultural inheritance, and by our present circumstances. We didn't choose to be born, our parents, our sex, or how or when we were born. We can't choose our time of death unless we commit suicide, and we weren't responsible for a single gene in our make-up, yet we're said by many unthinking bright sparks to possess free will. But if we had free will, we could use it to become whatever we wanted to become.

Each of us exists in certain circumstances of birth and happenstance. If we have the ability to take advantage of these circumstances to produce 'successful' outcomes it's clearly because we have an inborn ability to do so, not free will. Ability that is purely conditioned, therefore it isn't free. If we don't have the ability to take advantage of or improve our circumstances, it's a lack of inborn ability that is responsible, not not a lack of will to make use of our free will.

Why is genius, greatness, or even just the first-rate so rare? - Everything that has the greatest value is rare because free will doesn't exist. If unconditioned free will did exist, whatever is great and rare would be common. Therefore, when people use the term free will, they are really implying conditioned will, because no one is capable of exceeding his or her innate potential, and everyone's potential itself is limited by genetic and cultural inheritance, and by past and current circumstances.

For instance, the will of the people of Afghanistan has changed since September 11, 2001. It is far less restrictively conditioned than it was under the rule of the Taliban. Therefore, the will of the people of Afghanistan has increased since that fateful date. It was never free will, but it has become freer. But, during the great repression under the rule of the Taliban, the Taliban themselves were free to do much as they pleased. But since 9/11 the situation has been reversed, and the Taliban are on the receiving end of the repression. In other words, their will is now more or less non-existent.

Will is therefore always conditioned by circumstances, and so it can never be called free will. There is just will that appears relatively free or restricted when it is compared to other conditions of the will.

As we know, astrology creates its personal character profiles and makes its predictions by interpreting the significance of the positions of the planets in the solar system with regard to the positions of the twelve constellations of stars in the Milky Way that make up the astrological Zodiac and which have been given the names of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, etc.

It's clear that free will itself doesn't exist, but, even if it did, fate and free will couldn't possibly coexist. Therefore, what I want to help to determine via this website is what can't be reasoned out: Does astrology have any valid right to claim that it can determine what a person's physical and mental characteristics are from an astrological analysis of the positions that the planets and the of stars of the Milky Way were in at the person's time, date and place of birth?

To achieve this simple aim, I need you to provide me with some accurate information about yourself, completely anonymously, by completing and submitting the form on the next page...

Click here to go to the submission forms on the next page...

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