Meet my very special guest, Mr. Richard Morgan. For 25 years he was a card-carrying atheist and flaming Richard Dawkins fan. Born in the UK, living in France, he came to Chicago for this event.
Richard had a radical conversion experience 3 years ago. Not only did it rock his world, it incited a riot on the Dawkins Internet discussion board. Despite his mannerly approach, he was soon banished from the forum.
In this video, Richard tells you his strange yet wonderful story. (It’s featured in the book “The Dawkins Letters” by David Robertson, 2nd edition.)
Richard Morgan: From Atheist & Card-Carrying Richard Dawkins Fan to Born-Again Christian from Cosmic Fingerprints.
Evolution 3.0: Why Didn’t the Darwinists Tell You How Evolution Really Works?
Here, I take a very unusual approach to the creation/evolution question. It’s not either/or, it’s both-and. In this video, I integrate the whole picture for you in a way that I’ve never done before:
- Evolution is demonstrably true despite the protests of many religious people. But… it’s much, much different than the Darwinists ever told you.
- Why hasn’t anybody been telling you how evolution *really* works?
- Evolution is not always slow or gradual: It’s capable of leaping forward at breathtaking speed. You’ll discover 5 utterly remarkable ways that species evolve.
I gave a similar talk 3 weeks prior to this to 65 engineers at Lucent Technologies. Got rave reviews. You’re going to like it too:
Perry Marshall: Evolution 3.0 & the Darwin-Design Synthesis from Cosmic Fingerprints.
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Hi Perry,
I couldn’t find the right place for this submission on evo2.org, so I’ve put it in this comment box.
I’ve tried to align the tables – hopefully they are readable at your end.
Kind regards,
Andrew Sanderson.
“Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”
Information that doesn’t come from a mind is found in astrology.
Real astrology is a language that conveys information in an objective way. It has been acknowledged and seriously studied for thousands of years.
For many people, their only understanding of astrology comes from newspapers and gossip magazines. That kind of astrology is superstitious nonsense and gives real astrology a bad name. It is irrelevant to this submission.
Astrology meets the criteria of a naturally occurring code.
1. Humans can design the experiment, with all manner of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, ideal conditions etc. They just can’t cheat: the submitted system cannot be pre-programmed with any form of code whatsoever.
The position of the planets in the solar system is naturally occurring and is not programmed by man.
2. Since the origin of DNA is unknown, the submitted system cannot be a direct derivative of DNA or produced by a living organism. Bee waggles, dogs barking, RNA strands and mating calls of birds don’t count. Such codes are products of animal intelligence, genetically hard-coded and/or instinctual.
The position of the planets is not the product of a living organism.
3. The origin of the submitted system must be documented such that its process of origin can be observed in nature and/or duplicated in a real-world laboratory according to the scientific method.
The planets are plain for all to see in the night sky. The exact positions of the planets are determined by astronomers with very accurate technology and methods in real-world laboratories according to the scientific method.
4. The submitted system must be digital, not analog.
The system of astrology is a language with an alphabet and syntax, as described below.
5. The submitted system must have the three integral components of communication functioning together: encoder, code, decoder.
The encoder is the solar system.
The code comprises the locations of the planets in houses and signs of the zodiac.
The decoder is the astrologer.
6. The message passed between encoder and decoder must be a sequence of symbols from a finite alphabet.
The finite alphabet comprises:
* The Inner Planets
Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn
* The Signs of the Zodiac
Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. These 12 signs of the zodiac are 30-degree divisions of the ecliptic.
* The House System
Houses 1 to12. These 12 houses are 30-degree divisions of the ecliptic. The first house starts at the eastern horizon at the moment of birth.
7. A symbol is a group of k bits considered as a unit. We refer to this unit as a message symbol mi (i=1, 2, …. M) from a finite symbol set or alphabet. The size of the alphabet M is M = 2^k where k is the number of bits in the symbol. For a binary symbol, k = 1, M = 2. For a quaternary symbol in DNA, k = 2, M = 4.
8. A character is a group of n symbols considered as a unit. We refer to this unit as a message character ci (i=1, 2, …. C) from a finite word set or vocabulary. The maximum size of the character set C is C = M^n. For a standard computer byte, M = 2, n = 8, C=256. For a triplet group of quaternary symbols in DNA, M = 4, n = 3, C=64.
9. The submitted system must be labelled with values of both encoding table and decoding table filled out.
* Encoding Table *
The encoding table is an ephemeris or astrological software. You can look at some free online software here: http://mykundali.com
At the time of writing the planets are located as follows according to mykundali.com:
Planet Sign Degrees House
Sun Aquarius 00-55-03 12
Moon Cancer 17-20-09 5
Mars Libra 02-03-35 8
Mercury Aquarius 05-19-52 12
Jupiter Gemini 17-02-49 4
Venus Sagittarius22-33-40 9
Saturn Libra 29-00-43 8
The time of birth of the person is required – preferably down to the exact second, but the nearest minute is usually good enough. The date and location are also required to discover the encoded table. The encoded table is usually displayed graphically as a “chart.”
* Decoding Table *
Below are basic decoding tables that are standard amongst Eastern and Western astrologers. The principles of decoding astrological code is found in many books on astrology.
I am familiar with the astrology of India and I speak mainly from that point of view. While Indian astrology has some different calculations and methods to other cultures, there is a lot of commonality between them. Likewise languages such as French, German, Spanish and English all use a common alphabet to convey the same information but in greatly different ways.
* The Basic Meanings of the Planets *
The planets may be interpreted in many different ways, but their meaning essentially parallels the archetypical royal court.
Sun…….…King
Moon….…Queen
Mars……..Military General
Mercury…Prince
Jupiter……Priest
Venus……Courtesan
Saturn……Servant
* The Basics of Interpretation *
The primary factor for decoding is looking at each planet and the house and sign it is located in. The qualities of the planet are modified by the house and sign.
Here is a simple table for interpretation.
Sign Ruler Exalted Debilitated
Aries Mars Sun Saturn
Taurus Venus Moon
Gemini Mercury
Cancer Moon Jupiter Mars
Leo Sun
Virgo Mercury Mercury Venus
Libra Venus Saturn Sun
Scorpio Mars Moon
Sagittarius Jupiter
Capricorn Saturn Mars Jupiter
Aquarius Saturn
Pisces Jupiter Venus Mercury
* A planet is comfortable if it is located in the sign that it rules. It will give good results. eg Mars in Aries.
* A planet will give very strong or positive results in its sign of exaltation. eg Sun in Aries.
* A planet will give weak or negative results in its sign of debilitation. eg Saturn in Aries.
* The Meaning of the Houses *
The 12 houses are abstract divisions of the ecliptic at the time of birth. Each house is 30 degrees. The first house starts at the eastern horizon at the time of birth.
Each house has many different meanings. Below are the primary meanings:
1. Self
2. Wealth
3. Siblings
4. Home/Mother
5. Children
6. Enemies
7. Spouse
8. Transformation
9. Good Fortune
10. Career/Father
11. Gain
12. Loss
* Examples of Interpreting the Code *
– Venus in Libra in the 2nd house indicates wealth and luxury.
– Mars in Cancer in the 4th house indicates a disturbed home life, disruption with the mother and the relationship with her.
– Mercury in Gemini in the 5th house indicates intelligent children.
– Saturn in Aries in the 7th house indicates major difficulties in the relationship with the spouse.
– Jupiter in Cancer the 9th house indicates extremely good fortune, wisdom and higher education.
– Sun in Aries in the 10th house indicates a stellar career (like Al Pachino who has this.)
These are extremely basic examples of how to interpret a chart. It is certainly much more complicated in practice. The examples above are like looking only at nouns in a sentence.
Like any language, to properly decode the message we need to consider the whole context – all the other qualifiers like nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, commas, speech marks, apostrophes and exclamation marks. In astrology these qualifiers are just as numerous and include aspects, the location of other planets, house rulers, etc. These qualifiers give more meaning and make the language more accurate.
* Codes with the Code *
There are also abstract methods of decoding such as the “navamsha” chart which is calculated by dividing each sign into ninths. This makes a sub-chart which has no direct correlation to the night sky but is used by the vast majority of Indian astrologers because it reveals what a person is like on the inside. This is one example of the many codes that are found within the original code.
It can be astonishing how much valuable information these sub-codes reveal. For example, I emailed my birth details to an astrologer in another country who I had never met, talked to or had any contact with. He looked at my chart, determined a certain sub-code, recorded his findings in an mp3 and emailed it back to me. The sub-code revealed specific information about how my particular body works and what foods I should and shouldn’t eat. This has been extremely helpful to me. He told me accurate information that no doctor has ever been able to tell me – even when I stand right in front of them.
I spent quite a bit of time trying to reverse engineer the calculation of this sub-code but without success. Fortunately, I met someone who showed me how to do it. Since then I have amazed people with practical information about their own body. It’s the type of information that can’t be gained through medical tests or observation. It is a unique system of diagnosis that I am certainly glad to have discovered.
* Computer Generated Interpretations*
There is software around that will automatically generate interpretations of charts by applying the principles of astrology. Sometimes these programs can be very accurate. Unfortunately most of them are vaguely accurate and generalised. They are like the early versions of online language translators – you can see what they are trying to say but they don’t really translate well.
But it is not because it cannot be done. With the help of the enormous resources of companies like Google, online translators have improved dramatically. If Google were to give astrological software as much time and attention then I am sure they would produce automatically generated interpretations of a much higher quality.
My point is that astrological code follows objective principles of interpretation. The system works regardless of the beliefs of the person. It is simply reading the code.
10. For the submitted system, it must be possible to objectively determine whether encoding and decoding have been carried out correctly. For example when you press the “A” key on the keyboard, a letter “A” is supposed to appear on the screen and there is an observable correspondence between the two. In defining biological gender, a combination of X and Y chromosomes should correspond to male, while XX should correspond to female. For any given system, a procedure should exist for determining whether input correctly corresponds to output.
Information about a person is encoded in astrological language. It describes the characteristics of the person. This is a fact. I have a lot of experience with this and know it to be true.
* How to Prove Astrology *
1) Get an astrologer to look at your own chart
If you have an accurate birth time, then email it to a random competent astrologer and get them to send you a recorded mp3 interpretation about your chart. It is very surprising how much someone can know about you only from your birth details.
Do this with a number of other competent astrologers and they will all give you similar interpretations. This simple blind experiment should be enough to prove that a code is being read.
If you don’t have an accurate birth time then there is a process called “rectification” in which the astrologer looks at your life – your career, education, marriage, children, etc – and works backwards to find the chart that fits.
A friend of mine asked me to look at his chart, but he didn’t know the time of day he was born. So I worked backwards. Out of the 24-hour period of his birthday I determined that he must have been born at 2:35am. Some time later I met his mother and asked if this was correct. She confirmed it and said, “How do you know that?!?!?”
I discovered it by aligning the circumstances of his life and his personality with a corresponding chart. Contrary to popular belief, charts change quickly throughout the day. There is a very wide range of possibilities on any given day.
2) Get an astrologer to look at the charts of your friends and family
If you have friends or family with an accurate birth time (ideally down to the minute) then I hesitate to say it but there are plenty of astrologers on Fiverr.com who could give you an interpretation quickly and cheaply. There is no guarantee of competency, but it should be enough to prove that at least some level of information may be reliably extracted.
For the purposes of genuine investigation into the astrological code I recommend using only experienced, highly skilled astrologers in the same way that you would prove the efficacy of heart transplants by only going to a qualified heart surgeon.
Some charts are easy to read while others are complicated and difficult. So even if you don’t have an accurate birth time sometimes it is still possible to get meaningful information. If the person was born on a day when the Moon was very close to another planet, then it won’t matter what time of day they were born because the effect will be clear.
The Moon (ie the queen in the royal court) represents the mind and emotional nature. If Mars (the general) is located a few degrees away from the Moon then martial qualities will be evident in their mind and emotional nature, like anger. If Venus (the courtesan) is close to the Moon then qualities of art, beauty, romance, sexuality will be prominent in them. If Saturn (the servant) is close to the Moon then the person will have limited emotional expression, melancholy and a serious disposition.
(If you need a chart to experiment with you can borrow mine. Send my birth details to a good astrologer and he or she will tell you what I am like. Send it to a few and hear the same story repeated. There are a few clear characteristics that they will all pick up on.)
3) Learn some basic astrology principles and look at the charts of famous people
Another way to prove the astrological code is look at the lives of famous people. Birth details of famous people are plentiful on the internet, like at http://www.astro.com which has the birth details of 23,000 celebrities.
Plug the details into some software to determine the location of the planets at their time and place of birth and then apply the principles of astrology to interpret the code.
Have a look at Adolf Hitler’s chart. His Mars (the planet of war) is really strong. Or look up some Hollywood stars. Predictably you will find many with Venus strongly placed because Venus indicates arts, movies, drama. Or look up business leaders or religious figures or adventurers (like Edmund Hillary) or sports people and see the predictable common elements in their charts.
* Difficulties with Astrology *
In my experience, I have found that there is definitely a lot of code/information in astrology, but it’s also easy to misinterpret it. Nevertheless, even if only a little bit of information can be reliably gleaned from a chart in blind experiments, then it still proves the conveyance of information.
It is not necessary for the astrologer to get it all right. Astrologers often make mistakes when trying to predict the future. Personally I don’t use astrology to predict the future. Rather I use it to understand more about the present.
When I look at someone’s chart I gain insight into their personality and life. Some things are very clear, other things are not. So while I don’t expect perfect knowledge, I do find it very useful.
I am not trying to prove that astrology is a perfect science. Like most sciences there is still a lot to learn. But for the purpose of this submission, I am trying to show that there is a conveyance of information that did not originate from a mind.
* Some Personal Experiences *
As an amateur astrologer I have looked at many charts and been able to reveal to people information about their lives. While astrology is a hard subject to master, the first 50% is relatively easy. And by knowing a little bit you know a lot. So even with my basic knowledge I have been able to look at charts and identify types of career, illnesses, good and bad relations with spouses, siblings and parents, personality traits, their emotional condition and many more things.
When my cousin was about 12 years old he asked me to look at his chart. There were a lot of really strongly placed planets. I told him that he had an exceptional chart that indicated a lot of talent and wealth. He went on to win prizes for his studies in finance, beat very strong competition to land prestigious corporate positions and is currently amongst an elite crowd doing an MBA at Stanford University. He is as rational and pragmatic as they come, yet he has to admit that I identified his success a long time before it began to express in his life. As skeptical as he wants to be, he cannot deny that what I told him was correct.
Astrology can be simple. I know a woman in The Netherlands who has the Sun (the king in the royal court) well placed (in Leo) in the 11th house of gains. A simple interpretation would be “gains from the king.” Her husband died while she had a child under the age of 14. This qualified her to receive financial payments from the Crown (government) for the rest of her life.
A man consulted me about his chart. The principles of astrology indicated a seriously strained relationship with an older sibling, injuries to his head and lower back pain. It turned out his older brother was a deadbeat drug addict, as a teenager he’d nearly died from a head injury and he did suffer from lower back pain.
I have endless stories like this. Astrology for me has become very ordinary and normal. I have learnt to recognise the planetary archetypes in people without even having to look at their chart. Some people can easily spot other archetypes like the Mother, Father, Warrior, Priest, but I see them as Sun, Moon, Mars, etc.
Sometimes I’ll look at someone and see a really strong Mars quality and then when I look at their chart and apply astrological rules – unsurprisingly – the planet often features prominently. My point is that the astrological code doesn’t exist just on paper – it is plainly obvious in everyday life to those who are trained to see it.
If you look at the charts of astrologers you will likely find a strong Mercury. Mercury indicates intelligence and skill with analysis and language, which are definitely required for astrological study. Genuine astrological research is very popular and has grown rapidly with the advent of software and the internet. Nevertheless, most people don’t know much about it. Most people don’t appreciate how profound, complicated, rational, fascinating and real it is.
* The Case Against Astrology *
Frequently, I hear people summarily dismiss astrology, but they don’t know what they are talking about. They are uneducated. Any genuinely open-minded investigation will quickly reveal that there is at least some truth to it. And a deep and serious investigation will reveal that there is a profound and undeniable truth to it.
Astrology was known to many ancient cultures. There is nothing new about astrology. However, recently some religious and scientific groups have closed their minds to it. But the simple fact is that it works regardless of personal beliefs.
Skeptics try to explain why astrology cannot possibly be real and drift into arguments about causation, probability, precession (which has been adjusted for in India for a very long time), etc. These arguments are meaningless because facts trump skepticism. Without knowing how it happens, astrology does contain a code.
I offer no comment about free will or predetermination. I am simply presenting a code/language/information that did not come from a mind.
* Conclusion *
Astrology reveals detailed information that comes from interpreting the planets in the sky. It gives information about a person that can be read from their chart objectively and independently using pre-established principles of interpretation. It conveys information just like a book, except it doesn’t come from a mind.
Hi Perry,
I’ve added some place holders. Hopefully the tables will look better now.
Regards,
Andrew.
Planet…….Sign………Degrees…….House
Sun……….Aquarius…00-55-03 ……..12
Moon…….Cancer……17-20-09 ……….5
Mars……..Libra………02-03-35………..8
Mercury….Aquarius..05-19-52………12
Jupiter……Gemini…..17-02-49………..4
Venus……Sagittarius..22-33-40………9
Saturn……Libra……….29-00-43………8
Sign………….Ruler……..Exalted……..Debilitated
Aries…………Mars………Sun………….Saturn
Taurus………Venus…….Moon………………..
Gemini………Mercury……………………………
Cancer………Moon……..Jupiter………Mars
Leo…………..Sun………………………………….
Virgo………..Mercury….Mercury……..Venus
Libra…………Venus…….Saturn……….Sun
Scorpio……..Mars………………………..Moon
Sagittarius….Jupiter………………………………
Capricorn…..Saturn…….Mars…………Jupiter
Aquarius……Saturn………………………………
Pisces………..Jupiter…….Venus………Mercury