I have previously argued, especially in a BAUT thread titled Astronomical History, that there is a neat comparison between historical events separated by the physical Zodiacal Age period of 2148 years. This means the Great Year, the slow axial wobble of the earth, has established a deep rhythm in life over the four billion years of planetary history,

Ahem... you have the years some people died on the first list in that forum. Is this some long term prank? Slow acting selective pressures determining the year someone dies?!? C'mon. 90% of that list is crap. Show population explosions of various species and such. You know darn well a 'deep rhythm of life' established by celestial mechanics wouldn't be the determining factor in a person's death, nor the determining factor in whether or not someone who will later just so happen to be elected to office will be born. Including such selections should set alarms screaming in your head. You really should go back to that forum and delete that post.

Interbane wrote:Drawing a parallel between music and the mechanics of orbiting bodies is good as an explanatory device, but it doesn't seem that there's anything there to explain. What mechanical function would the fractions represent? You have the rotation of the Earth, the moon, the sun. The moon orbits the Earth once per lunar month. The Earth spins once per day. If the Moon were to also spin, it would introduce a variable for a harmonic. As it stands, the denominators are the things I've just described. I'm not sure where you're getting the 3 month thing from. Solstice/equinox/etc, those are all labels we apply to certain points in a year. What is relevant to harmonics is one revolution, a 'wavelength'. A 440 wavelengths are in 440 Hz(per second) which would be equivalent to 440 years if you're speaking of Earth orbiting the sun. Could you explain what you mean without any analogies? Use the raw material. I believe you're seeing 'ghosts in the analogies', so to speak.

The question here is the mathematical nature of the zodiac sun sign periods. Unlike the common view that they exhibit some magical link to distant stars, all I am showing is that the signs are a mathematical function of the orbit of the earth around the sun. If we see the year as a sine wave, it can start and end at any of the four solstices or equinoxes. Taking each of these four points as a beginning, we can imagine overlay harmonic sine waves with frequencies double and triple the annual period. The resulting eight imagined waves are the mathematical source of the division of the year in twelve. Now, the criticism immediately arises that we see nothing that has period six or four months in the world. This indicates that this mathematical monthly period of the sign has little or no effect, as much as astrological sun signs, for which there is almost no statistical evidence. The four month period introduces the highly problematic concept of the four elements of fire, earth, air and water. Over the twelve month cycle, signs traditionally seen as one element are separated by four months, eg Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are fire signs. However, there is no statistical evidence that this concept of the fire sign is more than a mathematical construct. At this point I must plead Dawkins' excuse that the effect is simply too weak to be measured to date, and all the plethora of newspaper horoscope sun sign predictions is based on a mathematics that lacks any empirical corroboration. Of course, the fact that people have not yet devised sensitive enough tests to measure the signs does not prove this harmonic temporal cycle of the earth is has no effect.

Why should the seasons be divided into three? Are you going to investigate this to see if there is any physical reality to the signs of the zodiac? What if we, humans, decided we wanted each season divided into three on our calendars, to match the signs of the zodiac we've seen in the sky? This doesn't mean the seasons are divided into three, it just means our calendars are. How many lunar months are there per year? How many periods to females have per year? Strange creatures.

My favourite way to suggest the physical reality of the twelve signs of the zodiac is the water sand ripple mandala experiment I described at http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainst ... ost1137173

I have previously argued, especially in a BAUT thread titled Astronomical History, that there is a neat comparison between historical events separated by the physical Zodiacal Age period of 2148 years. This means the Great Year, the slow axial wobble of the earth, has established a deep rhythm in life over the four billion years of planetary history.

Ahem... you have the years some people died on the first list in that forum. Is this some long term prank? Slow acting selective pressures determining the year someone dies?!? C'mon. 90% of that list is crap. Show population explosions of various species and such. You know darn well a 'deep rhythm of life' established by celestial mechanics wouldn't be the determining factor in a person's death, nor the determining factor in whether or not someone who will later just so happen to be elected to office will be born. Including such selections should set alarms screaming in your head. You really should go back to that forum and delete that post.

Interbane you just don't understand it. I am not saying that dates of death were caused by precession, but rather that if you compare events with events 2148 years before or after there is a similarity of pattern in the broad outline of history. So Alexander and Hannibal had similar historic roles in the age of Aries as Napoleon and Hitler had in the Age of Pisces. My contention is that the deeper you look into this seemingly fanciful comparison the more similarities you can find.

Comparing the USA to Rome as dominant western powers of the close of their respective ages is a speculative thought experiment that provides a framework to predict the future in general outline. On this model of history, the USA is now at the point where Rome was in 140 BC, as its emerging imperial military structure started to break apart its democratic republican traditions, which were retained afterwards in form rather than content. Over the next century, on this model of time, we can expect to see an American Sulla, Marius and Caesar emerge to lead civil war between the army and the people. If some one wants to write a futuristic novel, I suggest taking the events of the fall of the Roman Republic as a skeleton for the fall of the American republic. China also exactly fits this model, with the last two hundred years of war and revolutionary empire corresponding to the warring states period followed by the start of the 400 year Han dynasty periods. The causal factors here are very mysterious, but this suggestion does cohere with the claim that the Great Year has real presence in world history.

My contention is that the deeper you look into this seemingly fanciful comparison the more similarities you can find.

Of course you find similarities!! That's what cherry picking is! The only way to avoid the accusation of cherry picking is to look 'deeper' into every other time interval(1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc.), use the same criterion of 'important event' selection, and highlight each even that is separated by those intervals. Then, after you have every year up to about ten thousand, compare how many similarities there are for each interval compared to every other interval. If this sounds like a lot, it is. However, that's the only way to do an unbiased study of the intervals. Here's an experiment; look deeper into the time span 1234 years. Find every event that has the same criterion as those in your list. Do this with the same fervent investigation that you did for 2148 years, so that you don't miss even the death of someone important. With millions of potential events to pick from, and thousands of relevant ones, I'm sure you'll find some extraordinary things.

The resulting eight imagined waves are the mathematical source of the division of the year in twelve.

Which eight imagined waves? Of the four critical junctures of the seasons? Why do you keep referring to these abstractions to make your points! Using the visual model of a wave reinforces the idea that there is much more going on than there is. The reality is that you are demarcating different points in the rotation of Earth. A rotation does not equal a wave. If you're discussing the interplay of physical forces, your visual abstractions won't do. Is that all you're doing is trying to find some mathematical link that validates splitting each season into 3, so that you may therefore tie together this split with the signs of the zodiac?

Here are two diagrams of the structure of time. Please note, these diagrams are 100% empirical. My claim is that this model describes a new scientific paradigm. If you start from the observation that the Great Year is the main period of long term history for our planet, it is then legitimate to ask how divisions of the Great Year appear in history.

The first picture below is an empirical model of the actual wobble of the earth. The historical theory I have presented suggests that the Great Year has a temporal pulse with period 2148 years, so that each of the twelve ages of the Great Year have a common repeating pattern, much as the day and the year have common repeating patterns, and in direct resonance with these shorter periods.

The sine wave of the year is shown in the top of the second picture, the Star Path of the Zodiac Ages, as the curving path marked Zodiac Ecliptic, the actual path of the sun against the stars each year and each Great Year.

Some answers to questions about the sine wave model of the year are here, including reference to the Diagram of the precession over the last 2.5 million years.

The historical theory I have presented suggests that the Great Year has a temporal pulse with period 2148 years, so that each of the twelve ages of the Great Year have a common repeating pattern, much as the day and the year have common repeating patterns, and in direct resonance with these shorter periods.

In what way does the 2148 year 'pulse' manifest? The temporal pulse. A pulse refers to something physical, right? This is the same question I had for the divisions you mentioned between the seasons, each 'month'. What is the physical demarcation?

Robert Tulip wrote: I don’t agree that Dawkins is ‘silent on what drives evolution’. His work is precisely about this question. The extended phenotype, the effects of genes in the world, is the point of linkage between the gene and its niche. Natural forces provide the enabling context for all evolution. The description of these natural forces enables us to understand the direction of evolution. The slow wind that Dawkins describes is an example of a weak natural force, blowing on average one mile per thousand years. My suggestion is that we can look for such slow weak forces by examining the regular cosmic factors that provide the external structure within which life on earth has evolved. The day and year are major observable structures, cyclic patterns of terrestrial time, that strongly bind the direction of evolution through diurnal and seasonal cycles. If the day and year sit within bigger older regular structures, it is entirely logical to postulate that these structures are, in your paradoxical phrase, a weak (but powerful) force.

If Dawkins would label "natural forces" as driving evolution, he would do so more to indicate where we are ignorant than to suggest an answer. "Natural forces" is no answer at all, any more than "cosmic forces" is. In science, there is always a frontier that is beyond our current knowledge, because we have to learn continuously by experiment and induction. Dawkins isn't answering any question with his "slow wind" analogy, only guiding us in speculation.

The question that is still beggared is where your science is. Starting with a paradigm is nothing more than using deduction, isn't it? Where is the data that shows any observable or inferrable physical effect of planetary motion or position on life on earth? It's not enough to believe that all of that "must have" influence over evolution and human history. You could say that to look for or even expect such evidence is logical, but it wouldn't matter because not all logical processes lead to scientific evidence.

DWill, I think the answer is that we know many of the specifics that cause change, but that's like knowing the colors of a painting. Listing off the colors doesn't produce art. We could say that Africans have darker skin due to longer sun exposure. Yet, that's one influence/adaptation amongst millions. While we may know more and more of the specifics, it serves the general audience better for a scientist if he refers to these influences as natural forces. There's nothing mystical about these natural forces, it's just that there are so many, and we've only yet hypothesized so few.

The question is whether or not there are seemingly influential forces that actually do not serve any benefit to be adapted to, for an organism to be sensitive to. How many organisms have adapted to the steady continual drifting of continents, or the el nino weather patterns, comit orbits, etc.

My problem with the direction Robert is currently going is that there is nothing physical to adapt to. He splts the seasons into 3 mathematically, but there's no physical corollary. It's a manipulation of data, not an observation of physical processes. The same is true of the 2148 year ages as well.

Interbane wrote:

The historical theory I have presented suggests that the Great Year has a temporal pulse with period 2148 years, so that each of the twelve ages of the Great Year have a common repeating pattern, much as the day and the year have common repeating patterns, and in direct resonance with these shorter periods.

In what way does the 2148 year 'pulse' manifest? The temporal pulse. A pulse refers to something physical, right? This is the same question I had for the divisions you mentioned between the seasons, each 'month'. What is the physical demarcation?

The Zodiac Age, the 2148 year pulse of the earth, manifests as a resonant relation between the earth and the whole solar system. My Solar System Planet Clock shows how the whole solar system, as indicated in the motion of the sun against the center of mass, has a pulse of 179 years, precisely 1/144th of the earth's Great Year.

The Great Year is a planetary pulse of 25765 years (like the wobble period of a gyroscope) within a larger system (sun and gas giants) that has pulse of 179 years. The 2148 year Zodiacal Age is the period that links these two natural cycles.

SSB/ZA = ZA/GY and ZA = √ (SSBxGY), where Solar System Barycenter = SSB, Zodiacal Age = ZA and Great Year = GY. Setting SSB = 1 and GY = 144, we have 1/ZA = ZA/144, giving ZA = 12. While there is a small drift in this relation, it basically stands so that the Planet Clock is an accurate model of the solar system over millions of years at least. The Age can be further divided into twelve hours as described at my planet clock link.

Here we see the cycle of 12, as shown in ordinary clocks, is embedded in the temporal structure of the earth. It means that the model described here of the Great Year is not just a one-time event, but is a permanent depiction of the temporality of the earth since the solar system stabilised. There have been about 175,000 Great Years since life began, or about 100 since the homo genus split from australopithecus 2.5 million years ago.

If each Great Year is like the 'wheel spinning backwards' on a movie film, relating to the much faster forward spin of the year/wheel, and moreover the Great Year has a precise physical relation with the solar system, then we can analyse the Great Year to understand the astrophysical structure of terrestrial time. This is an ancient problem - Plato said in the Timaeus that the key to wisdom is to understand how the solar system relates to the galaxy.

The Zodiac Age, the 2148 year pulse of the earth, manifests as a resonant relation between the earth and the whole solar system.

Why do you continue answering without answering?!? What is this 'resonant relation'?!? Do you mean an actual physical resonance?

DWill wrote:Starting with a paradigm is nothing more than using deduction, isn't it? Where is the data that shows any observable or inferrable physical effect of planetary motion or position on life on earth? It's not enough to believe that all of that "must have" influence over evolution and human history. You could say that to look for or even expect such evidence is logical, but it wouldn't matter because not all logical processes lead to scientific evidence.

The paradigm is based on inductive observation, using deductive inference within an empirical framework of inductive observation. Claims of historical effects of cosmic cycles are deductive, but the model I have presented in the solar system planet clock is inductive, based purely on observation. It is inductive to say the Great Year marks the slow passage of the sun around the ecliptic as seen from earth, but deductive to say that the Great Year divides in twelve Zodiacal Ages by harmonic resonance with the solar system as a whole, and even more deductive to say that these twelve ages relate to the structure of the annual year and have observable historical effects.

You are correct to observe that this model presents a structure of time that may or may not have observable effects. We know that if there are any such effects, they are too weak to show clear patterns that stand without dispute in mainstream science to date.

As Interbane noted, Gauquelin's claimed Mars Effect is hotly disputed, showing that even if his statistics are valid, his critics are able to obfuscate enough to prevent mainstream recognition. If there is an effect, it is extremely weak, comparable to Dawkins' evolutionary wind blowing at one mile per thousand years.

My opinion is that this situation regarding acceptance of Gauquelin's findings is in large part political, with the modern rationalist movement quite hostile to the possibility of cosmic effects as a recrudescence of primitive fatalism. Analytical methodology has been weak in this area, with Gauquelin the best. His hostile reception drove him to suicide, and the implication that he may have killed himself because his claims were fraudulent is a foul slur on one of the greatest scientists of modern times.

The question is where we can look for information to validate the deductive model of the Great Year as the framework of history. Einstein looked to observation of the perihelion of Mercury to provide inductive proof for his deductive model of relativity. Finding evidence for the Great Year in history is paradoxically both easier and harder than the relativity problem. It is easier in that there is a wealth of mythic material in the Bible, the Vedas and elsewhere that shows ancient thought was structured by this Great Year model. As Tat Tvam Asi and I have argued, using the lens of precession unlocks the code of the Bible. However, the scientific status and implications of this material lacks mainstream acceptance.

This paradigm shift is more complex than relativity for a range of reasons. The only data we have to validate the claimed temporal cycle of the Great Year is its presence in the evolution of human thought, because other effects are too weak to leave any trace. The abundant traces in mythology include the claim that the Holy City of the Bible is primarily a description of the Great Year. This is a jolting shift from traditional theology, providing a scientific framework to read and understand the Bible. The fact that the Bible remains in widespread use as a tool to contest scientific method is a stumbling block to this scientific research program.

__________ 18 Jan 2010 06:23 __________

Interbane wrote:

The Zodiac Age, the 2148 year pulse of the earth, manifests as a resonant relation between the earth and the whole solar system.

Why do you continue answering without answering?!? What is this 'resonant relation'?!? Do you mean an actual physical resonance?

Yes I do mean an actual physical resonance. My discovery of the relation between the Great Year and the Solar System Barycenter is a new scientific finding. The earth sits within both the 25765 year spin wobble cycle of the Great Year and the 179 year cycle of the solar system barycenter as permanent structural cycles. The barycenter cycle naturally causes the Great Year cycle to divide in twelve segments at the period in inverse relation to both, ie the Zodiacal Age, as a main natural rhythm of the earth.

As I said here in response to a question from Oblivion,

Your metaphor of an orbital sounding board is good. The first challenge is to accept as a hypothesis that planetary motions over very long time periods form wave patterns which can interact. Your musical analogy of the sounding board, which expands the resonant volume and tone of a musical note, helps to explain how this may be possible.

The main long term cycle of movement for the earth is the Great Year, caused by the wobble of the axis. The main long term cycle of movement for the solar system is the position of the sun against the centre of mass, a cycle caused by the orbits of the gas giants. The solar system as a whole is therefore like a ‘sounding board’ for the earth, but in a sense this relation is mutual, in that we can see the Great Year as the mundane sounding board for the basic rhythm of the whole solar system.

Continuing the musical analogy, we have two wave functions, one with period 25765 years (the Great Year of the earth) and one with period 179 years (the solar system centre of mass). In music, each octave doubles the frequency. Therefore, if we consider the Great Year as analogous to a musical note of frequency one hertz, the centre of mass has frequency 144 hertz and the Zodiacal Age has frequency 12 hertz.

Modelling the Great Year frequency as the note C 64 Hz, the Zodiacal Age has frequency twelve times this, G 768 Hz, and the Centre of Mass has frequency twelve times higher again, D 9216 Hz. The multiple of twelve times the frequency produces a note that is three octaves and a perfect fifth higher. On a piano, these three notes are low C, middle G and high D, each 3.5 octaves apart.

The perfect fifth is the next strongest resonant frequency after the octave. So we can say the frequencies of the Great Year and the movement of the solar system resonate against each other like sounding boards through their common perfect fifth relation to the frequency of the Zodiacal Age.