I believe if sheit hits the proverbial fan , then I will have lived and loved my woman for the last/ next and best two years of our lives.

Make it so.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLCQKM6O01A"]YouTube- It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)- Historical Music Video[/ame]

and if everything blows up.. your debts will be forgotten!!!

Thank you for the praise. I enjoyed writing it and my professor thought it was a lot of fun to read. I appreciate your saying that I was able to make it understandable because one of the books I would really like to write at some point is a full-bodied exploration of what a new meaning-creating system would look like that took, as a jumping-off point, the world as described by science.

One thing that has caused me to lose sleep over the last decade or so is that I have come to realize that our meaning-creating systems (read religion or spirituality) are largely out-of-date. Most of them describe a world that is actually very much contrary to the world as described by modern science. This is something that we can ill-afford any longer because there are some very big questions that are either barreling down on us or have already arrived and our meaning-creating systems do not appear to have the tools to deal with them.

I'll mention three to illustrate the kinds of problems I'm talking about:

1) Climate change. We *must* deal with this problem but it is not so simple or straight-forward as all of us getting rid of our cars and no longer using fossil fuels. Unless you have the stomach for a VERY large die-off (think half the human population) we can't just turn the clock back to the pre-agricultural era. The agricultural era (pre-Industrial revolution) can't sustain 6 billion+ people. What's more, those of us in the nations that have *already* passed to a post-industrial nation cannot ethically go to those nations that have yet to pass through the industrial phase and say "yes, granted, we chopped down our forests and paved over everything in sight but YOU can't do that because the planet can't afford it so, sorry, it's no better than subsistence agriculture for you and your descendants".

2) Advances in biology. Within our lifetimes some very interesting things are going to happen. One of which is that we are going to develop truly NEW lifeforms. By this I mean DNA patterns that have *never* existed, in any form, on this planet before. The first artificial cell has been created. A truly novel form of life is on the horizon. What's more, at this point, cloning is an engineering problem and not a scientific problem. (The difference here is this: the scientific problem is "can it be done" the engineering problem is "how do we do this efficiently, safely and economically".) When human clones exist what do we do then?

3) Sentient machines. While I think this one may be the most distant from where we sit now, at *some* point I think we're going to have to deal with a truly sentient machine. It may be a robot, it may be an AI but it will be self-aware. What rights should a self-aware artifact have? Should it own itself or can it be owned by its creator?

NONE of the religions or spiritual systems created so far appear to have any real means of dealing with these questions and they are *deep* questions. At least two of those I expect to see on our plates in my lifetime. The last one is most likely beyond the horizon of my life but will almost certainly be addressed by the time my granddaughter is an old woman. We currently don't have the tools to solve the problems. "We shouldn't play god" isn't an answer. "This or that ancient civilization was in harmony with nature" isn't an answer even if it were true (and it has never been true for any civilization). "We shouldn't build such things" isn't an answer. "The Bible forbids it" isn't an answer. All our cop-outs and short-cuts to actually truly entering into the question.

What's more most of our meaning-creating system misappropriate scientific *sounding* language to bolster their cases. The invocation of quantum mechanics is just the latest and most egregious example of this. Quantum theory doesn't say what New Agers say it does. At the same time, New Agers miss the elegance of beauty of what quantum mechanics *does* say because they are trying to make it into something it isn't. I love QM and wish I had the mathematics to read the literature on it in its native language but I don't (particle physicists take math classes that are, essentially, tuned for their field and while there is cross-over it is a different kind of mathematics than what I, as a biologist, will ever use). What I do know of QM, leaves me in awe with my head spinning because the sub-atomic world is so wonderfully wacky and weird. I wish that people who use QM as a way to give their spiritual beliefs the imprimatur of science would just sit with the subject matter, meet it on its *own* terms and try to wrap their heads around objects as small as an electron or try to imagine, really viscerally imagine, the problem of detecting the position and momentum of an electron at the same time. Once you've grasped that this is a problem that cannot be solved, ever, by anyone, under any circumstances, one gains an appreciation for just how majestic the universe is and just how puny our brains actually are.

One last thing before I close. I wish that more people truly internalized what several very eminent scientists have called the three blows to homo sapiens inflated sense of itself. Those three are this:

1) The heliocentric model. The insult here was that it took the Earth from being a special place in the Universe and made us realize that our planet is a perfectly ordinary nickel-iron rock, orbiting a completely undistinguished main-sequence star at the outer edge of a perfectly ordinary spiral galaxy.

2) Darwinian evolution by natural selection. The insult here is that it took us from being some special creation, above and beyond nature and told us that we are a large-brained African primate that is an absolute newcomer to this planet.

3) Neuroscience. The insult here is just getting warmed up. Already we are discovering that we ARE our brains. There are no thoughts you have that occur outside your brains. All your loves, all your joys are electrochemical reactions happening in your neural system. That doesn't mean that they are not *real* just that they are not *special*.

Cheers
Aj

------------------------
What fun!
I told you you should have started another thread on it!
:giggle:

So I have a question for those who believe that 'something' will happen in 2012. Now, it's obvious that I don't think that anything will happen. 2012 will be a year like 2011. There will probably be a hurricane, there'll probably be an earthquake, some tornados will touch down somewhere in the midwest, there will be shootings and bombings. But since we can expect this to occur, I assume that these regular, sadly commonplace events aren't the kinds of things that the Mayans were talking about in their prophecies. So my question is this: what do you think that these prophecies actually predict?

One or two people have said that they think it will be a time of emotional transition. If you believe that my question for you is this: why on Earth would the Mayans make THAT prophecy? Let me try to put my confusion in context. Let's say you believe in fortune telling so you go to a fortune teller. She says to you, "in ten years you will be experiencing deep and profound thoughts". You pay whatever it costs for a fortune teller, walk out of her little storefront, step off the curb and are immediately struck by a bus, killing you instantly. Now, if this woman were a fortune teller and could really see the future, don't you think that the information that you were going to be struck by a bus would be a tad bit *more* important than that you were going to be experiencing deep thoughts a decade from now? (Which, of course, you aren't going to be around to be doing now.) The reason I ask is that if, in fact, the 2012 prophecy refers to some great emotional change that will take place planet-wide isn't that just a little prosaic? What's more, why is it that they could predict *that* event but couldn't predict the fall of their own civilization--an event much closer to home and far more relevant for them?

I understand the hesitancy to commit to a position but if you *actually* believe something is going to happen in 2012, what? Will the Earth be struck by an asteroid? Where? (To give you a sense of context--and the standard I'm thinking of--you'll recall yesterday that I mentioned the Apohpis meteor potentially hitting the Earth in 2035. Now, I cannot give you the precise grid coordinate but astronomers do know that IF Apophis passes through the 'keyhole' in 2029, it will hit the Earth in 2035 somewhere in the Pacific between California and Hawaii. That means that a quarter century BEFORE the hypothetical event, a prediction has been made that is actually verifiable.) I've already explained that there's nothing special about passing through the galactic plane (and we're not going to do that anytime soon at any rate) and that the SMBH at the center of the galaxy doesn't have any real effect on us. We can also rule out the Earth flipping upside down (again for reasons that, hopefully, I've explained adequately enough for our purposes here). So what is it that is supposed to happen?

While I don't believe this prophecy to be at all true, I'm asking questions of those who do believe it is true taking your belief very seriously. I presume that you are saying what you believe and believe what you are saying. I'm just curious as to how those who believe this process this information.

Thanks.

Cheers
Aj

A bit more about black holes
 

Since black holes were invoked in this thread, I thought it might be interesting to delve into these a tiny bit more because these objects are SO cool!

So to understand black holes one must understand that in the interior of all stars there is a battle raging. The mass of the star, which is what creates gravity, wants to cause the star to collapse on itself (remember that gravity is ALWAYS attractive) but the fusion process (caused by that same gravitation) generates heat that prevents the star from collapsing. For 'main sequence' stars of .4 to 1.4 solar masses (using our sun as the baseline) near the end of their lifetime, as the fuel is exhausted, heat briefly triumphs over gravity and the star expands to a red giant. This will be the end-game cycle for the Sun. It will eventually expand out to 1 AU (Earth's orbit), completely obliterating our planet and then collapse into a cooler, white dwarf star about the size of the Earth.

Larger stars > 1.4 solar masses but < 4 solar masses will expand out to red supergiants and then collapse into neutron stars.

Truly massive stars > 4 solar masses go through one of the most interesting and violent transitions in the Universe. In these stars gravity fully triumphs over heat and the core of the star becomes iron. This increases the mass of the star while not generating more heat. At some point the star collapses in a supernovae and then collapses further into itself creating a black hole. When this happens very high energy particles may be ejected in the x-ray part of the spectrum which is one way we can detect black holes.

So why are black holes 'black'? They are black because the gravitational force is so extreme that not even light can escape it. If the black hole is part of a binary system it will tend to capture its partner and begin sucking stellar mass from it, feeding itself. This is another way we can detect black holes. As mass approaches the event horizon (boundary) of a black hole, it will be accelerated to a substantial fraction of the speed of light (C) which can cause atoms to be ripped apart with photons being ejected in the x-ray band.

We cannot detect black holes directly (because no signal can escape or be reflected from it) but we can infer them by the presence of mass being accelerated to a substantial fraction of C because of the gravitational tidal forces.

One more interesting bit about black holes. As you pass the event horizon the tidal forces grow more extreme. Imagine that you pass through a black hole feet first. Since your feet will be closer to the center of mass than your head, your feet will start to accelerate faster than your head causing your body to be stretched out. As you fall deeper, your molecules will be strung out in a process that Neil Degrasse-Tyson calls "spaghettification" and then your very atoms will be ripped apart. What's really interesting about this is that, counter-intuitively, if you were to fall into a supermassive black hole this *wouldn't* happen because the tidal forces are less intense but if you were to fall into a 'normal' black hole (a stellar-mass black hole) then you would undergo that process. So, ironically, you might actually *survive* falling into a supermassive black hole long enough to appreciate what was beyond the event horizon although you would still NEVER be able to get a signal out so you wouldn't be able to report what you found.

Cheers
Aj

What it means astrologically is ....

- A quincunx (150 degree aspect) between Jupiter and Pluto.
- A quincunx between Jupiter and Saturn.
- A central opposition (180 degree aspect) made between Jupiter and the Mercury/Venus conjunction.

The two quincunxes are almost exact, and have an orb of less than 1/2 of a degree. The quincunx between Jupiter and Pluto is exact at December 21 2012.

Pluto (The Energy of Evolution) is the planet of radical transformation, death and rebirth. (Pluto causes the disintegration of psychological blocks obstructing our evolutionary growth.)

Saturn (the Great Cosmic Teacher) is the planet of the earthly realm and of learning experiences, especially those of a more painful nature.

Jupiter (Ruler of all things philosophical) is also the planet of expansion (expanding the mind (higher mind) to superconscious realms and philosophy/expanding our physical horizons through long journeys). This is the focus of this alignment, the planet which receives the strong energy of the other planets involved. It also expands the energy of the other planets involved (especially Saturn and Pluto). This indicates transformational processes which can be emotionally painful.

Jupiter has a central place in this because it is the focal point of the energy. This indicates changes in our religious systems, beliefs, philosophical systems. These fall under Jupiter.

Also notable:

Jupiter squares (90 degree aspect) Neptune.
Neptune (The Ruler of all things "subtle") squares Venus.
Venus is in opposition to Jupiter (making this the central opposition).

Therefore Neptune, the planet of spirituality, ascension, confusion and floods is a crucial planet within this alignment. It rules all the processes of enlightenment.

What is interesting is that on that date, there will be an unusual astrological alignment combined with a rare galactic event.

Do I still think the world is coming to an end? No. But I think there are going to be some worldwide changes - and as previously mentioned - both individual and generational. Alignments like these have ushered in brand new eras, collectively changing the way humanity thinks, feels and interacts with one another.

I know I am making popcorn that day.

So my question is this: what do you think that these prophecies actually predict? One or two people have said that they think it will be a time of emotional transition. If you believe that my question for you is this: why on Earth would the Mayans make THAT prophecy?

Well, I can speak for no one but myself, but ...

The Mayans did not make that prophecy - the astrological alignment on that date does. I know a lot of people like to look at astrology as a new age concept - but astrology is a science. The art of astrology is based in it's interpretation. It's a science with a metaphysical twist. One thing NO ONE can deny, is that the planets move in a constant around the universe. The energies associated with each planet has their own unique effect depending on how they position to each other - and are intensified during astrological alignments.

Edited to add: It is speculated that the Mayans stopped their calendar on that date because they did believe that it begins another cycle of evolution. Not necessarily of the "end of the world kind", but a more spiritual evolution, if you will.

And ... there is also speculation that they "just stopped" and didn't feel a need to go further.

Let me try to put my confusion in context. Let's say you believe in fortune telling so you go to a fortune teller. She says to you, "in ten years you will be experiencing deep and profound thoughts". You pay whatever it costs for a fortune teller, walk out of her little storefront, step off the curb and are immediately struck by a bus, killing you instantly. Now, if this woman were a fortune teller and could really see the future, don't you think that the information that you were going to be struck by a bus would be a tad bit *more* important than that you were going to be experiencing deep thoughts a decade from now? (Which, of course, you aren't going to be around to be doing now.) The reason I ask is that if, in fact, the 2012 prophecy refers to some great emotional change that will take place planet-wide isn't that just a little prosaic? What's more, why is it that they could predict *that* event but couldn't predict the fall of their own civilization--an event much closer to home and far more relevant for them?

First of all, fortune telling IS NOT a science. It doesn't fall into the category of astrology. Astrological influences and psychic ability are certainly not one and the same.

For lack of a better definition:

An astrological age is a time period in astrology which is believed by some to parallel major changes in the Earth's inhabitants' development, particularly relating to culture, society and politics. There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in astrology. At the completion of one cycle of twelve astrological ages, the cycle repeats itself. Astrological ages occur because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. One complete period of this precession is called a Great Year or Platonic Yearof about 25,860 years.

Honestly, I am not sure what will happen in 2012. To be truthful, I didn't go into "study mode" over this. But, based on the alignment itself, it does indicate (to an astrologer), that there are changes coming. (In fact, the wheels for those changes have already been placed in motion.

Please pardon my ignorance. How would we know this happened? What would a year where there wasn't a transformational process look like as opposed to the kind of event you're talking about? (Again, please pardon my ignorance but I'm presuming that you are talking about observable events so I'm curious as to what we should expect to observe.)


Can you give me an example of this? Admittedly, astrology is FAR outside of my competency and I have some questions (which I'll spare you) about the mechanics of astrology (in other words how it's supposed to work). I mean, was the start of the European Enlightenment one of these periods? Were the planets aligned the same way when Rousseau, Burke, Smith, Condorcet, Paine and Hume were writing?

Cheers
Aj

Please pardon my ignorance. How would we know this happened? What would a year where there wasn't a transformational process look like as opposed to the kind of event you're talking about? (Again, please pardon my ignorance but I'm presuming that you are talking about observable events so I'm curious as to what we should expect to observe.)

We wouldn't know this happened, because it hasn't yet. This in itself is a rare alignment and it is SPECULATED, based on the interpretations of the planets and their positions, that this may take place. Have others taken place? Yes, but the astrological alignments for other eras/changes are not exactly the same.

In astrology, the distant planets Uranus, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto have more of a generational effect. In other words, humanity as a whole. The inner planets have more of an individualized effect (like.. what makes a taurus a taurus, etc..)

Alignments are complex. As an example, in the early 1930's - a T-Square alignment in certain planets/signs (I think it was Saturn, Uranus and Pluto) was symbolic of an economic breakdown in Western economies (the Depression), which in fact, affected all countries. Also during this T-square, the Nazi regime flourished, and well, we all know what impact that made on societies all across the world.

The 1960's was in itself an era ushered in by Saturn opposing Uranus and Pluto.

Each "era" has their own unique signature of planetary alignments and influences that have made them what they were/are. So, it's impossible to say what will EXACTLY happen - only speculate based on gathered information that has been accumulated over the centuries.

Can you give me an example of this? Admittedly, astrology is FAR outside of my competency and I have some questions (which I'll spare you) about the mechanics of astrology (in other words how it's supposed to work). I mean, was the start of the European Enlightenment one of these periods? Were the planets aligned the same way when Rousseau, Burke, Smith, Condorcet, Paine and Hume were writing?

Astrology may be outside your realm as much as quantum physics would be outside of mine. :) Honestly? I have NO idea (unless I sit and extensively research this) what alignments were in place during this particular time period and what plausible astrological effects to provide.

Well I appreciate your answering my questions. Thank you.

Cheers
Aj

When people believe in totally unscientific things like astrology or tea leaves or evolution-denial how do they rationalize their belief? What do people get out of believing such things?

Who decides what attributes to give to planetary bodies? Who decided on the attributes of the planet Pluto after it was discovered in the 1930s? And what about Ceris, which we now know is a larger planet than Pluto? It all seems so random, like believing Noah kept dinosaurs on the ark.

I don't say this to insult anyone- I am genuinely curious how one makes that decision to believe. Is it just something in your "gut" that you just feel you have to go with, or how does that work?

I'd like to take this moment to join together in an armageddon song?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_0UXRY_rY"]YouTube- Aerosmith - I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing[/ame]

I read the question a bit differently. For instance, let's take, as a point of contrast, belief in a divine being (which I also see no reason to believe in). This can be a comforting belief. But what does one gain from believing, for instance, that a now extinct civilization (not the people but the civilization) predicted some ill-defined cataclysm? It's certainly not comforting NOR is there anything one can do about it. As another point of contrast, consider (if you're old enough) the response to fears of a nuclear war that dominated the (industrialized) world from 1948 until the early 1990's. Here there WAS something that could be done about it. Fear that Goldwater might be crazy enough to attempt to fight a nuclear war kept him from the Presidency and, quite possibly, prevented us from getting into one. Or consider the somewhat more remote possibility of a planet-killer asteroid out there. If we can spot it we MIGHT be able to divert it (it's essentially a physics/engineering problem). But if the threat is ill-defined (something will happen, who knows what) then what is the point? As I said yesterday it sells books and movie tickets but other than making Hollywood moguls and New Age gurus a little heavier in the wallet, what actual *good* does it do?

As far as everything not being scientific and logical, this depends upon what you mean. To give another illustration, I'll take something I mentioned in the paper I linked to yesterday. You are mostly empty space. Everything is. There is a non-zero probability that you could walk through a wall. However, because both you and the wall are macro-objects if you started *today* to try to walk through a wall and you attempted once every second to do so, you would have to wait until the universe were around a hundred billion years old before you had done enough attempts that it would have some probability of actually happening. We can, therefore, treat walls as solid objects that it is impossible to pass through.

What's more, there are things that are *conceivable* but so highly improbable that we save a great deal of time by treating them as impossible. For instance, there is no law of physics that prevents air from *spontaneously* re-inflating your tire when it goes flat. The process that deflates your tire is, in fact, time-reversible meaning that it is process-reversible. However, the statistical nature of the movement of molecules means that it is very *unlikely* to ever actually occur. (This, by the way, is one way of understanding the Second Law of Thermodynamics: e.g. entropy)

Lastly, I would have to say that the possibilities are not actually infinite nor is there any reason to take our *profound* ignorance about nature to mean that anything goes. It is simply true that, to the best of our knowledge, it is *impossible* to accelerate an object with mass to the speed of light through space-time. We can safely treat any claims that someone has built a device that can achieve acceleration to the speed of light as a false claim. The same applies for perpetual motion machines (any machine where it generates its own energy without any loss: e.g. 100% of the energy used by the machine can be used for work). To say that 'no one knows because the universe is infinite' is to treat the laws of physics as nothing more than just some localized, arbitrary caprices when, in fact, they are not.

I want to tack on another question: what is WRONG with the universe having limits on us? Why is it that people balk at that? Why does the universe 'owe' us perpetual motion machines, psychic powers, or a divine being that cares for us (but, interestingly, doesn't condemn us to hell). Why is it illogical for nature to be governed by some set of rules that are discoverable by any species clever enough to hit upon the idea of the scientific method?

It seems to me that this claim is actually somewhat testable. For instance, if there are psychic powers (whatever that might mean) then we should expect that these powers would exhibit SOME kind of behavior. For instance, Einstein came up with a clever suggestion about how to determine if psychic powers existed. If they are a field then they should fall off according to the inverse square law (just like every other field does) if they don't, in other words if distance from the source has no effect on strength, then they don't exist because *every other single field we have discovered* obeys that law. Now, alternatively, if psychic powers aren't subject to the inverse square law of fields then those who argue in favor of them have the burden of proof placed on *them* to explain the nature of these powers and why they are the exception.

This is just a matter of consistent thinking and an attempt to keep the cognitive dissonance to the absolute minimum possible.

Cheers
Aj

I am not a scientist (obviously) but have been giving the subject of why people believe in religion, astrology and so forth much thought.

I wonder, in some cases, like for example astrology, psychic ability and so forth, if it is possible that somehow there are perfectly rational explanations? (science we don't know yet).

Could the planets have a pull on us like the moon might?

So many scientific discoveries have happened in our lifetimes alone that I have to think there are many completely rational explanations for things we might consider "magical thinking".

If they did, then this pull would be of a completely DIFFERENT kind of field (meaning one we have never detected before). The only field from the other planets that have ANY effect on us here on Earth is the electromagnetic field (light). The only other field that the planets have that would effect us here would be the gravitational field but because of how fields fall off with distance we are not significantly affected by the gravitational fields of EITHER of our two nearest planetary neighbors (Venus and Mars) and outside of the effect of Jupiter hoovering up objects as they traverse into the inner solar system, Jupiter has no effect on us. That means that this 'astrological field' (if you will) either has to be energy in some form that we cannot detect (but it's NOT dark energy that we can be certain of) or it does not obey the inverse square law. It's not electromagnetism (because we could detect it if it were, there's no part of the EMF spectrum that we cannot detect) and it can't be gravity (for the reason cited above).

This puts the burden of justification on the proponents of astrology to explain what kind of energy it is, to propose tests we could use to determine if this energy exists and whether or not it obeys the inverse square law (and if it doesn't why and how it breaks what appears to be a *fundamental* rule).

Here's the thing that I think is lost in a lot of science education taken at the high school and non-science major undergrad level: a universe with, say, psi powers looks very different than one without. If one is going to propose these powers, okay, but then one should be prepared for curious sorts to ask probing and difficult questions.

Because I'm more comfortable talking about how this works with various scientific issues (because there's no danger I'm going to step on someone's cherished beliefs and thus insult them) I'll use an example of the kind of questioning and curiosity I'm talking about. Let's take string theory.

String theory is a mathematically *beautiful* structure that seeks to explain, amongst other things, why the four forces have the strengths they do and what those four forces would look like if unified. I will admit that from the minute I became aware of string theory I was captivated by it. I would really LIKE for the universe to work this way. However, there are some non-trivial problems with the theory and after five years of reading everything I could find that was in support of string theory I heard on NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday an interview with someone who had been a prominent string theorist who wrote a book called "The Trouble with Physics" which argued that string theory was almost certainly wrong. I went out and bought that book and another book by a mathematician with an interest in the subject called "Not Even Wrong". I waded through both (they're very dense and the subject matter is extremely arcane) but after reading both of those and some various journal articles on the subject, came to the conclusion that string theory was unlikely to be true. While I still hold out SOME hope it might be rescued from its problems, I am dubious this can or will happen which means that no matter how much I might *want* the universe to work this way, it is vanishingly improbable that it *does* work that way.

It required me to ask some very deep and difficult questions and whenever there was resistance to question MY motivations for that resistance. However, the rules are the rules and the two biggest problems string theory has are not trivial. There are some 5 *million* possible permutations of string theory any of which might be true with no way to whittle that down to a manageable number. This means that string theory is not falsifiable as a practical matter and it may not be falsifiable even in principle. If it's only the former, then it's a matter of time but if it's the latter then no matter how beautiful string theory is, it isn't science. The second problem is allied to the first. String theory requires 9 MORE dimensions than our familiar 3+1 (time is its own dimension) which are curled up so small that they are not detectable. This goes back to the falsifiability issue.

The reason I bring this up is to illustrate how I think about these things and what scientific thinking looks like. I also bring it up to show that when I ask these questions about, say, astrology I am applying the SAME standard to that idea that I apply to ideas I actually DO believe might have something to them. I do so because it's only *fair* to do so. It would be unfair for me to have one standard for astrology and another for string theory and it would be terribly inconsistent to boot. To the best of my ability I want to be consistent and fair-minded and that means treating all kinds of claims about the universe as being on an equal footing and not privileging some kinds of claims above others just because some are labeled 'spiritual' and some scientific.

Cheers
Aj

My only suggestion is to investigate astrology. I could go on and on about it, but honestly? I really have no desire to, lol. It wouldn't be fair to turn this thread into science vs. metaphysics - since my original intent was to simply answer a question about what I thought about 2012.

Well, so that the thread doesn't die I'll bow out of it. Obviously, it's more entertaining to talk about, on the one hand, vague, non-specific events than it is to actually delve into the grounding issues of what might happen and why. I thought that good information about the science would crowd out bad information but that only works if people want good information which, clearly, they don't.

So enjoy the 23 month "the Mayans said the world will end!" party. On 22 Dec 2012, I'll be giggling my butt off and wondering how many people will have the courage to admit that 2012 was just another year.

Cheers
Aj

Everyone isn't going to care about the details. Details can be quite boorish. The web is vast and there's tons of information on it for those who want it though.

Details can be quite unmannered, rude and insensitive?

Maybe you mean boring?

As in: Detailed discussion on a thread topic can be boring? (to you)

:deepthoughts:

It's hard to imagine how the details of something that one believes controls or effects all aspects of life in a mystical sense would be boring to that person, especially in a thread about how those beliefs will spur an impending global transformation...

I choose to not sit here and write about astrology and the science behind it and bore myself (and others) to death. Yes, I meant boring.

And yes, I am bored now.

Well, if my roommate had any money, the idiot would be building a fall-out bunker, buying guns, and stocking up on food. It is funny. He gets his information off the internet, and when I tell him about a site that debunks most of his stupid crap, he says "You can't trust what you read on the internet!" WTF???

Hell, to me 2012 is the year I will be getting my BS finished. Go me.

Can anyone tell me who ascribed astrological characteristics to the planet Pluto after it was discovered in 1930?

I've looked on the internet and can not locate that info.

I really believe this should be in it's own thread, but... wth ...
 

Modern planets

Since the invention of the telescope, Western astrology has incorporated Uranus, Neptune, Ceres, Pluto and other bodies into its methodology. Indian and Chinese astrologies have tended to retain the ancient seven-planet system. Meanings have had to be assigned to them by modern astrologers, usually according to the major events which occurred in the world at the time of their discovery. As these astrologers are usually Western, the social and historical events they describe have an inevitable Western emphasis. Astrologers consider the 'extra-Saturnian' planets to be 'impersonal' or generational planets, meaning their effects are felt more across whole generations of society. Their effects in individuals depend upon how strongly they feature in that individual's birth-chart. There is also a great discussion going about what Ceres should rule in astrology. Some western astrologers hope that within a few years, astrological rulerships will be changed in order to include Ceres. The following are their characteristics as accepted by most astrologers.

To most modern Western astrologers, Pluto is the ruling planet of Scorpio. In Roman mythology Pluto is the god of the underworld and of wealth, hence the coin-and-chalice glyph. Pluto and its moon Charon form a unique pairing in the solar system because Charon is so massive relative to Pluto. This means that they revolve in a 'dumbbell' formation around a common point in space lying between them, permanently locked in a 'power struggle' for dominance.[13] This is symbolic of the role Pluto has come to represent astrologically. Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the sun, spending on average approximately 21 years (20.6) in each sign of the zodiac. However, Pluto's orbit is so eccentric that this can vary dramatically, from 25 years in Cancer (1913 - 1938) to a mere 12 years in Scorpio (1983 - 1995), when its orbit was actually closer to the sun than Neptune's.

Astrologically Pluto is called "the great renewer", and is considered to represent the part of a person that destroys in order to renew, through bringing buried, but intense, needs and drives to the surface and expressing them, even at the expense of the existing order. A commonly used keyword for Pluto is "transformation". It is associated with power and personal mastery and the need to co-operate and share with another, if each is not to be destroyed. Pluto governs big business and wealth, mining, surgery and detective work, and any enterprise which involves digging under the surface to bring the truth to light. Pluto is also associated with the day Tuesday along with Mars.

Pluto is also associated with extreme power and corruption; the discovery of Pluto in 1930 coincided with the rise of fascism and Stalinism in Europe, leading to the Second World War. It also coincided with the Great Depression and the major proliferation of organized crime in the United States.

Its entry into Cancer in 1913, the sign in which it was later discovered, coincided with the First World War. It is also associated with nuclear armament, which had its genesis in the research of the 1930s and 40s. Later on, it gave rise to the polarized nuclear stand off of the Cold War, with the mass consumer societies of the United States and other democracies facing the totalitarian state of the USSR. The discovery of Pluto also occurred just after the birth of modern psycho-analysis, when Freud and Jung began to explore the depths of the unconscious. In real life events and culture, Pluto has been a major astrological aspect.

In art, movements like Cubism and Surrealism began to deconstruct the 'normal' view of the world and reassemble it in new and sometimes disturbing ways. In medicine Pluto seems to be associated with regenerative forces in the body involving cell formation and the reproductive system. Pluto is considered by modern astrologers to be co-ruler of the 8th house with Mars. Many traditional astrologers do not use Pluto as a ruling planet, but do use the planet for interpretation and predictive work, obliquely making reference to projections of influences from higher to lower dimensional spaces.

OK I found it, it was Jeff Green who in 1985 dreamt of what astrologers now believe about Pluto, as explained to him in the dream by Yogananda.

From Eric Francis:

"He started reading charts, came to Seattle, and put up his "Free Charts" sign, which was popular. He did a lot of readings on the radio. One night he had a dream in Sanskrit, in which Yogananda gave him some really intense info about Pluto. He started writing. He lit candles on his desk, illuminating the first page, and called his then-girlfriend, so she could come and see the first page; that is how it all began. It was an extremely challenging task to complete the book, but he did it. Yogananda stuck around. A lot happened. It's all history. It is fair to say that no book of the last half century has had as much impact as Jeff's. (Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul)"

So there it is.

Well, congrats on your BS (assuming that the Mayans are right, you'll have about six months to enjoy it LOL).

My wife and I sometimes talk about starting some kind of New Age consulting business. You see, she's got the whole "Celtic Earth-Mother" thing going on (red hair, curvy, I call her my own personal Flaming June) and I've got the whole dreadlocked black woman thing down and I can fake a passable Caribbean accent. With that schtick we could make money beyond our dreams of avarice!

I have a couple of people in my life who do the same thing as your roommate. On the one hand they'll say "I saw this on the Internet...." and then riff on some completely ludicrous idea and then, when they are pointed to a site where their sacred cow is well and truly debunked they'll respond "well, you can't believe everything you see on the Internet!" It boggles the mind.

Cheers
Aj

So there it's not.

It's no surprise how you are attempting to handle the topic.

Peace out.

It reminds me of all the fundamentalist ("bible believin') Christians I've talked to who have never even read the book that they believe with all their heart has come straight from the mouth of God.
I wonder if there is an inverse relationship between true believers and their own need for information about the things they believe. I'd love to see it studied...

For a small feee, I can give you an elixir that will make you feel and look 35.

Cheers
Aj

Truth in not partial false
 

dreadgeek

I, personally, do not find science boring...but what I have issue with is a scientists trying to make theory fact by agreement.

excerpt from dreadgeek 'This puts the burden of justification on the proponents of astrology to explain what kind of energy it is, to propose tests we could use to determine if this energy exists and whether or not it obeys the inverse square law (and if it doesn't why and how it breaks what appears to be a *fundamental* rule). '

I have the tenacity to believe that 'if ain't always true-meaning no exceptions-it ain't true'. To me this is 'truth' - that each person holds a portion of the truth emcompassing a merge from levels of understanding at the physical level (science), the mental level (change), the spiritual level (ominiscence). Incorporating all = truth, however dismissing a portion = theory. Each serves a invaluable reasoning for existence.

:freak: :huhlaugh:

Off topic but I tend to wander off alot...LOL
Is this pic with the cat an image of mouse in 'light' form intentional? or am I having a '60s flashback'?

2012......I will be 60 yrs old (June 24) and that's a number I cannot even understand.......laughin..........

It reminds me of a bumper sticker found all over NM during the Y2K hype:

Y2K is everyday in NM

Meaning: if all the hype had come true, nothing in NM would have changed........laughin....

I must admit I did go out to Point Reyes with a bunch of friends and 'harmonically converged' when we were supposed to do that to save the planet..........it was a great time hanging at the beach and doing a bit of meditation to the sound of the waves and the light of the moon.

It's the Solstice and I will be having a Solstice Celebration just like I do every year. It's a celebration of the return of the light.