Between now and 2012

[Starry_Canopy]

I've been trawling the web and coming across many new phenomenon, all somehow relating to 2012, a seemingly very significant date. It seems that the earth and those on it are on the brink of a great transformation - much of it already underway and going to increase in pace in the coming years and up to 21st Dec 2012.

Some intelligent entities (not human beings' spirits) also seem to be passing on messages through channelling - you can google for and refer to KRYON, one of them.

Then there are supposed to be channelings from Extra-terrestrial life forms.

A lot of our own home grown spiritualists, mystics etc are in on this thing in their websites.

There's the Mayan prediction of earth changes by and on 21st Dec 2012.

Have you guys examined/thrashed all this out already... or has it never come up here? The latter seems difficult to believe, but I can see no threads dealing with these kinds of developments...

[sonrisa]

yeah, 2012 has come up from time to time.... you'll have to do a search to find the threads

my fave theory is the one where the appliances all go haywire & the Christmas trees start blowing up. Something to do with the Northern Lites getting into the world's power grids...

but we'll just have to wait & see. All the Mayas said was that the current cycle will end & a new one will begin. Didn't say whether it will be good, bad, or ugly....

[Thomas Knierim]

A sceptic's explanation would be that as we are getting closer to 2012, the topic is increasingly on people's mind. In other words, the Mayan prediction has simply entered the public radar. All the websites, movies and radio shows are just an expression of popular culture.

I believe there's a bit more to it, however. It seems that the acceleration of development has become palpable. The public is becoming conscious of accelerating technological development, information explosion, globalisation, population growth, and environmental problems. Many people conclude that this acceleration points to a singularity event in the near feature.

Cheers, Thomas

[MultipleTentacles]

That's funny, that word, singularity...

On 2012, the center of the galaxy is supposed to be aligned with our sun. And guess what is at the center of our galaxy? A big, fat, singularity. =P

I also think there's more to it than what a pure skeptic would think. Not only is technology getting more advanced, but our world political situation is much different than it used to be. I think in the future the order of the day will be cooperation, rather than conflict. I have a hunch that life will become more like a puzzle than a game. That's just a hunch however... don't quote me on that...

I have doubts that computers will ever get superintelligent (please don't kill me, future superintelligent AI!) because computers seem to work on a fundamentally different level than the human brain. The brain behaves completely differently from computers--it does not use bits, it does not always use algorithms (I don't think), and it reacts differently to stimuli. Artificial intelligence, for the most part, works with specific goals, but humans don't always have goals. I'm skeptical about the technology singularity idea. But you're right, technology is really getting interesting nowadays.

[Starry_Canopy]

It seems the singularity is not just in the field of technology, but even in our level of awareness and the speed of materialization of our ideas and thoughts! It seems that our DNAs will get activated in 5 dimensions as opposed to the present 3, allowing us to experience and do many things that we now consider supernatural, such as healing, remembering past lives, telepathy etc.

[kris]

If you are into prophesies, here is one, yep, between now and 2012:
2010: World War 3 begins in November 2010. Starting as a regular war, it will progress to a nuclear and chemical war. Vanga says the war will be finished by October 2014. (http://www.theastralworld.com/prophecies/babavanga.php)

[Life of Luxury]

I've been known to joke with my friends that the world is going to blow up come Dec 21, 2012 but I still take the matter seriously. The date is the source of much perplexity.

Popular culture knows how to capitalize on the phenomenon but the theatrics do no good for my curiosity. I'm not one for petty superstition. Black cats don't phase me. I won't suffer the indignity of throwing salt over my shoulder :p. Most of all don't expect a response to that threatening chain letter. But there are far too many peculiarities about 2012 to simply walk away from.

We all know about the Mayans and their knack for astronomical exactness.
Also there are no shortage of prophecies and the interpretations they are notorious for.

Prophecy of Popes
St. Malachy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes) had been given the foresight of all popes to come. Ending interestingly enough with Benedict XVI who is to be followed by an ominous figure called Peter the Roman and the destruction of Rome. In the tradition of prophecy, popes were referred to by cryptic names in order to maintain ambiguity. John Paul II's is a highlight on Wikipedia.

The prophetic motto corresponding to Pope John Paul II is "De labore Solis", which literally means "Of the Labour of The Sun". But "labores solis" or "travails of the sun" is a common metaphor used to mean solar eclipse

Karol Jozef Wojtyła, who later became Pope John Paul II, was born on 18 May 1920, the day of a partial solar eclipse over the Indian Ocean, and buried on 8 April 2005, the day of a rare hybrid eclipse over the south-western Pacific and South America.

[schrodinger]

A partial solar eclipse will occur somewhere on the surface of the earth an average of twice a year. A full solar eclipse, as recently seen in parts of China, will occur somewhere on earth an average of once every two years. It may not occur again in Shanghai for over a hundred years, but it will most certainly occur somewhere in the next two years. The point is; eclipses are not all that rare, and if we looked at the birthdays of just the people posting here on TBV, I am confident we can find several who were born during at least a partial solar eclipse, and at least one or two who were born during a total solar eclipse. It is possible to make correlations with almost anything, if that is what you set out to do. The Mayan calendar has already been discussed on this forum, and in depth. There is NO Mayan prophecy, none at all! The Mayan calendar does a very simple rollover and reset during the year 2012, similar to the way your odometer on your car rolls over and resets when it passes certain values of mileage. The eleven year cycle for magnetic storms on the sun may come around in 2012 or 2013, but this happens every eleven years! In short, it is all much ado about nothing.
:rolleyes:

[Life of Luxury]

It isn't about whether Rome will be ravaged by the next papal successor. Nor does it have anything to do with making tenuous connections between some long dead seer's prophecy and the modern world. If John Paul hadn't been born on an eclipse and had his funeral been on any ordinary day, Wikipedia would be citing the sunny weather enjoyed on both as fulfillment of the prophecy. Or maybe the existence of the sun. Or maybe that when sun is spelled backwards and when converted to ASCII digits reveals the coordinates of Nicholas Cage's place of residence. Hmm, I wonder if that works...

What really whets my curiosity is the development of so many predictions independent of one another, stemming from several eras and corners of the globe. It is very likely that none of them are true. If so, then the real mystery is why so many people made the same highly improbable mistake.

[lolipop]

I have a problem with the idea that everything will fall apart in 2012. We had the same idea about the year 2000. In fact, there is a whole site devoted to the prophecies surrounding what would happen once we reached the end of the 21st century. You can see it here (http://www.greatdreams.com/prophen.htm), if you like.

Now, if all of those prophecies from that sight did not come true, then how are we to know that the prophecies about 2012 are true? Isn't it possible that the Mayas just got tired of writing the calendar down? Or maybe those that were writing it died before they could finish?

We cannot fully fathom the concept of time, since our time is only relative to how long we live and how long it takes us to circle around the sun. Whose to say that in comparison to some higher power, our lives are as short as the fruit flies? If we cannot perceive the true concept of time, then we certainly cannot accurately predict when fate will deal blows to the human race.

[MultipleTentacles]

Well, if it had anything to do with astrology, we don't have to worry, because the galactic alignment already happened in 1998. So the Mayans were off by 14 years anyway.

[brother alan]

Isn't it possible that the Mayas just got tired of writing the calendar down? Or maybe those that were writing it died before they could finish?
The Maya carved their calendar on a wheel. It wasn't linear, but cyclical. The cycle that ends on 12/21/12 is a mysterious one known to us as "the long clock", if we understand even that much of what they wrote. As previously posted, there is no "prophecy" of a catastrophic end, but merely the point at which a new cycle begins. The Maya "clocked" Everything, and they were quite good at it. Their calculated calendar year was eight-tenths of a second different from the one we measure today. Pretty amazing. At the same time in Europe, people were arguing about what year it was.