What happens in 2012 about 2012 Dec 21

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.

The End of the Mayan Calendar is scheduled for December 21, 2012 (give or take a year). The possibilities of what this “end” might mean is an increasingly hot topic on the Internet, in conferences, printed articles, and in discussions all over the globe. This is because it just might be an incredibly important moment in history -- e.g., the end of history!
More information on this topic can be found at the Halexandria Forums.

Calendars, in general, do not end [1]. The whole purpose of developing and/or keeping a calendar is to predict future events based upon the cyclical nature of the world -- to keep such things as agriculture in line with the seasons or inform out-of-line politicians when their terms of office are up for reconsideration. [In this regard, politicians are like babies. Both need to be changed periodically, and often, for the same reason.] But the idea that everything is coming to some sort of completion, i.e. the end of cycles, the end of days, the end... period... This just doesn’t compute when it comes to the idea of a calendar.

But the Mayan Calendar is not necessarily your average, run-of-the-mill calendar. It is, among other things, reputed to be the most accurate in the world. This is due in part to the fact it is also a relatively complicated calendar, using cycles of 13 and 20 (weird!), relating to the cycles of other planets (e.g. Venus), and in general incorporating some 22 (at last count) different sub-calendars, such that every contingency can be accounted for.

The Mayans did not elaborate in great detail about what would happen in 2012 A.D., just that their calendar would end. However, there has been no end (pardon the pun) to the possibilities being forecast by modern day interpretors of what the Mayans might have meant. These possibilities include 2012 A.D. as a time for:

1) major changes in human DNA (as in Indigo Children),

2) an enormous leap in Consciousness,

3) dimensional shifts (as in Hyperdimensional Physics and/or Superstring),

4) the cessation of linear Time,

5) an evolutionary human pinnacle,

6) a huge surge and multiple breakthroughs in technology,

7) the end of Money [Shirley, you jest!],

8) massive genetic mutations [the good news!],

9) (5/25/06) Massive earthquakes and volcanic activity due to sunspot activity and unique planetary alignments (as discussed in Jupiter's Dance),



10) a serious, altogether-too-close encounter with a Near-Earth Objects member,


11) and a cosmic alignment of our solar system with the plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The latter represents the end of a 25,920 year cycle -- a cycle based on the Precession of the Equinoxes).