How Astrology is similar to Data Science
From childhood, Astrology has always grabbed my attention. How can a totally strange person predict my behavior or future just by looking at my palm, face, or birthdate? I mean these are just irrelevant information to know about anyone, the right way is to talk to the person or seeing the body language, isn’t it? So I thought they have some magical power to predict the unseen. So then I met so many astrologers and shown my palm and “Kundli” to them and observed their process. Although half of them were just saying generic things like “You have struggled a lot”, “You haven’t got enough from what you have done”, “You are a good person but surrounded by wrong people” and blah blah blah…
Then when I actually met learned Astrologers they have studied the things I showed (Kundli or the palm), then made calculations on fingers and pointed some of my core habits, way of thinking, and way of living. Now I had found the right resources to ask about Indian Astrology.
They say there is Ancient Indian literature on Astrology called “Jyotish Vidya”. Rishis of that time have spent years and years to analyze the “Hast Rekha” (Palm Lines), “Kundali” and the person itself. And after this long study, they have found some patterns, and based on that patterns the personality and behavior of a person changes, strange right? Still doesn’t make any sense, how can this happen? They say “We don’t know, but mostly it’s accurate!”…
Weird Right??
After some years, I started learning Data Science. In data science I was told, “it’s all about storytelling. The data is having a hidden story within and a data scientist has to read it”. So as a data scientist I will be having raw and unknown data and I will have to find patterns, relevance, and predict the unseen. Wait, predict the unseen? From the unknown data, Finding patterns, wasn’t all of it in Astrology too? I revisited the memory and “Yeah!, It’s so similar to Astrology!”. I started practicing data science more and more, and yeah the data doesn’t make sense to the prediction directly sometimes, but it is affecting the result just like astrology. A data scientist has to do some calculations and feature engineering to make it sensible, but in the end, it’s all about patterns. By patterns, the unknowns become knowns, i.e. the atomic theories, quantum physics, and also the whole physics.
So the conclusion is, Data Science is not a Technology it is a way of learning and exploring. Maths are the eyes, and Data Science is the vision. Astrology is not fake and the Rishis are Ancient Data Scientists and Analysts. India is a place where intellectuals have practiced such sciences and made the culture. I hope we, the dear readers will adopt the culture and make the world a beautiful and peaceful place to live and explore.
