Friday, July 25, 2003

 
THE END IS NIGH.
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I was recently reminded about an interesting prediction that the world would end on December 21, 2012, which is just the sort of thing I would have blogged at the time I heard it, if I'd had a blog.

Basically, the deal as I understand it is supposed to be this.

First, civilization is becoming more advanced. And the rate at which civilization is becoming more advanced is increasing. And the rate at which the rate at which civilization is becoming more advanced is also increasing. If you graph the advancement of civilization over time, it is a curve getting steeper and steeper, until it goes practically straight up and down on December 21, 2012. There's no more curve after that day.

Second, the ancient Mayan calendar, created millennia ago, just happens to run our of dates on the day we call December 21, 2012.

Finally, that day happens to be the winter solstice, as well as the day our sun passes through the equator of the Milky Way, as well as a day when there will be a solar eclipse (visible in Australia).

I think the most difficult part of this to understand is how the advancement of civilization can become infinite. This page touches on that, but doesn't really address it. The first major advancement in civilization was the agricultural revolution (i.e., farming), 30,000 years ago. The second was the industrial revolution (i.e., mass production), 350 years ago. The third was the information revolution (i.e., computers), 50 years ago. According to the graph, there will be 61 more equally significant revolutions between now and December 21, 2012, with 18 of them happening that day, and 13 of those in the last second before the singularity.

How could that happen? Consider that the advancements of the industrial revolution greatly simplified the manufacture of computers, the creation of which would have seemed inconceivable without those advances in manufacturing. The next revolution will surely be something that would have been inconceivable without computers. In other words, machines did most of the work of building the computers, and computers will do most of the work of designing and building the next thing. And that thing will do most of the work of conceiving of, designing, and building the next thing. And that thing is going to really take off on its own with building the next revolution. By 2012, if the theory holds, something 47 revolutions past computers, which is only 2 revolutions past farming, is going to, all by itself, in a fraction of a second, create the next major revolution of society, which will, by itself, create the next one, and so on.

Under the graph, after the thirteenth revolution in a single second occurs, the singularity happens, and there will be an infinite number of advancements before the end of the following second, because each revolution will create the next revolution in less and less time. Even if this happens, this does not, per se, mean that the world will end in that second, but what will the next second be like? What will the next day be like? What will things be like a week or a year or a decade later?

There are an enormous number of resources about this stuff on the Web, many of which should not be trusted. An impressive collection is located at All About 2012, which is very poorly designed.

This is The Official Record. 5:44 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/07/end-is-nigh.html

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