What would it mean if the world ended on December 21, 2012?
I was too tired to game last night. What a travesty! So instead I just watched a History Channel show about the Mayan prophecies.
I've heard it before, but according translations of the Mayan Calender, the fourth cycle of history which we are currently in, is supposed to end on December 21, 2012. I guess the interesting thing about the Mayan calender is that it actually lists an end date. It's very specific in comparison to other well known works of prophecy. There will be a fifth cycle, but that only starts after some cataclysmic end to current human civilization. Of course the Mayan world view of human civilization may have been a bit narrower at the time, as it probably mirrored their known borders.
It had me thinking though... what would it mean to modern humans if the world as we know it actually ended for all intents and purposes on that date, as told by the Maya so many hundreds of years ago.
Maybe it would mean nothing, as its THE END.. makes it a moot point.
Maybe it would just mean the Maya were very good at astronomy and accurately predicted some near orbit object would hit us.
Or maybe, it has some implication about mysticism or magic as opposed to the scientific world we live in. I guess it really depends how the world would end.
I dont believe in doomsday prophecies, My hunch is that, of course, nothing will happen, other than the astronomical event where the sun aligns with some heavenly body and we acknowledge how well they had mastered mathematics and astronomy. So even more than the outcome of a doomsday prophecy itself, it just had me mulling over if it were true, what would it possibly mean about how we have interpreted the world.
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I read an article about someone that mapped the Chinese zodiac linearly (don't ask me how). The line varied greatly. At the low points, horrible things occured... WWII, Vietnam, the 2000 election, 9/11, etc. However, the line always remains above 0... until December 12, 2012.
Based on that, one theory is that that's not the date when the world ends, but the point at which time becomes non-linear.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
I can't think of anything less distressing than the doomsday prophecies of religious or superstitious nuts. If anyone wants to unload all thier worldly possessions on December 11th, 2012, let me know. I'll be the guy driving around the flatbed looking for suckers.
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
One of these things is not like the other...
An interesting question is: What does it mean to say "the world as we know it will end"? Does it necessarily mean a mass extinction? Could it also mean a culture extinction? Or, perhaps, a technological, social or political revolution? As such: would such a "doomsday" necessarily be a bad or undesirable thing?
That said: Doomsday prophecies have been around for a long, long, long, long time. The only thing that's lasted longer than doomsday prophecies has been the human race. Goes to show how accurate such prophecy has been so far.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
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Well, they only have to get it right one time.
If time DOES destabilize at that point, it's logical to assume we could somehow predict it because in some hypothetical fifth dimension, the change already exists.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
I'm still going to go with Andre Codrescu on this one. The prospect of several million people who actually believe this kind of nonsense simply and inexplicably disappearing would leave the world a much more pleasant place for the rest of us.
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
What in the world does that even mean? From a physics standpoint, X, Y, Z, and Time are our Big Four dimensions. Each are separate from the others. A change in the Y dimension is not registered in the Z dimension and so on; that is, you can't tell that there was a change in the Y dimension by just looking at the Z dimension. So what is this fifth dimension, and why would it register a change in another dimension when the other four do not, and how would we be able to tell?
Are you talking about string theory? But even then it doesn't make sense, because it's predicated on the same principle as above.
Oh, unless you were kidding. In which case, Tar Intarwebs is bad for teh funnies, and I feel like a doof.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
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No, I think it'd more likely be a cataclysmic event that would mean life for the survivors would suck.
RIP ChronicNecrosis
Katerin, if it was that easy to explain, we'd know for sure. I assure you, and while a change in the 3rd dimension does not show up in the 2nd dimension, in the real world changes generally don't occur in only one dimension.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
Haven't you guys ever played Shadowrun? 12-21-2012 is the day magic returns to the world and some of us turn into elves and trolls.
Revolution? Vacation? Somebody fart?
Nothing more than likely.
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I would think that would be the day that I turn into an astronomically rich, though skeptical scavenger of people's belongings.
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
2012 is only going to arrive in whole 4 years. Wouldn't you be, like, totally old by that time? P)
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Yes, but what I'm saying is that even if there was this other fifth dimension, and even if it did change along with the other four - we wouldn't be able to know what that change was just from looking at the changes in the other four dimensions. Thus, we couldn't "predict" anything like you suggested above.
And I assure you back, dimensions are that easy. It's not rocket science, it's just your basic Cartesian coordinate (or spherical, etc.) system. X, Y, Z (or r, phi, theta; etc) and time. Those dimensions provide enough information to accurately describe the behavior of pretty much everything in our universe. If there is a fifth dimension, the fact that it is entirely immeasurable to us also makes it not particularly useful in a scientific sense. (Excepting string theory, of course, which is a whole 'nother can of worms, and I'm not even going to pretend to have the knowledge to get into that.) And if it's not useful in a scientific sense, then it's not much of a predictor, either.
Unless you mean some sort of mystic New Age hoodoo or, perhaps, a sci-fi construct when you use the word "dimension". In that case, we're not discussing the scientific definition of "dimension", and it could mean something different.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
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True, but my pact with the Antichrist has kept me amazingly well preserved.
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
Katerin, you can't demand that an absolute unknown adhere to very specific theories of the known. I'm just throwing an idea out there. Maybe we can't tell something about one dimension just by viewing another, but it's through the 4th dimension that we perceive all others. It is conceivable that there's a 5th dimension through which we could observe the 4th.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
Well, if we're gonna invent random things, I vote for a steak fairy.
Much less complex than a whole dimension, and much higher in protein.
No. We perceive the universe in all four dimensions. We do not perceive space through time, no more than we perceive time through space. We perceive both simultaneously. The best way I can think to explain it: Assume you're somewhere random in the universe; knowing what time it is at that moment doesn't tell you a thing about where you are in space. Or vice versa.
And I can most certainly demand that an unknown hypothesis, such as a fifth dimension, adhere to the rules of science and mathematics that we've already laid forth. Scientists do that all the time when they're testing new hypotheses. If the hypothesis doesn't conform with what the rest of science tells us, then the scientific method says that chances are, the hypothesis is bunk and needs to be reworked.
If you want me to agree that we could imagine something that breaks the scientific and mathematical constructs that govern our universe, then sure, I'll give you that we could imagine it. But imagining doesn't make it possible. And it certainly doesn't make it something we could make logical or reliable predictions about the end of the world by, which was your original statement.
Where did you get this "fifth dimension" business anyway? And how does it relate to Mayan doomsday predictions?
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
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I'm just pitching an idea Katerin, not getting it from anywhere, not advocating it.
And you try perceiving anything in only three dimensions. Go ahead, try it. Recognize something literally instantly, faster than energy traveling down your neurons.
But whatever. You're right. I surrender.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
That's what I'm saying. We perceive in four dimensions simultaneously. But information about one dimension does not inform us about information in the other three. X does not predict Y and Z does not predict time and so on.
I was laboring under the delusion that we were having an intelligent and mature discussion. Thanks for correcting me.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
My Website v. 3.0
It's a common mistake, don't feel too bad about it.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
What would it mean?
I guess get very drunk December 20th.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
To the sounds of Rush's 2112 album.
And hold off on doing your Christmas shopping.
RIP ChronicNecrosis
Who was it who said the appropriate song for the end of the world is Motorhead's Ace of Spades? Was it Chiggie?
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
From what I've read from archaeologists, the Maya didn't really ascribe any great significance to the rollover of the calender. They simply ginned up a new name for the next period and started over again. Here's a lot of information on the Mayan Calender system. Note the lack of a fixed end to the Long Count.
As it notes, the life of people on Earth could be wiped out periodically. Not by calender rollover, but by the lack of proper sacrifices. Since we've survived without the Maya sacrifices for this long, perhaps these folks pushing the cataclysm aren't really a good source of information.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Good point. The sun does seems content to do its job each day without those blood sacrifices afterall. I guess I got caught up on the idea, that if a prophecy ever did get it right... how might we be forced to interpret our understanding of the world around us.
At the sametime that I dont believe in magic, sorcery, prophecy etc, there is a faint glimmer of hope in me that our scientific methods and technology dont tell the whole story, and there may be a shade of ignored magic actually out there. Maybe its just that I hope we never reach a point where we have an explanation for everything and that the world retains a bit of mystery.
I think our human belief systems are how we explain and interpret the reality around us, both the tangible and the intangible, but I also sometimes wonder about the opposite relationship. To what degree does a widespread belief system also create a reality. Take the Greeks or Romans, entire societies with a belief in a pantheon of gods. They prayed to them, they had rituals, sacrifices, offerings. Does this create a momentum unto itself, where the belief systems gives a tangible life to the gods. Lives revolved around their cycles and supplicating them. In the final days, as these pantheons were brushed aside, did the final believers just realize it was all a fantasy or was it more that as belief withered away, so did the Gods grip on that reality, until emaciated and forgotten they disappeared. They were no longer a part of that puzzle of reality. Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that Zeus or Poseidon etc actually existed in any physical or conscious form, but if enough people believe they do as a fundamental part of their life, and how they interpret the world around them, it almost becomes moot. They are a peice of reality at that point.
I mean, what defines reality. Is it a singular truth or is it defined by how we choose to interpret it.
Take science even and observations of the placebo affect. You know, I think I've read that sometimes even in giving a patient a placebo, they can get as much benefit as from the actual medicine, maybe because they believe they are being treated and it jars something so fundamental in them, that they heal. Apply that to religion and multiply the believers by 10's, hundreds, thousands. millions etc etc. What power does such a widespread human belief have on creating a reality. What if its not even religion, but a belief in magic, in prophecy. At that point is it still all fantasy, or does it take on a reality based on the momentum of belief behind it.
I guess the simple answer is that widespread belief in fantasy is still nothing more than fantasy. Even if you, your families and friends all join me in believing that pigs can fly, I doubt we'll start seeing pigs fly. But then again maybe this is too physical an example. I dunno.
Oh man, how the hell did I get all chatty about this between conference calls.
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The end of the world means that I can begin eating doughnuts again!
Well, Cooking Mama didn't help me become a better cook, and Trauma Center certainly didn't help me become a better surgeon. I have the proof of both sitting in my freezer. -- imbiginjapan
Perfect example, if enough of us believe that doughnuts have no calories. Does that mean we can have seconds? or thirds!
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Yeah, I see what you mean. It's just that the Mayan stuff was misunderstood for so long, and appropriated for mystical stories, that it was worth pointing out.
The world is *full* of mystery, I'm continually amazed that we feel the need to add to it.
But at the same time, it produces the most wonderful stories and distractions.
I think about this a lot. So many of our realities are completely artificial. I mean, you can lose your freedom for what you say to someone in authority; that's not exactly physics-based. People are killed for social interactions, and so forth. All constructs in the mind that chain us and constrain our behavior.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Extinction events and major changes to the state of life on earth occur with regularity throughout the geologic record. To think that such an event can't occur again with so much confidence that one can mock it is a bit arrogant and ignorant.
All signs point to us being in the midst of an extinction event right now, over the past 50-100 years in particular. Is it man-made this time? A blip in the record that's just a coincidence? The opening portion of a true extinction-level event? Who knows.
The popular concept of the Mayan doomsday prediction doesn't originate with the Mayans themselves; they're much less sensationalist. The mainstream concept of the Mayan doomsday predictions comes from a guy who picked up part of the Mayan calendar and beliefs (who is not himself a Mayan) and formed a sensationalist New Age following around his own invented version of the Mayan mythos.
I don't believe the world is going to end at the end of the Mayan calendar. But I do see that quite a number of "doomsday" prophecies and unusual natural/astronomical phenomena are all coinciding from the period of 2010-2015, with a particularly heavy focus on 2012. My academic curiosity leads me to watch and pay attention to what's happening out of a curiosity to see where it goes. But the real dangers for our future are there, and sensationalizing the 2012 "end date" takes away from the real dangers that we need to address as a civilization.