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Comment by crmd | Hacker News Reader

Since the four seasons cause major variations in human activities and behavior, it’s quite plausible to me that the month a child is born, and therefore the sequencing of early childhood experiences during critical brain development, could have a statistically measurable effect on personality traits across a population.

However, I haven’t heard a remotely plausible explanation for the position of celestial objects at the moment of birth having an impact on personality traits.

Or, as I’m told, that’s the Libra in me coming out!

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>>However, I haven’t heard a remotely plausible explanation for the position of celestial objects at the moment of birth having an impact on personality traits.

Well, to be fair Astrology is where IT started and highest Mathematics were involved in Babylonia(my username here is just a mere coincidence). Observable celestial movements here can be regarded as a natural computer of Solar system scale. How that natural computer is used is a different matter.

I'm not really into Astrology(which is mother of Astronomy, btw), but I had interest about this topic... anyway, you must wonder how different is this approach of predicting things in Universe compared to modern AI, that makes predictions from assembled data. If the modern science is regarding a question if mere existence of this world can be compared to hologram, how it is different from observing some parts of hologram to make predictions about smaller parts of it, where humans are living on Earth, that is part of observable Solar system, where other Solar objects affects it and differently on each point of surface? Besides, this looks like a more reliable mechanism in predicting future(at least for agricultural events), than looking into coffee mug after drinking a coffee or throwing bones...

PS. Despite common misconception, both Western and Chinese astrology take high value on hour of birth - not year. Western astrology can't plot precise charts without knowing time of birth and secret(primary) animal sign of a person in Chinese astrology is based on hour as well.

> However, I haven’t heard a remotely plausible explanation for the position of celestial objects at the moment of birth having an impact on personality traits.

One "remotely plausible" explanation I have heard is that it's correlation rather than causation. The same (possibly unknown or not well understood) root cause could give rise both to celestial events and to events in your own life.

And as you mentioned, the time of year (not to mention the year itself) that you are born can have a strong affect on your early development, your personality, and ultimately your life - though presumably it would be different in the northern vs. summer hemisphere.

And of course the sun and moon directly influence weather and tides and can affect human behavior and biology.

I’m totally open to this. Can you elaborate on the proposed mechanism?

If this was true wouldn't we expect people born in Northern and Southern regions to exhibit signs consistent with astrological predictions and people born near the equator to be more consistent in their traits?

That is a very good point and I wonder why I have not thought about that. Though I always looked on this as a prediction tool - not for classifying things, as for that I had my own observations.

I would think, that modern astrology is cultural thing, where people self-condition themselves in believing in some of the things, however I can't think of many similarities between me and other people, that would be as the same that I am sharing with my parents(and link to parents is the main in defining my characteristics, even when I do not like that link), so meh.

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