Planetary meanings and observations - an alternative view
I think it behooves me to offer an alternative view of the original planets and their meanings. I do this because it might shed some light on the difficulty of ascribing meaning to new bodies.
Dadsnook2000 said:
And, this is my point that I have been so persistent about. Observation is one of the ways of determining if there is any influence or link between us and the sky. If there is, there is little sense in starting the discussion if one wishes to ignore thousands and hundreds of years of observations that say that there is something.
No I don't want to ignore those 'thousands of hundreds of years' though as the records from the start of that period are a littles sparse, It is not easy to do other than speculate. What follows is a method based on observation but different in the direction of meaning. It's speculation but we have little else
What would be the likely first observations made by mankind about the heavens? Most likely the cycle of Day and Night. An object which we now call the Sun, appears to rise, in what we now call morning. It is huge, firy and provides the heat and light necessary for life. It sets at what we now call nightfall.
The second thing we notice is that in the absence of the Sun, many other bodies appear in the sky but one dominates - what we now call the Moon.
The Moon and Sun appear to 'dance' in the heavens. They have cycles (Yes Dave I agree cycles are very important) The Moon passes through different phases and appears in different places in the night sky. The Sun also has a phase relationship with Earth. At the season we now call Summer, it is hotter and in the sky longer. In the season we now call Winter, it is low in the sky, cooler and rises for shorter periods.
It is very likely that over the 'thousands of hundreds' of years meaning was sought for this dance and these objects that gave light and heat during the day and cold and darkness, (which might be illuminated by the sun's reflective rays) during the night. Mankind may well have inferred the existence of gods and divine purpose. Certainly well on in this period, perhaps the last 5% or 6% we have records of creation myths that focus on the Sun and Moon being placed in the sky by a creator, for a purpose. Meaning may have flowed from planets to belief systems, not based solely on events but on the need to make sense of the universe.
Other bodies joined this 'pantheon' well within the early part of this period. A second bright planet is seen and recognised. It certainly appears in cave paintings, so we know it is 'recorded' very early on. It is the third brightest object visible in the pre dawn morning or the evening after the sun has set - what we now call Venus. It too seems to have influenced the development of belief systems.
Other planets can be identified - a second bright one, which we now call Jupiter and two dimmer ones, Mars and Saturn. There is an argument that Bright = good, and Dim = bad, based presumably on the earlier view that light is good and darkness is bad. The two bright planets are benefic, the two dimmer ones are malefic. Again it is possible that they too influenced the creation of belief systems about why mankind existed. A fifth planet is also observed fleetingly in the morning and evening, never far from the Sun it's nature too would have been the cause of wonder and it too would have been incorporated into early belief systems.
How that specifically progressed we don't know but it is at least possible that myths came into existence as a result of that speculation, not, of course in one day or indeed in one century but evolving out of wonderment over millenia. Note that the meaning of myth comes from the planets, and their behaviour not the meaning of planets coming from the myths.
Such an evolution would begin to see the planets as either gods or the messengers of gods, their movements and their believed intrinsic nature carrying meaning for mankind. Observing the planet became important, not to find out what the planet meant, that was already known in general terms (or believed to be known). Observation was necessary to understand the message that was being delivered by a specific observation of the planet (or class of observations).
Now there may well have been a feedback loop here, with observations being recorded and 'correalated' in some cultures towards the end of this period. The process is not all one way but a set of 'commonly accepted meanings and influences' were largely there before the recordings began. Omen Astrology is part of an 'enchanted world' view but I agree that the recording and correlations may well have put us onto the road to 'disenchantment' and a change in the nature and understanding of Astrology.
Are we so far apart Dave? We both accept a process of observation but you appear to believe that original meaning can be derived from these observations alone. I tend to believe that observation, in the sense of seeing, stimulated speculation as to the meaning of the cosmos and led to a belief system in which the planets had a symbolic role. Yes cycles are important, none more so than that of Sun/Earth and Sun/Moon but it is clear by Plato's account in the Timaeus that other cycles of Conjunction and Opposition were by then (late forth century BCE) a common feature of Astrology.
So returning to the topic - how do we attribute meaning to a new body - seeing you've mentioned Phillip Sedgwick allot perhaps you'd like to explain in detail how meaning can be established for Makemake, using his methods.