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Why does the Mayan calendar end on....?
Edvard:
@ Edvard
Hahaha! Your cartoon was somewhere between bullet #1 and #2. I really enjoyed it!
-CodeTRUCKER (January 31, 2011, 11:53 AM)
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Glad to help :Thmbsup:
I get what you were saying about an event of world-ending proportions would have garnered at least an honorable mention. The only pertinent question I would venture is would cataclysmic events be highlighted if the Maya were subscribers to a fatalistic view? If fate was the final authority in their day to day lives, an event such as a "Dark Planet" would simply be accepted, if not welcomed. What do you think?
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Perhaps, but I still think it would be mentioned.
If not in a "doomsday" context, then at least "the day we turn out the lights and take a good, long nap".
As far as the "no one knows the day or the hour," the Bible is not recognized as a universal standard. Besides, there is surrounding context where these words are found which brings applicability into question, IMO.
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Yes, I'm well aware of all your points.
My point was that as time marches on, the doomsday prophets have come and gone along with their "day of reckoning", and whether in context or no, the quote consistently rings true in that sense.
Thanks for the quasi "Mayan Calendar Math for Dummies" type link. I need it! :)
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Me too.
Thinking in base 20/13 is not my forte'.
Then again, neither is base 16, which is what all our fancy computator devices run on.
That and magic smoke...
IIRC the Mayan calendar in question is spot on for current events like seasons and (winter/sumer) solstices ... So their "math" does have established street cred...
-Stoic Joker (January 31, 2011, 12:54 PM)
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Yes, it still is useful for that, but that obviates the point; we're going to need a new one starting with December 22, 2012.
Left to our modern culture, it'll probably be a swimsuit edition... >_<
JavaJones:
Erm, did no one see my post showing that the Mayan calendar is no more "ending" in 2012 than our own calendars end at the end of our year (or at the end of 100 years, or at the end of the date range current computers can show)? The entire basis for the question is spurious, it's like asking "Why is the moon made of cheese?" when in fact the moon is not made of cheese. :D
As for Mayan predictive ability, while it's possible they had a thorough understanding of orbital mechanics, an ability to predict seasons is certainly no proof of that; seasonal predictions are relatively trivial compared to orbital mechanics, some problems of which we haven't adequately solved to this day. Even assuming advanced orbital mechanics knowledge they would also have needed telescopes at the least to see any celestial body that we in modern times haven't noticed ourselves. Note that I leave open the possibility that there are unknown objects out there close enough to hit us *and* on a periodic cycle, even though this is extremely unlikely unless the cycle was long enough to escape being recorded in modern history (the past 2000+ years), which would mean it was longer than the Mayan civilization's lifetime anyway and there would be no way for them to know it would return even if they saw it once. That's a whole lot of if's!
- Oshyan
CodeTRUCKER:
The calendar doesn't "end" any more than the one hanging on your wall does on December 31st. It's just the beginning of a new cycle, end of story. It's happened before in recorded history several times (notice: no cataclysms those times) and it will happen again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_calendar#Long_Count
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
-JavaJones (January 31, 2011, 12:11 PM)
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Oshyan,
Thanks for breathing what appears to be reality into this hype-laden subject. I appreciate the links.
Not to mention that the date from the Mayan calendar may not be properly correlated with our (Gregorian) calendar anyway: http://www.livescience.com/culture/mayan-apocalypse-miscalculated-calendar-101018.html
- Oshyan
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Yep, I was aware of that one.
I am not a conspiracy buff, but I have been in positions where what went to press was not the true reality. My experiences have made me a bit hesitant to eliminate "hype" just because the "experts" say so. I'll give two personal examples that I had a part in myself. Whether you choose to accept what I relate as fact or fiction and the commensurate ramifications, you will have to judge for yourself. I will simply state what I write is my own experience and it is fact.
1st ExperienceIn 1996 I had stumbled across some info (call it, "theinfo") on a major far-reaching initiative (call it, "theinitiative") on the internet about a prominent figure (call him, "theman"), wherein I said to myself, "Wow, this internet thing really does offer an opportunity to get the real dope on what is really going on!" After several hours (and the loss of a night's sleep) I had unearthed no less than seventeen specific sites that were about "theinitiative" with much, what I considered sensitive and damaging information about "theman" and his supporting staff. Frankly, I was astounded that morning. I could not believe that many unique sites which checked and cross-checked (read: validated) would allow information of that nature to be available to the public at large! It is important to note all 17 sites were unique domains, AFAICT.
After about six weeks, on a whim late one night, I decided to search for "theinitiative" again. I only found two sites that were hits. One was "404." The other was a site I never came across before. This second site displayed two frames. On one frame was most of the particulars of "theinfo" on "theinitiative" including the name of "theman." Even some damaging information was related. Unfortunately, the other frame was the "eyewitness" report of an FBI agent which had uncovered and was smuggling space alien embryos to a safe place to keep the tiny alien embryos from being destroyed! To this day, I can not discover anything about "theinitiative" and the connection to "theman."
The implications are obvious. What was six weeks earlier seventeen unique web sites sharing numerous aspects and a lot of important individuals involved in some pretty important stuff was now reduced to a "National Inquirer" type context right next to the plot to save alien embryos. For me, the implications are too clear to dismiss.
2nd ExperienceI think it was mid 2007 when a multi-week campaign by a newspaper to discredit a community of people with the help of an ex-member, I'll call "Richie" blew up in their face. This issue was quite distressing, so much so that when the newspaper covered their tracks I made a plea on DC with this post on May 11, 2007.
After many weeks of caustic lies expounded on by "Richie," this community began receiving threats of all sorts and initiatives were being discussed to remove children from the families that were part of this community among other "mob" actions. FYI - I did not participate in the forum, but lurked constantly to try and discern who the various players were on that forum. Remember, these were my long-time friends (20+ years) some of who had turned foes that I knew. It was not difficult building my "roster." I had intended on approaching various people and assist in some kind of reconciliation effort. I never got the chance. One night I was lurking the forum and was shocked, but relieved to see that "Richie" had confessed he had gotten offended and was going to get even. He named others in the plot and communicated details that no one else would have known in such specifics. I knew it was "Richie." I knew "Richie." I first met him as a young boy of nine (?). I visited with him and his family every Friday evening for three years and then still was involved with his growing up. I attended his wedding to a young woman I knew almost from her infancy.
I tried to return to those pages in short order, but to my dismay the forum had been deleted. In a further attempt to discover pertinent details I attempted to search the paper's database. Again, nothing even though the previous 4-5 issues of the Sunday paper prominently displayed "front-page" news about the "crimes" of the community. After about a weeks worth of effort to find evidence of the newspaper and the reporter's callous misdoings, it became obvious that no information could be found anywhere. Even a exhaustive search of Google's "cached pages" yielded nothing.
Again, the implications are obvious.
FWIW - I am not an Art Bell/George Noory fan. I can count the number of times I have listened to Coast to Coast on one hand and I can count the total number of times I have listened to those of that ilk on the other hand.
While I have no concern you are attempting to do a "cover up," the two factual and personal instances I have related above allow me to read the "experts" you cited with an open mind. I recognize that if any of the potentially catastrophic happenings were real, we in the general public would be lied to in order to manipulate the population. Remember the reality concerning a particular defoliant named, "Agent Orange?" Consider how the "mad" Jewish "Zionists," as they were labeled by the Nazi dailies and periodicals, kept adding a lot of "hype" and sensationalism about "railroad stock cars," "ovens," "fire!" and "extermination." I'm persuaded many Jews were cursed with constant remembrances of the "hype" they dismissed as not plausible. Don't fall into the "yeah, but that was Hitler's boys" trap. The point is the population of Europe to the tune of six million plus that were Jewish were lied to to serve the purposes of the government. Given the intelligence quotient of the audience here, there is no need to expound further on this point.
Ask yourself, if a real cataclysm of any sort was impending, would the "experts" and government spokespersons tell us the truth? Food for thought, eh?
Thanks for the reply,
Calvin
fenixproductions:
@CodeTRUCKER
I completely know what you mean in your spoilers!
The sad thing is: after the years you may start believing that all of that was in your head :(
"So in my head..."
When first versions of particular Browser reached the market there was "Crash IE" project around to make this Browser more popular.
It worked simply:
1. put malicious code on your website which will change IE homepage and crash it,
2. new homepage will show big "Get Browser" button.
Some Big Company got an idea to pay 1$ for each hijacked IE which could have homepage address composed as:
http://bigcompany.com/getbrowser/?q=http://mypage.com
mypage.com owner could get nice amount of money thanks to that.
It made some media to roar, Big Company abandoned this approach and after the month... any info couldn't be found about.
The ending, of course, is as sad as being called a liar (the best) or crazy f&*k (the worst).
CodeTRUCKER:
Erm, did no one see my post showing that the Mayan calendar is no more "ending" in 2012 than our own calendars end at the end of our year (or at the end of 100 years, or at the end of the date range current computers can show)? The entire basis for the question is spurious, it's like asking "Why is the moon made of cheese?" when in fact the moon is not made of cheese. :D
-JavaJones (January 31, 2011, 02:29 PM)
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Yes, and I have offered a comprehensive reply. :)
Before I proceed further, I need to state it is my understanding the Maya literature and records are not an open book, but is still very cryptic. There are many gaps in the linguistic understanding.
The reply I spoke of speaks only on what *I* know, not what I don't know. I will not rehash it here except to say...
1. Your position depends entirely on not what you know, but on what you are persuaded of in the integrity in what others profess to know. If what you have offered in your links is; indeed, fact then it follows your position is valid. Unfortunately, whether the sources are fact or fiction is not easily known, so we are left with opinion and preference.
2. There are far too many people stating "facts" as if they have personal participation in the subject when they are simply parroting what some "expert" said. I am not denigrating every scholarly author or spokesperson, I am trying to point out that unless you *know* something by direct personal experience, you cannot say you know it with any degree of integrity. You can say you believe it, have faith in the information, confidence in the author, but you cannot profess you know it if you do not. Simple point, but boy, does it get lost in the hub-bub sometimes. Again, I am not trying to scratch hash marks on my side of the board, but I am interested in keeping the debate on solid footing.
...
Even assuming advanced orbital mechanics knowledge they would also have needed telescopes at the least to see any celestial body that we in modern times haven't noticed ourselves.
...
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You make two assumptions here (I will use the "Dark Planet" here, but work with me)...
1. The Maya did not need telescopes to see the "Dark Planet" nor would you! Here's why. Have you ever been on mountaintops where the visible stars are so thick the entire sky looks like the Milky Way with a back light? If you have, imagine how clear the view would be from the seat high atop a Mayan mountain top observatory? I will not exceed the confines of reason in saying, if a planet-sized celestial object passed close enough between the observer and the stars, the astronomer need not "see" the object. The disk of the object will hide the stars as it sweeps across the sky. The observer would "see" circle of darkness eclipsing the stars behind it. Again, not fracturing the fences of rational thought, if that instance was recorded along with its relative size every time it passed and with each passing the disk blocked more and more stars appearing to be faster and faster, would it require a degree in astrophysics to realize the object was either getting bigger or closer? Obviously not. Simple sequential comparison would unveil the already known truth. The "primitive" astronomer would realize, if these phenomenon continue unchanged, the disk will consume all the stars and will be an ever greater threat of collision, depending on the mix of pure science, lore, religion, etc. which framed the astronomer's world view.
2. To assume the Mayan astronomers couldn't have seen something unless we have seen it is somewhat one-sided, isn't it? I'll grant you there wouldn't be much modern science would not have discovered, but to say we have seen it all is stretching into the realms of opinion.
Note that I leave open the possibility that there are unknown objects out there close enough to hit us *and* on a periodic cycle, even though this is extremely unlikely unless the cycle was long enough to escape being recorded in modern history (the past 2000+ years), which would mean it was longer than the Mayan civilization's lifetime anyway and there would be no way for them to know it would return even if they saw it once. That's a whole lot of if's!
- Oshyan
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Again, you are stating the whole of the celestial sphere has been under scrutiny for the last two millennium. I can't agree, given the overwhelming majority of "progressive" astronomy was stuck in the area surrounding the British Isles and Europe. It was where civilization has been grounded for those two-thousand years. Colleges and other centers of learning were a product of the maturing science. Today, the population of professional terrestrially-bound observers is far more concentrated above the Equator than below. I am persuaded the population ratio grows proportionally the further back you go within those 2,000 years.
One of those "ifs" that should be included must be the capability of the Maya to record due to their affinity to the written "word." Perhaps the Maya were more community minded than ourselves and scribed data to serve generations they would never see?
In closing, I want to place my suppositions in a familiar context. Not that you or the other readers have actually done this, but it should be within a context almost everyone can understand.
Imagine you are sitting comfortably in a large open area of solid ground. It is very dark, pitch black even with only the glow of the city lights beyond the horizon giving a frame of context. The vista in front of you is wide open and you are facing in the direction of the lighted horizon. About 75 yards behind you is a huge line of hills, almost mountains. The hill-mountain "range" stretches about a mile to your right, although you can't see that far. Around the end of that "range" is a buddy of yours just enjoying the solitude. The "range" stretches to your left to the horizon. No stars are visible.
As you are sitting enjoying the way the softness of the city glow plays against the horizon, you detect a rapid object move across the horizon, blocking out the luminescence behind it. It is gone as quickly as it came. You thought it was something of note so you record the time/date/size, but you take a guess at the speed since you did not time it. (I'm sure you can tell where I'm going with this, eh?).
You settle in to enjoy the the aviance of the moment and you detect the same vehicle(?) enters the scene, but you quickly time the passing. Again, you record the data. Hmmm.... is it your imagination or did it seem a tiny bit quicker and a hint larger?
Again this scenario repeats itself, but you notice when the vehicle(?) is directly in front of you there are exactly seven minutes to the second between each center-take.
After several more passings, each exactly seven minutes in the interval, you conclude it is a vehicle and it is displaying no lights of any kind. Recall you are sitting out in a large open area and the vehicle is traveling a course that appears to run parallel, but ever closer to your latitude.
Several more passings. You attempt to follow where it goes and where it comes from, but you cannot. The only thing you can be certain of is the seven minutes to the second to see it directly in front hiding more and more of the soft glow every seven minutes. Only now, you have been able to discern the vehicle is moving to a nearer parallel with each pass. Every trek down the latitude line is one foot closer than it was before.
There are only 23 one-foot "latitudes" between you and that menacing vehicular apparition.
23 x 7 = 161Just one-hundred and sixty-one minutes left... only a little less than 2-3/4 hours until the relentless and calculated advance will travel on the very parallel where you are sitting alone and in the dark.
Ok, enough of my version of the "Pit and the Pendulum." Since the corollary to the "Dark Planet" scenario is so blatant, I'll refrain from offering any explanation, but I did have fun writing it! :Thmbsup:
I'll simply ask *if* the ifs in my discourse are not more plausible?
~CT
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