A significant challenge faced by astrologers using statistical research and AI (artificial intelligence) to correlate planetary patterns with events is that results are not repeatable. Astrology is unique amongst the arts and sciences because it studies nature of time, the quality of time, as it varies from moment to moment. Time is like a landscape in that each moment has unique characteristics, just as each landscape vista is unique.
For example we might get one result from a medical research project that says xyz has shown a 79% correlation with Sun-Jupiter conjunctions over a 30-year period. At first glance this result might sound impressive. Research such as this is common in financial astrology circles where aspectal relationships between planets are correlated with the rise and fall of markets.
The odds
However, the chances of the celestial bodies being in the same signs and in the same angular relationship are millions to one. It takes hundreds of thousands of years for the exact same pattern to be repeated. For example, if research shows that applying Venus-Saturn square aspects have had a 75% correlation with a rise in the financial markets over the last 5 years, over the next 5 years the patterns of the planets do not repeat. The experiment cannot be repeated over the same conditions.
So while, in the above mentioned research, the results sound impressive, they can only be replicated in a relatively short period of time, and even then there will be differences as the Moon will have changed its zodiacal position. The Moon changes sign very quickly, and the movements of the more distant bodies provide a different backdrop on a regular and predictable basis.
Pluto and shorter sub-cycles
It is true that within a 250-year time frame Pluto’s sign placement remains the same. But this interval is divided up into sub-periods described by the shorter cycles of Uranus and Neptune, and these sub-periods are further divided by the interweaving cycles of Jupiter and Saturn, Mars and the Sun, and so on..
It is fundamental to astrology that the landscape of time varies from moment to moment, and that each moment is especially unique. Therefore, involving astrology with statistical research and estimating probabilities based on past results has limited value. Statistical research assumes that each moment is the same and attempts to validate results based on the assumption that conditions are the same and can be replicated. But astrology says that conditions are never the same because the quality of time varies from moment to moment. No two moments can be replicated.
Looking at the bigger picture It is questionable whether astrologers need to validate their findings according to the dictates of empirical and statistical research. While it is understandable that astrologers feel a need to be accepted and validated by the wider community, especially by the scientific community which is held in the highest esteem in the present era, it may not be possible to find acceptance.
A different perspective
A different approach would be re-access astrology’s place in the world relative to the prevailing culture where science is held as the final arbiter of truth. History suggests that astrology was ‘the mother of all sciences’ because ancient stargazers developed many of mathematical principles which made today’s achievements possible.