What Happens in 2012?

As I mentioned earlier, it is obvious that life is forever speeding up. In almost every area, change is occurring faster and faster. Technological breakthroughs spread through society in years rather than centuries; calculations that would have taken decades are now made in minutes; communication that used to take months happens in seconds.

The reason for this acceleration is that each new development is, so to speak, standing on the shoulders of what has come before.

The idea that there might be a singularity in human development was first suggested by the mathematician Vernor Vinge, and subsequently by others, most notably Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity Is Near. They argue that if computing power keeps doubling every eighteen months, as it has done for the last fifty years, then sometime in the future there will be computers that can equal the performance of the human brain. From there, it is only a small step to a computer that can surpass the human brain. There would then be little point in our designing future computers; ultra-intelligent machines would be able to design better ones, and do so faster.

What happens then is a big question. Some propose that humans would become obsolete; machines would become the vanguard of evolution. Others think there would be a merging of human and machine intelligence – downloading our minds into computers, perhaps. The only thing we can confidently predict is that this would be a complete break from the patterns of the past. Evolution would have moved into a radically new realm.

But this transition, as major as it would be, would not yet be true singularity in the mathematical sense. Evolution – whether human, machine, or a synthesis of the two – would continue at an ever-increasing pace. Development timescales would continue to shorten, from decades to years, to months, to days. Before long, they would approach zero. The rate of change would then become infinite. We would have reached a true mathematical singularity.

Some of the theories proposed on this website might seem a little far fetched, and on first glance this theory might seem equally proposturous, but upon further investigation, it is probably the most plausible:

It is obvious that life is forever speeding up – in almost every area of life, change is occurring faster and faster. Technological breakthroughs spread through society in years rather than centuries; calculations that would have taken decades are now made in minutes; communication that used to take months happens in seconds.

The reason for this acceleration is that each new development is, so to speak, standing on the shoulders of what has come before.

This pattern is seen not only in technological advances, but in evolution of species as well.

And it’s set to continue in the future – each new phase requiring a fraction of the time required in the previous phase. In the future, we might expect the same amount of change we’ve seen in the last twenty years take place in years rather than decades.

It is difficult, therefore, to predict what the world will be like in ten or twenty years. Two hundred years ago no one predicted we would have telephones or movies, let alone cell phones or the Internet. Just twenty years ago, very few of us had any notion of the WorldWide Web, or of how dramatically it would change our lives. Similarly, who knows what new breakthroughs or developments will be transforming our lives ten years from now?

So where is all this leading? Some people think we are headed toward what is called a “singularity.” This is the term that mathematicians give to a point when an equations breaks down and ceases to have any useful meaning. The rules change. Something completely different happens.

As I mentioned, this pattern is seen in both technological advances and in the evolution of species, and there are effectively two singularity theories: the Technological singularity and the Consciousness singularity.

Have I whet your appetite? I’ll write about both of these separately.

Today I made a 2012 Advent Calendar, with all the dates of note between now and December 12, 2012. I thought I’d share them with you because it made me realize just how close we are! In fact, on Tuesday 8th September 2009 we will be down to 1200 days to go.

Here they are folks:

Also note, only 118 more shopping days until Christmas!

Planet X (also known as Nibiru) was spotted by astronomers in the early 1980’s in the outermost reaches of the Solar System. It has been tracked by infrared observatories; seen lurking around in the Kuiper Belt and now it is speeding right toward us and will enter the inner Solar System in 2012.

So what does this mean to us? Well, assuming these calculations are correct, the effects of the approach of Planet X on our planet will be biblical. Millions, even billions of people will die, global warming will increase; earthquakes, drought, famine, wars, social collapse, even killer solar flares will be caused by Nibiru blasting through the core of the Solar System.

As investigated in my previous article Mayan Doomsday “Prophecy”, a lot of weight had been placed on the end of an ancient Mayan calendar, the “Long Count”. According to this calendar and Mayan myth, something is going to happen on December 21st, 2012. Now the world’s Planet X supporters seem to have calculated that this hypothetical, deadly planet will arrive from a highly eccentric orbit to wreak gravitational havoc on Earth, sparking geological, social, economic and environmental damage, killing a high proportion of life… in 2012.

As anyone with an interest in cosmology will know, the sun’s magnetic field flips every 11 years like clock work: north becomes south, south becomes north, and the world keeps turning.

What you may not know is that the Earth undergoes a magnetic field flip of its own, at best guess every 11,500 years. According to Wikipedia:

At present, the overall geomagnetic field is becoming weaker at a rate which would, if it continues, cause the dipole field to temporarily collapse by 3000–4000 CE. The present strong deterioration corresponds to a 10–15% decline over the last 150 years and has accelerated in the past several years; however, geomagnetic intensity has declined almost continuously from a maximum 35% above the modern value achieved approximately 2000 years ago.

The Earth’s magnetic north pole is drifting from northern Canada towards Siberia with a presently accelerating rate — 10 km per year at the beginning of the 20th century, up to 40 km per year in 2003. It is also unknown if this drift will continue to accelerate.

A reversal could affect everything from navigation and communications equipment to the composition of the atmosphere, say experts.

And according to Dutch scientists, a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles could happen sooner than we think. They have found that the planet’s magnetic field is becoming gradually less stable.

Many scientist believe this will happen as soon as the year 2012.

In February 2001, the Sun did a magnetic polar shift. The next one is due again in 2012. NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that when our star’s awesome magnetic field, it signalled the arrival of a solar maximum. But it wasn’t so obvious to the average human. The Sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere at the start of the new millenium, now points south. It’s a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one. “This always happens around the time of solar maximum,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it’s a good indication that Solar Max is really here.”

Were the Earth’s magnetic field to flip, it would result in a catastrophe that would deliver massive destruction to life as we know it, and may even affect its continued existence on the planet.

The magnetic field of the Earth is not an accident of natural science. Its most important task is to protect us against cosmic and solar radiation. Without this field, life is practically impossible and in a short time, life on our planet would be extinguished. An all-burning, deadly radioactive radiation would torment the earth’s surface.

So here we are talking about an incompatible duality: despite the fact that a huge amount of people, animals and plants will die, life will continue to exist, because the exhausted battery of the earth will be reloaded by the enormous solar storm. During thousands of years the magnetic field of the earth can therefore remain stable, protecting the flora and fauna against the damaging radiation. While doing this job, the inner battery of the earth will run out again and another cycle of destruction followed by creation and mutation will start anew.

As we’ve already seen, the sun-worshiping Mayans predicted that the year 2012 will be the end of an age.

The Bible contains prophecy that predicts a firey end to the world as we know it, and Christians believe that “the end is nigh” as it were.

Now, Bible Code enthusiasts have found cluster after cluster connecting the two prophecies, describing a nasty solar event, as well as a terrible disaster in 2012.

Revelation 16:8-9 reads “And they fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to burn men with fire. And men were burned with great heat; and the blasphemed the name of God Who has the authority over these plagues; and they did not repent to give Him glory.”

Our Sun often sends solar flares towards the Earth, and more energetic explosions can spit out giant blobs of ionised gas called coronal mass ejections. Roughly once or twice a decade, the eruption of stellar material is powerful enough to send huge electric currents racing around the Earth’s upper atmosphere, disrupting power grids and communications satellites. In 1989, one such explosion knocked out a power grid in northern Quebec.

Could the Sun send out a monstrous flare powerful enough to melt the ice on Jupiter’s moons, destroy much of Earth’s ozone layer and obliterate all our satellites? It’s possible, say astronomers who have studied other Sun-like stars in our Galaxy, which seem to produce enormous “superflares” about once a century. They are baffled by the fact that there are no records of similar solar explosions.

Isaiah 30:26-27 reads “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound. Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: …”

The tongue of fire is an important clue. The Bible Codes are clear that the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 has some significance in regards to apocalyptic events. There is a large, stone-like comet due to approach the Earth around 2012. The destructive characteristic of this event is described as “tongue-like”. Some people theorize that the comet will break up like the Shoemaker-Levy comet did when it approached Jupiter, thus creating a tongue-like array of comet matter which impacts the Earth in a shotgun effect. Others have a different theory, though it does seem likely that a massive comet would break up upon entry; the approach of a large comet in 2012 will trigger a solar eruption that will fry the Earth like a rotisserie. The solar flare and resulting coronal mass ejection will be the tongue-like characteristic of this event.

Here is one very tight Bible Code cluster that describes the approach of a large comet in 2012:

2012 – comet – large – stone-like / stony – object – sped – planetary / wanderer – fragmentary – sixty – mile – blunderbuss / scatter-gun – tongue-like – whole earth / earth annihilated – smitten / stricken – smitten – crater – Canada – ultimate – terrifying – appalling – lethal – modifier – mantle – axis – tilting – tipping – Sun – speeded – seismic – eradication – It will be crumbled / I will tear to pieces

There are many aspects of this event that take on apocalyptic meaning. The rain of huge flaming hailstones described in Revelation can easily be imagine to originate from a celestial body breaking up as it penetrates the Earth’s gravity field and creates an array of impact events. The poles shifting as a result of the energetic disruption from the comet and from the reaction of the Sun can also be easily imagined to be a result of the mantle shifting and the electromagnetic field of the Earth undergoing a dramatic change. All of these possibilities can be associated with the approach of a massive comet, but the central focus – the most damaging aspect of the 2012 time period seems to be a solar eruption and the resulting CME.

There are two more Bible Code clusters that describe this solar kill shot. These clusters are specific and point directly at the sun as the cause of destruction on Earth:

solar flare – holocaust – I will send to all the men – guilt – Day of Judgement

a sign – to flare, the sun will go away/depart/vanish – the sun will stand still in the midst of heaven

To date, scientific records indicate that our Sun has not sent out a “superflare”, and certainly not in the Earth’s direction. Will the upcoming, expectedly severe Solar Max produce the volatile conditions necessary to vaporize the Earth?

It’s starting to look likely…

Hang on to your cell phone, a new solar cycle has just begun.

“On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared, and this signals the start of Solar Cycle 24,” says David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles. Until recently, we’d been experiencing the low ebb, “very few flares, sunspots, or activity of any kind,” says Hathaway. “Solar minimum [was] upon us.”

The previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with many furious solar storms. That cycle decayed as usual, leaving solar physicists little to do other than wonder, when would the next cycle begin?

The answer is now.

The onset of a new solar cycle is significant because of our increasingly space-based technological society.

“Solar storms can disable satellites that we depend on for weather forecasts and GPS navigation,” says Hathaway. Radio bursts from solar flares can directly interfere with cell phone reception while coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hitting Earth can cause electrical power outages. “The most famous example is the Quebec outage of 1989, which left some Canadians without power for as much as six days.”

Air travel can be affected, too.

Every year, intercontinental flights carry thousands of passengers over Earth’s poles. It’s the shortest distance between, say, New York and Tokyo or Beijing and Chicago. In 1999, United Airlines made just twelve trips over the Arctic. By 2005, the number of flights had ballooned to 1,402. Other airlines report similar growth.

“Solar storms have a big effect on polar regions of our planet,” says Steve Hill of the Space Weather Prediction Center. “When airplanes fly over the poles during solar storms, they can experience radio blackouts, navigation errors and computer reboots all caused by space radiation.” Avoiding the poles during solar storms solves the problem, but it costs extra time, money and fuel to “take the long way around.”

Much of this is still a few years away. “Intense solar activity won’t begin immediately,” notes Hathaway. “Solar cycles usually take a few years to build from solar minimum (where we are now) to Solar Maximum, expected in 2011 or 2012.”

On March 10, 2006 NASA researchers announced that the next cycle (cycle 24) would be the strongest since the historic maximum in 1958 in which the northern lights could be seen as far south as Rome, approximately 42° north of the equator. This projection was based on research done by David Hathaway, and Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

I first heard that the poop was going to hit the proverbial fan a few years back while I was building a website for a new age, naturopathic health company. The owner of the company tried to explain what it was all about, but either she did a terrible job, or I wasn’t open to the idea at the time.

I’m still not entirely convinced that this date in the Mayan calendar is a precursor to some terrible event, and I will explain why shortly. But there is more going on in 2012 than just a Mayan calendar date – there seems to be a convergence of ideal and beliefs, from all corners of the Earth, each indicating that 2012 holds something special for the human race. It’s a great time to be alive!

Ok, so why is 2012 – December 21, 2012 to be exact – a significant date in the Mayan calendar? The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)

The Mayan calendar – the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar to be exact – was constructed by the Mayans around 250-900 AD. Prior to the Long Count calendar, the Mayans used a number of other calendars to measure time. The Tzolk’in calendar lasted for 260 days and the Haab’ approximated the solar year of 365 days. These were combined to form the “Calendar Round”, a cycle lasting 52 Haab’s (around 52 years, or the approximate length of a generation). Using the Calendar Round was fine if you simply wanted to remember the date of your birthday or significant religious periods, but what about record history? There was no way to record a date older than 52 years.

Up to this point, the Mayan Calendar may have sounded a little archaic – after all, it was possibly based on religious belief, the menstrual cycle, mathematical calculations using the numbers 13 and 20 as the base units and a heavy mix of astrological myth. The solution to a longer calendar could be found in the “Long Count”, a calendar lasting 5126 years!

The Mayan Long Count calendar uses a base unit of 20, and starts at the base year of “0.0.0.0.0″. Each zero goes from 0-19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days. The first day in the Long Count is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1. The 19th day is 0.0.0.0.19, and on the 20th day it goes up one level so we’d have 0.0.0.1.0. This count continues until 0.0.1.0.0 (about one year), 0.1.0.0.0 (about 20 years) and 1.0.0.0.0 (about 400 years).

This is all very interesting, but what has this got to do with the end of the world? The Mayan Prophecy is wholly based on the assumption that something bad is going to happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out. Experts are divided as to when the Long Count ends, but as the Maya used the numbers of 13 and 20 at the root of their numerical systems, the last day could occur on 13.0.0.0.0. When does this happen? Well, 13.0.0.0.0 represents 5126 years and the Long Count started on 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to the modern date of August 11th 3114 BC. Some experts believe the Mayan Long Count ends 5126 years later on December 21st, 2012.

The Mayan Doomsday Prophecy is purely based on a calendar which some people believe hasn’t been designed to calculate dates beyond 2012.

Have you seen the problem yet? Each of the columns in this calendar use base 20, but for some reason, not the left column. Why would the calendar stop at 13.0.0.0.0 when the base is 20? Shouldn’t the calendar continue on to 20.0.0.0.0 until the end of the world? Or – and here’s the kicker – wouldn’t it just tick over to 0.0.0.0.0 like every other calendar ever created and start again? Why all this pessimistic doomsday stuff?

Mayan archaeo-astronomers are still debating whether the Long Count is designed to be reset to 0.0.0.0.0 after 13.0.0.0.0, or whether the calendar simply continues to 20.0.0.0.0 (approximately 8000 AD) and then resets. As Karl Kruszelnicki brilliantly writes:

“…when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 – or good-ol’ 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas.” – Excerpt from Dr Karl’s “Great Moments in Science”.

Welcome to my blog, What Happens In 2012?

This isn’t an early Sarah Palin for President campaign website, nor do I much care about the London Olympics. There are much more interesting things afoot!

What’s more interesting then a hockey mom running the most powerful nation on earth? More interesting than the pinnacle of sporting perfection?

How about ancient Mayan Doomsday predictions? The Earth’s magnetic poles shift? Humanity evolves? Or, my personal belief, the Singularity.

Sounds like a bit of fun, doesn’t it? So stick around, let me tell you all about it.