Today is December 12, 2012.
It is also the 28th of Kislev, 5773 in the Jewish Calendar.
It is also the 28 of Muharram, 1434 according to Islamic Calendar.
And of course, it is 18.104.22.168.11 according to the Mayan Calendar.
People are funny animals. We look for patterns. What looks like a pattern in on system of organization may mean absolutely nothing, in another.
Because we look for patterns, because we are biologically designed to look for patterns, we sometimes see patterns where there really isn’t anything, but randomness or an artifact of a system of organization.
The only true statement I can make about 12/12/12 is that it will be 87 years before we can expect to see another date-triplet (ie, the next will be 01/01/2101).
As you can see, the Mayan, Jewish and Islamic calendars are silent, having no secret meaning for today.
So why do we see these patterns? The brain is designed to try to simplify complex information. It does this by building patterns out of the complexity, iterating until it has a simplified world-view that it can refer to when that pattern, or set of patterns are present. This is a very handy thing when in a world of constant risks, because the pattern of a large carnivore running at you should fire a near instantaneous response to RUN.
The problem comes when the world isn’t as simple, when the world we see doesn’t have obvious patterns. Your brain tries to fit data into a pattern, and for a time it will work. But eventually an outlier crops up, that just won’t fit. Out pattern for perceiving politics, or our pattern for perceiving the financial markets, or even just our pattern for matching dates.
Most of the crazy surrounding 12/12/12 is related to 2 facts.
- 12/12/12 is very close to 12/21/12 both in appearance an in relative time.
- Another date-triplet will not occur again, in most of our lifetimes.
Because of the Mayan Calendar flap, many people are looking for the end of the world, and the Gregorian Calendar induced pattern of 12/12/12 helps to add presumed plausibility.
Personally, I’d worry more about the fact that your patterns don’t accurately reflect the markets…
Oh, and for those wondering what that has to do with the image associated with this post? It’s all Lunacy.
- 12.12.12 (jyhedgehog.wordpress.com)
- The Weather And The Apocalypse (poemsandponderings.wordpress.com)
- 12/12/12: The End of an Era (hannahcburke.wordpress.com)
- BEST OF THE WEB: It’s smart to take all date-specific predictions with a spoonful of cynicism: 2012 ‘End Times’ prophecy corrected by Mayan priests (sott.net)
- End of the world as we know it? It’s coming fast – but not on Dec. 21 (cep95.wordpress.com)
- Dec 21: End of Mayan Calendar, or End of the World? (themoderatevoice.com)
- 12/12/12 Meaning and Dec. 21 Mayan Calendar End of the World Connection (sfluxe.com)
- The century’s last repeating date! (merloze.com)
- 12/12/12 – the end of the world … again (patheos.com)
- 5 Hysterical Reactions to Looming Mayan Apocalypse (alternet.org)