Mundane Astrology and Data Mining (or Cycle Hunting)
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 9:55 pm
Hi everybody,
Nowadays we're in the age of Big Data, and this is not going to stop anytime soon. A lot of data (World Bank reports, weather, economy etc. etc.) is freely available for anyone who's interested. Data mining-related techniques are used by banks to predict your financial stability, or by Facebook to annoy you with 'personalized content' but what about mundane astrology? Personally, i expect that certain types of data may also be of interest to mundane astrologers. But i don't know of anyone actively using this kind of approach right now.
Anyone?
My own starting point would be Theodor Landscheidt (my favorite astrologer) who has analyzed cyclical events on earth (economic, seismic etc.) and related them to the activity of the sun. According to Landscheidt, and a growing number of mainstream sun-astronomers, sunspot activity is modulated significantly by the big planets. Landscheidt did a lot of his research in the 70's and 80's. I suspect there was a lot of hard manual labour involved. I also suspect that nowadays a combination of (free) open data, (free) analytical software and a bit of 'harmonic analysis' in the sense of Fourier Analysis (FFT) should also be able to detect patterns/cycles/etc. that are related to the cycles of the (big) planets, and who knows what else.
Right now i'm just thinking out loud about a general approach to this kind of research. Ideally, it should be useful to the astrological community as a whole (at least to the statistical types). A very general first hypothesis would be something like: the principles of astrology suggest that there should be Open Data Sets that have cyclic structures hidden inside them, which, if properly analyzed, line up significantly with the cycles of certain planets.
If we can get a feeling for the kind of data that works (why not try Landscheidt's articles for inspiration), we can ask more refined questions and measure other kinds of variables. Personally, i would start with a Fourier analysis (FTT) of interesting Open Data sets, and the game would be to find cyclic events that have a strong correlation with the cosmic cycles we're interested in. To play the game fair, it would be important to report all results of the analysis, not just the 'hits'. If a correlation is found, the best procedure would be to find a similar data set and test/verify the result.
1. Available data. These are some good starting points
UN Data http://data.un.org/
World Bank Open Data http://data.worldbank.org/
KDnuggets http://www.kdnuggets.com/datasets/index.html
US Government Open Data https://www.data.gov/
UK Open Data https://data.gov.uk/data/search
Time Series Data Library (Australia) https://datamarket.com/data/list/?q=provider:tsdl
Gapminder https://www.gapminder.org/data/
Open Data Handbook http://opendatahandbook.org/
2. Tools for Data mining
Rapidminer (free, has Fourier analysis on board) https://rapidminer.com/
Excel (has Fourier analysis on board)
Matlab (advanced data torture)
3. Examples of (Bad) Data Mining
http://developers-club.com/posts/144618/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2011/horoscoped/
https://medium.com/@samim/a-i-astrology ... .7837l6wpe
4. Astrology and data mining - thoughts
http://lifesboringletstastedeath.blogsp ... ology.html
http://www.creativitymaximized.com/2016 ... vable.html
5. Educational
Sun Spot Analysis using Fourier/FFT http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/teach ... spots.html
Astrostatistics and Data Mining (free ebook) http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2 ... 614-3323-1
Landscheidt's legacy http://bourabai.kz/landscheidt/publications.htm
More Landscheidt https://landscheidt.wordpress.com/
Nowadays we're in the age of Big Data, and this is not going to stop anytime soon. A lot of data (World Bank reports, weather, economy etc. etc.) is freely available for anyone who's interested. Data mining-related techniques are used by banks to predict your financial stability, or by Facebook to annoy you with 'personalized content' but what about mundane astrology? Personally, i expect that certain types of data may also be of interest to mundane astrologers. But i don't know of anyone actively using this kind of approach right now.
Anyone?
My own starting point would be Theodor Landscheidt (my favorite astrologer) who has analyzed cyclical events on earth (economic, seismic etc.) and related them to the activity of the sun. According to Landscheidt, and a growing number of mainstream sun-astronomers, sunspot activity is modulated significantly by the big planets. Landscheidt did a lot of his research in the 70's and 80's. I suspect there was a lot of hard manual labour involved. I also suspect that nowadays a combination of (free) open data, (free) analytical software and a bit of 'harmonic analysis' in the sense of Fourier Analysis (FFT) should also be able to detect patterns/cycles/etc. that are related to the cycles of the (big) planets, and who knows what else.
Right now i'm just thinking out loud about a general approach to this kind of research. Ideally, it should be useful to the astrological community as a whole (at least to the statistical types). A very general first hypothesis would be something like: the principles of astrology suggest that there should be Open Data Sets that have cyclic structures hidden inside them, which, if properly analyzed, line up significantly with the cycles of certain planets.
If we can get a feeling for the kind of data that works (why not try Landscheidt's articles for inspiration), we can ask more refined questions and measure other kinds of variables. Personally, i would start with a Fourier analysis (FTT) of interesting Open Data sets, and the game would be to find cyclic events that have a strong correlation with the cosmic cycles we're interested in. To play the game fair, it would be important to report all results of the analysis, not just the 'hits'. If a correlation is found, the best procedure would be to find a similar data set and test/verify the result.
1. Available data. These are some good starting points
UN Data http://data.un.org/
World Bank Open Data http://data.worldbank.org/
KDnuggets http://www.kdnuggets.com/datasets/index.html
US Government Open Data https://www.data.gov/
UK Open Data https://data.gov.uk/data/search
Time Series Data Library (Australia) https://datamarket.com/data/list/?q=provider:tsdl
Gapminder https://www.gapminder.org/data/
Open Data Handbook http://opendatahandbook.org/
2. Tools for Data mining
Rapidminer (free, has Fourier analysis on board) https://rapidminer.com/
Excel (has Fourier analysis on board)
Matlab (advanced data torture)
3. Examples of (Bad) Data Mining
http://developers-club.com/posts/144618/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2011/horoscoped/
https://medium.com/@samim/a-i-astrology ... .7837l6wpe
4. Astrology and data mining - thoughts
http://lifesboringletstastedeath.blogsp ... ology.html
http://www.creativitymaximized.com/2016 ... vable.html
5. Educational
Sun Spot Analysis using Fourier/FFT http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/teach ... spots.html
Astrostatistics and Data Mining (free ebook) http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2 ... 614-3323-1
Landscheidt's legacy http://bourabai.kz/landscheidt/publications.htm
More Landscheidt https://landscheidt.wordpress.com/