World Won't End in 2012, Mayans InsistBy MARK STEVENSON, AP
(Oct. 11) — Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
For the Mayans, Dec. 21, 2012 marks what one scholar calls "a special anniversary of creation." New Age pundits have taken this to mean the end of the world.
But most Mayans, including tribal elder Apolinario Chile For the Mayans, Dec. 21, 2012 marks what one scholar calls "a special anniversary of creation." New Age pundits have taken this to mean the end of the world. But most Mayans, including tribal elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun, above, dismiss the idea as nonsense.
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end?
They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
So apparently people didn't learn anything from Y2K? :roll:
That's exactly what I thought...Y2K all over again.
If it is in fact true though, I don't think all civilization and mankind will meet it's demise...perhaps the thought is just that it's the end of the world as we know it...
Maybe 2012 will present something that will make us completely change our way of living? I dunno, pretty wild theories I'm thowing out here, but hey...I like to think outside the box.
7/2/06 - Denver, CO
6/12/08 - Tampa, FL
8/23/09 - Chicago, IL
9/28/09 - Salt Lake City, UT (11 years too long!!!)
9/03/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 1
9/04/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 2
I prefer the Terence McKenna version of the meaning of this date, rather than the Hollywood "day after tomorrow" story. If you want to have your mind blown YouTube Terence McKenna 2012, or Time Wave Zero. It helps to have a sort of "catalyst" to make it more enjoyable. By catalyst I mean pot.
Don't let THEM immanentize the eschaton!!!
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
The time-binding semantic function (that part of civilized primates that allows us to transfer knowledge across time, from generation to generation) of the human mind will coalesce into an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-everything - omnipresent - ubiquitous jellyfish. It has increased logarithmically for 100,000 years, and now we are at the singularity. The singularity is a big jellyfish.
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
Mayans aren't even around anymore. What the fuck do they know?
The earth is billions of years old. It'll keep spinning until the sun burns out at which point shit's gonna get real cold and then everything will die instantaneously.
I will have been dead for a few billion years previous to that so it won't really matter at all to me. My bloodline won't even make it to that point.
Is this the last great prediction from the Mayans? Are we done with them once the calendar turns to 12/22/12? They did invent good soup. Come on....who hasn't had some good hot Mayan soup?
This isn't the apocalypse, it is the end of the world as we know it. The eschaton will be immanentized and a new "reality" will appear. Bell's Theorem will prove to be true and the whole illusion of "space / time" will melt before our eyes. Maybe we just reach the center of the Mandala after 100,000 years of struggle (I've been there a few times, briefly). Maybe we'll all see the machine elves. Maybe I'll have a sandwich? I don't know...
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
I don't want to believe anything bad will happen, but I hope that if anyone has to die, it's quick and painless. None of that drowning business like the 2012 movie.
Mayans aren't even around anymore. What the fuck do they know?
The earth is billions of years old. It'll keep spinning until the sun burns out at which point shit's gonna get real cold and then everything will die instantaneously.
I will have been dead for a few billion years previous to that so it won't really matter at all to me. My bloodline won't even make it to that point.
Is this the last great prediction from the Mayans? Are we done with them once the calendar turns to 12/22/12? They did invent good soup. Come on....who hasn't had some good hot Mayan soup?
Actually its November of 2012.. and their calendar started with the big bang, a number that scientists couldn't come up with until recently.
They don't necessarily expect the world to end, but rather a new state of consciousness, wether it be artificial inteligence, extra terrestial contact or maybe a polar shift that wipes us all out.
They actually have a few calendars. One based of the 365 day year for tax purposes, but the 2012 one is not based off of object (planet) rotations and revolutions, but rather consciousness. Based off the number 13 it deals with consciousness continuing to accelarate by the number 13...
For example, big bang happened 14 billion years ago.. life began 4 billion years ago.. humans inteligence a million years ago.. every thing keeps getting closer and closer.. think about how many discoveries in the last 100 years compared to the last 10,000.. Pretty soon it expands beyond what our minds can tolerate, and BOOM!.. 2012. We either find out we aren't alone in the universe, we becomes gods ourselves, or we do in fact go extinct. We may not even realize what happens as it can be a slow process or transition.
Mayans aren't even around anymore. What the fuck do they know?
The earth is billions of years old. It'll keep spinning until the sun burns out at which point shit's gonna get real cold and then everything will die instantaneously.
I will have been dead for a few billion years previous to that so it won't really matter at all to me. My bloodline won't even make it to that point.
Is this the last great prediction from the Mayans? Are we done with them once the calendar turns to 12/22/12? They did invent good soup. Come on....who hasn't had some good hot Mayan soup?
Actually its November of 2012.. and their calendar started with the big bang, a number that scientists couldn't come up with until recently.
They don't necessarily expect the world to end, but rather a new state of consciousness, wether it be artificial inteligence, extra terrestial contact or maybe a polar shift that wipes us all out.
They actually have a few calendars. One based of the 365 day year for tax purposes, but the 2012 one is not based off of object (planet) rotations and revolutions, but rather consciousness. Based off the number 13 it deals with consciousness continuing to accelarate by the number 13...
For example, big bang happened 14 billion years ago.. life began 4 billion years ago.. humans inteligence a million years ago.. every thing keeps getting closer and closer.. think about how many discoveries in the last 100 years compared to the last 10,000.. Pretty soon it expands beyond what our minds can tolerate, and BOOM!.. 2012. We either find out we aren't alone in the universe, we becomes gods ourselves, or we do in fact go extinct. We may not even realize what happens as it can be a slow process or transition.
he still stands wrote:
maybe it is the singularity of consciousness. information has been accelerating at an exponential rate for millenia. It took 10,000 years to double the amount of information "known" in the world to the point of the agriculture revolution a couple of centuries before Christ. The amount of information known in the world doubled again in 1500 years (renaissance), then 250 years later (the new world), then 100 years after that (the industrial revolution), then 50 years (World Wars) then 25 years (60s culture) then 10 years (computers in every house) then 5 years (internet) then every 1 year (look around you!) and by next year every month, and by early 2012 information will be doubling every couple of weeks, then by late 2012 information will be doubling every couple of hours, then minutes, then seconds, and a MASS SINGULARITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS will occur, sort of opposite of the big bang. Everyone will realize we are all one, matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, "reality" is a projection of the group subconscious, and no one ever has to be afraid, sad, or unhappy again and human suffering will END.
edit: this is all very real. The thing that separates us from other primates is the "time binding - semantic circuit" in the neocortex of our brains. This allows information to be passed along over time. Imagine a chess board, lay one grain one wheat on the first block, two grains on the 2nd, 4 on the 4rd, 8, 16, and so on. How many will be on the final block? Information accumulation is the same way over time. It is doubled every time period of X and increases logarithmically. Logarithmical curves are always increasing to the point that they go "off the chart" or approach "infinity." We are there, people. :geek:
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
Basically, everything "new" we've seen in the last couple of decades has been technology that made things we already had become something we could keep on our bodies. Cell phones, Lap tops, Insulin, Wireless Headsets. It's just the evolution of purchasing. If the rotary dial phone hadn't been advanced, there wouldn't be a need to keep buying those ugly, heavy motherfuckers. Then it went to push button, slimmed up wall version, cordless, huge bag phone, brick phone, smaller, but still big digital cell phone, to today's current cell phone. Those advances don't impress me that much. That's just people trying to separate you from your money.
Want to impress me? Cure cancer.
It won't be done though. Why? There's too much money in it.
But everything you see that "amazes" you is doing it's purpose. It's giving you a reason to create a plan to come up with the money to buy whatever IT is.
And another thing...as long as the population continues to pour out billions of new little babies, it'll increase your chances of getting new enlightening ideas. When civilization first started, imagine there being 100,000. They all multiplied and created a million. Those multiplied and created a billion. And so on...More brains equal more ideas. I don't think you'll see anything significant like time travel or personal space travel. I'm pretty sure there aren't big lizards out there driving Star Destroyers and shooting humans dressed as robot soldiers with lasers. I do foresee some really cool handheld piece of equiment coming out within the next decade that I will have to buy because it's the coolest shit ever. We've pretty much peaked as far as travel capability, age expectancy, and we will never be able to defy gravity.
Time acceleration and the 2012 theory is about novelty and information, which is much more than the contemporary capitalist technology that you refer to.
Just 2300 years ago it was possible for a man to know EVERYTHING there was to know about "his" universe (the time he lived in). It can be said that Aristotle was the last man to know everything there was to know. Now, supercomputers can't even know everything there is to know because a) there is too much data to be stored, and b) the data available changes every day, every minute.
Remember, and this may be hard to grasp; language and observation create the universe. Language and observation also create information. The more information there is, the larger and more complex the universe gets. Now, quantum physicists are baffled about the "observer/observed." (spooky theory) Observable effects DO NOT EXIST until they are measured. This is not science fiction, this is real stuff. For a funny story on this subject, read about Schrodinger's cat.
What does all this mean? Information is doubling at a very fast pace (every few years, maybe months) and continues to accelerate. More information means more observation, more "observable effects" come into existence. Once information doubles every few seconds or nanoseconds (2012), what will the universe look like?
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
Just 2300 years ago it was possible for a man to know EVERYTHING there was to know about "his" universe (the time he lived in). It can be said that Aristotle was the last man to know everything there was to know. Now, supercomputers can't even know everything there is to know because a) there is too much data to be stored, and b) the data available changes every day, every minute.
Even if I lived then, I don't think I could have believed there was a single person that knew everything there was to know about everything.
Years ago, I was in heavy equipment sales. This guy, very typical tech geek and intelligent, was talking about the computer side of the machine. Processor this, voltage that, remote communications capabilities here..Zzzzzzzz....he was above my head. Out of the blue, I bring up the subject of pussy and he was clueless. I thought to myself, you keep making those good grades boy and I'll keep fucking the prom queens. I realized at that point, disgusting people like me are necessary for our existence. Aristotle may have been smart.....but he wasn't "pussy smart".
Just 2300 years ago it was possible for a man to know EVERYTHING there was to know about "his" universe (the time he lived in). It can be said that Aristotle was the last man to know everything there was to know. Now, supercomputers can't even know everything there is to know because a) there is too much data to be stored, and b) the data available changes every day, every minute.
Even if I lived then, I don't think I could have believed there was a single person that knew everything there was to know about everything.
Years ago, I was in heavy equipment sales. This guy, very typical tech geek and intelligent, was talking about the computer side of the machine. Processor this, voltage that, remote communications capabilities here..Zzzzzzzz....he was above my head. Out of the blue, I bring up the subject of pussy and he was clueless. I thought to myself, you keep making those good grades boy and I'll keep fucking the prom queens. I realized at that point, disgusting people like me are necessary for our existence. Aristotle may have been smart.....but he wasn't "pussy smart".
Me > Aristotle
this made me laugh out loud.
Peace, Love.
"To question your government is not unpatriotic --
to not question your government is unpatriotic."
-- Sen. Chuck Hagel
Has anybody thought that information will double until a certain point and then findings will reverse in the growth pattern?
It might be 25 years before anything groundbreaking is found....then 50....then 100 and on and on.
that could certainly happen, although there will have to be a significant event that causes this reversal.
This has happened before; the "dark ages." An authoritarian church-state was the cause then...
Maybe the idyllic "archaic revival" will begin in 2012? -less emphasis on progress, production/consumption, politics, government, state, wealth and more emphasis on coexistence, sustainability, equality, and freedom. This is kinda what the Hippy Gen was talking about but they were overly "preachy" and the world wasn't ready.
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
In one of McKenna’s lectures, someone asked him if the singularity = the apocalypse….his laymans’ response was that he expects it to be an awakening, and guesses it will be something like the discovery of time travel…THAT could end the world as we know it instantly.
It’s eerie how epochal events correlate with his timewave chart….I did read a convincing criticism of his work recently, but I wouldn’t know where to find it.
This stuff is so far over my head, that I have absolutely no idea what is scientific fact, whats complete BS, and what’s theory…but it’s good brainfood for dummies like me
What the Bleep Do We Know? Is a good intro documentary for anyone interested in familiarizing themselves with quantum physics.
In one of McKenna’s lectures, someone asked him if the singularity = the apocalypse….his laymans’ response was that he expects it to be an awakening, and guesses it will be something like the discovery of time travel…THAT could end the world as we know it instantly.
It’s eerie how epochal events correlate with his timewave chart….I did read a convincing criticism of his work recently, but I wouldn’t know where to find it.
This stuff is so far over my head, that I have absolutely no idea what is scientific fact, whats complete BS, and what’s theory…but it’s good brainfood for dummies like me
What the Bleep Do We Know? Is a good intro documentary for anyone interested in familiarizing themselves with quantum physics.
Yeah I'm with you... I enjoy McKenna, RAW, and others because they really challenge me and provide good excersizes for my brain. I don't know that I necessarily "believe" in a lot of their theories, but if you go back to the 70s and read of some of their stuff that they would predicted would happen, most of it HAS happened in the last 10-20 years. At least it is more enjoyable than reading the latest Dan Brown book or watching the news.
Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
I vaguely remember another date several years back that was suppose to be the end of time. It came and went and the people, or group, who had been saying this for a long time said they had their date wrong but it was still going to happen as they predicted but they had to reformulate the date.
People here have been posting about knowledge being sent out faster and faster. My dad, who is 92, said something about this the other day to me. He wonders why it took so long for all the technology we have seen in the past 100 years to come about. Like, the earth and people have existed a long time, but in the past 100 years we have had a huge surge in knowledge and technology.
If there is any truth to 12/21/12 being the end, I hope we all go without pain, but I don't think anyone can predict the future without scientific facts to back the claim.
I vaguely remember another date several years back that was suppose to be the end of time. It came and went and the people, or group, who had been saying this for a long time said they had their date wrong but it was still going to happen as they predicted but they had to reformulate the date.
People here have been posting about knowledge being sent out faster and faster. My dad, who is 92, said something about this the other day to me. He wonders why it took so long for all the technology we have seen in the past 100 years to come about. Like, the earth and people have existed a long time, but in the past 100 years we have had a huge surge in knowledge and technology.
If there is any truth to 12/21/12 being the end, I hope we all go without pain, but I don't think anyone can predict the future without scientific facts to back the claim.
"To conquer death all we must do is die"
its probably just another day but what's interested me is the celestial events that we know will happen-
I believe in star power- it could be the dawning of a new awareness??? something good maybe
newton was crazy about this stuff. he came up with 2060. he was really into god. he studied the bible. he took info from daniel and revolations and using math he came up with 2060. which would make more sense seeing that certain events havent happend yet and its unlikely the things would happen by 2012. from a biblical point of view.
The funny thing about time, without conscious awareness of it, does it even exist?
Think about it. When you go to sleep, 8 hrs go by in the blink of an eye. Before you were born, infiniti went by in the blink of an eye and the same will happen after you die.. now imagine there are no human minds left to record time, no living creatures.. What is a billion years to a few seconds?
Boggles your mind, but makes you think about what the concept of "time" really is.. Or maybe there really is no such thing as time the way our minds see it, and matter and the universe is in a constant state, and since our minds can record old states, we piece things together based on the level of our conscious awareness... hmmm.
Comments
Nothing to fear, it's only a calendar
http://news.aol.com/article/world-wont- ... t%2F713074
World Won't End in 2012, Mayans InsistBy MARK STEVENSON, AP
(Oct. 11) — Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
For the Mayans, Dec. 21, 2012 marks what one scholar calls "a special anniversary of creation." New Age pundits have taken this to mean the end of the world.
But most Mayans, including tribal elder Apolinario Chile For the Mayans, Dec. 21, 2012 marks what one scholar calls "a special anniversary of creation." New Age pundits have taken this to mean the end of the world. But most Mayans, including tribal elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun, above, dismiss the idea as nonsense.
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end?
They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
That's exactly what I thought...Y2K all over again.
If it is in fact true though, I don't think all civilization and mankind will meet it's demise...perhaps the thought is just that it's the end of the world as we know it...
Maybe 2012 will present something that will make us completely change our way of living? I dunno, pretty wild theories I'm thowing out here, but hey...I like to think outside the box.
6/12/08 - Tampa, FL
8/23/09 - Chicago, IL
9/28/09 - Salt Lake City, UT (11 years too long!!!)
9/03/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 1
9/04/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 2
Modern day Myans think we're crazy for this and the Doomsday is based on Western/New Age created folklore; not Myan.
Scientists say the Polar shift would be at most 1 degree over a period of hundreds of years (if it happens at all)
The way the galaxy lines up on 12-21-12 can have no possible physical effect on the Earth
The Solar flares are an equally important issue about every 11 years
Myans were infatuated with the number 13, hence the 13 cycle celebration.
Myans have made other 'predictions' beyond 2012 even one that equates to the year 4772
Modern Myans say we should be worried about more important things, such as droughts that are currently happening.
Don't let THEM immanentize the eschaton!!!
The earth is billions of years old. It'll keep spinning until the sun burns out at which point shit's gonna get real cold and then everything will die instantaneously.
I will have been dead for a few billion years previous to that so it won't really matter at all to me. My bloodline won't even make it to that point.
Is this the last great prediction from the Mayans? Are we done with them once the calendar turns to 12/22/12? They did invent good soup. Come on....who hasn't had some good hot Mayan soup?
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
I'm gonna be at Doug Stanhope's End of the World Bash. Its gonna be somewhere in the desert.... and lots o' fun happenings.
They don't necessarily expect the world to end, but rather a new state of consciousness, wether it be artificial inteligence, extra terrestial contact or maybe a polar shift that wipes us all out.
They actually have a few calendars. One based of the 365 day year for tax purposes, but the 2012 one is not based off of object (planet) rotations and revolutions, but rather consciousness. Based off the number 13 it deals with consciousness continuing to accelarate by the number 13...
For example, big bang happened 14 billion years ago.. life began 4 billion years ago.. humans inteligence a million years ago.. every thing keeps getting closer and closer.. think about how many discoveries in the last 100 years compared to the last 10,000.. Pretty soon it expands beyond what our minds can tolerate, and BOOM!.. 2012. We either find out we aren't alone in the universe, we becomes gods ourselves, or we do in fact go extinct. We may not even realize what happens as it can be a slow process or transition.
he still stands wrote:
maybe it is the singularity of consciousness. information has been accelerating at an exponential rate for millenia. It took 10,000 years to double the amount of information "known" in the world to the point of the agriculture revolution a couple of centuries before Christ. The amount of information known in the world doubled again in 1500 years (renaissance), then 250 years later (the new world), then 100 years after that (the industrial revolution), then 50 years (World Wars) then 25 years (60s culture) then 10 years (computers in every house) then 5 years (internet) then every 1 year (look around you!) and by next year every month, and by early 2012 information will be doubling every couple of weeks, then by late 2012 information will be doubling every couple of hours, then minutes, then seconds, and a MASS SINGULARITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS will occur, sort of opposite of the big bang. Everyone will realize we are all one, matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, "reality" is a projection of the group subconscious, and no one ever has to be afraid, sad, or unhappy again and human suffering will END.
edit: this is all very real. The thing that separates us from other primates is the "time binding - semantic circuit" in the neocortex of our brains. This allows information to be passed along over time. Imagine a chess board, lay one grain one wheat on the first block, two grains on the 2nd, 4 on the 4rd, 8, 16, and so on. How many will be on the final block? Information accumulation is the same way over time. It is doubled every time period of X and increases logarithmically. Logarithmical curves are always increasing to the point that they go "off the chart" or approach "infinity." We are there, people. :geek:
Want to impress me? Cure cancer.
It won't be done though. Why? There's too much money in it.
But everything you see that "amazes" you is doing it's purpose. It's giving you a reason to create a plan to come up with the money to buy whatever IT is.
And another thing...as long as the population continues to pour out billions of new little babies, it'll increase your chances of getting new enlightening ideas. When civilization first started, imagine there being 100,000. They all multiplied and created a million. Those multiplied and created a billion. And so on...More brains equal more ideas. I don't think you'll see anything significant like time travel or personal space travel. I'm pretty sure there aren't big lizards out there driving Star Destroyers and shooting humans dressed as robot soldiers with lasers. I do foresee some really cool handheld piece of equiment coming out within the next decade that I will have to buy because it's the coolest shit ever. We've pretty much peaked as far as travel capability, age expectancy, and we will never be able to defy gravity.
Just 2300 years ago it was possible for a man to know EVERYTHING there was to know about "his" universe (the time he lived in). It can be said that Aristotle was the last man to know everything there was to know. Now, supercomputers can't even know everything there is to know because a) there is too much data to be stored, and b) the data available changes every day, every minute.
Remember, and this may be hard to grasp; language and observation create the universe. Language and observation also create information. The more information there is, the larger and more complex the universe gets. Now, quantum physicists are baffled about the "observer/observed." (spooky theory) Observable effects DO NOT EXIST until they are measured. This is not science fiction, this is real stuff. For a funny story on this subject, read about Schrodinger's cat.
What does all this mean? Information is doubling at a very fast pace (every few years, maybe months) and continues to accelerate. More information means more observation, more "observable effects" come into existence. Once information doubles every few seconds or nanoseconds (2012), what will the universe look like?
It might be 25 years before anything groundbreaking is found....then 50....then 100 and on and on.
It doesn't matter. We're gonna be hit by a giant asteroid and all of these advancements will be wiped out anyway.
Even if I lived then, I don't think I could have believed there was a single person that knew everything there was to know about everything.
Years ago, I was in heavy equipment sales. This guy, very typical tech geek and intelligent, was talking about the computer side of the machine. Processor this, voltage that, remote communications capabilities here..Zzzzzzzz....he was above my head. Out of the blue, I bring up the subject of pussy and he was clueless. I thought to myself, you keep making those good grades boy and I'll keep fucking the prom queens. I realized at that point, disgusting people like me are necessary for our existence. Aristotle may have been smart.....but he wasn't "pussy smart".
Me > Aristotle
this made me laugh out loud.
"To question your government is not unpatriotic --
to not question your government is unpatriotic."
-- Sen. Chuck Hagel
that could certainly happen, although there will have to be a significant event that causes this reversal.
This has happened before; the "dark ages." An authoritarian church-state was the cause then...
Maybe the idyllic "archaic revival" will begin in 2012? -less emphasis on progress, production/consumption, politics, government, state, wealth and more emphasis on coexistence, sustainability, equality, and freedom. This is kinda what the Hippy Gen was talking about but they were overly "preachy" and the world wasn't ready.
It’s eerie how epochal events correlate with his timewave chart….I did read a convincing criticism of his work recently, but I wouldn’t know where to find it.
This stuff is so far over my head, that I have absolutely no idea what is scientific fact, whats complete BS, and what’s theory…but it’s good brainfood for dummies like me
What the Bleep Do We Know? Is a good intro documentary for anyone interested in familiarizing themselves with quantum physics.
Yeah I'm with you... I enjoy McKenna, RAW, and others because they really challenge me and provide good excersizes for my brain. I don't know that I necessarily "believe" in a lot of their theories, but if you go back to the 70s and read of some of their stuff that they would predicted would happen, most of it HAS happened in the last 10-20 years. At least it is more enjoyable than reading the latest Dan Brown book or watching the news.
People here have been posting about knowledge being sent out faster and faster. My dad, who is 92, said something about this the other day to me. He wonders why it took so long for all the technology we have seen in the past 100 years to come about. Like, the earth and people have existed a long time, but in the past 100 years we have had a huge surge in knowledge and technology.
If there is any truth to 12/21/12 being the end, I hope we all go without pain, but I don't think anyone can predict the future without scientific facts to back the claim.
its probably just another day but what's interested me is the celestial events that we know will happen-
I believe in star power- it could be the dawning of a new awareness??? something good maybe
Think about it. When you go to sleep, 8 hrs go by in the blink of an eye. Before you were born, infiniti went by in the blink of an eye and the same will happen after you die.. now imagine there are no human minds left to record time, no living creatures.. What is a billion years to a few seconds?
Boggles your mind, but makes you think about what the concept of "time" really is.. Or maybe there really is no such thing as time the way our minds see it, and matter and the universe is in a constant state, and since our minds can record old states, we piece things together based on the level of our conscious awareness... hmmm.