The speaker at my brother's graduation last weekend had an interesting message at the end of his speech. He brought up the importance of civility in public discourse. George Orwell, for example, repeatedly said that society has undergone a significant decline in the quality of discourse. Instead of honoring a degree of mutual respect and gaining credibility through sound logical arguments, people seem to resort to sarcasm. I do it myself sometimes, but when people jump to flaming (online especially), rational discussion is basically abandoned. As mentioned, Willow could have been more considerate in his post, but Eschaton, your following post was meaningless mockery, rather than any attempt at rebuttal.
An interesting aside about belief in fringe ideas:
"Some psychologists believe that the
syllogism is the basic unit of human reasoning. They have produced a large body of empirical work around McGuire's famous title "A Syllogistic Analysis of Cognitive Relationships." A central thrust of this thinking is that
logic is contaminated by psychological variables such as "wishful thinking," in which subjects confound the liklihood of predictions with the desirability of the predictions. People hear what they want to hear and see what they expect to see. If planners want something to happen they see it as likely to happen. Thus planners ignore possible problems, as in the American experiment with prohibition. If they hope something will not happen, they see it as unlikely to happen. Thus smokers think that they personally will avoid cancer. Promiscious people practice unsafe sex. Teenagers drive recklessly."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentation_theory
Anyway, on to my post, a lot of which is a rehash of the thread I had mentioned earlier:
I am truly ashamed that psychedelic drugs are being dragged into the next apocalypse prediction. It's dirtying an already deeply tainted name. If people want psychedelics to become more accepted by mainstream culture, they should avoid contaminating logic with syllogism. There are a huge number of reasons why the 2012 theory is completely absurd.
First of all, there's absolutely no evidence that the Mayans thought 2012 would signify anything important. Second, the talk about alignment with the center of the galaxy is a complete fabrication … it is in no way even remotely true.
e1evene1even said:
I don't see how you are suggesting that the alignment of the sun with the galactic equator is trivial. This is something that started in 1987 and will finish around 2012. Has the world and human consciousness not changed more dramatically during this period than any other time in known history? The rapid advancement of technology, the internet (the Gaian neural network), climate change, social/political/spiritual upheaval, an exponentially increasing population not to mention that a kid with a credit card has easy access to more consciousness expanding agents that were available to every shamanic culture on the planet combined up until only recently... Do I need to continue?
I wasn't suggesting that it was trivial; I was suggesting that it is unambiguously wrong … as in there is not a grain of truth to the statement. What is your source for this alignment, a book about 2012 perhaps? This is not an attack. It is a valid question.
First of all, our Sun is above the galactic equator by a few degrees (many light years) and will be for the foreseeable future. As far as the Earth and Sun aligning with the galactic center, this happens every year. The interesting alignment (with the winter solstice), occurred in 1997, unfortunately not in 2012. There are people that believe that the Mayans set up their calendar to predict this event, but this claim is also baseless, an invention of "wishful thinking". There is no evidence that the Mayans had any knowledge of the precession of equinoxes and they obviously didn't have the technical capabilities to accurately mark the galactic equator or alignment with the center of the galaxy.
e1evene1even said:
"As above, so below" truer words were never spoken and in the age of fractals and the holographic universe model this axiom holds more weight than ever. Time is cyclic, one doesn't need psychedelics to realize the simple logic in this. Day and night are a cycle, summer and winter are larger part of this celestial cycle. Is it not logical that there is also a larger cycle at work, whether you call the 'Platonic Year', 'precession', 'yugas' or the 'Mayan calendar' these are all part of the same 'perrenial philosophy' that most great cultures throughout history have tapped into, just as ours is beginning to do. If the planets motion around the sun has such a profound impact on all life on earth (and our own endocrine secretions) is it not 'just plain, fucking ridiculous' to not at least entertain the idea the suns revolution around the galactic center could also have some similar effect? Please reserve judgment and condemnation until you actual listen to the interview in question and review the information on the subject.
The Earth’s motion around the sun does indeed affect our endocrine systems. But wouldn't that make sense because the seasons are changing and all these changes require adaptations from all life forms in order to persist in the face of them. It is absurd to propose that humans would be significantly affected by movement in the galaxy, because of the simple fact that it does not influence our conditions here on Earth. Our planet is essentially an isolated ecological system. The sun and the moon affect our planet in perceivable ways. Pluto does not, nor do other stars in our galaxy … at least on the timetable were speaking of here.
Edit:
It is well documented throughout the animal kingdom that geomagnetic field changes affect the pineal and metabolism substantially.
Could you present some references for this statement. I have a difficult time believing it would have any effects on the pineal, much less some multifaceted alterations in a complex, tightly regulated biochemical mechanism. The idea that endogenous DMT has a role in near death experiences or that it is released at birth have no backing evidence ... aside from a few hippies that thought of it one time while high.
I do wonder a geomagnetic field reversal would confuse migrating birds though? Here's what I found it geomagnetic fields.
"The rate of reversals in the Earth's magnetic field has varied widely over time. 72 million years ago (Ma), the field reversed 5 times in a million years. In a 4-million-year period centered on 54 Ma, there were 10 reversals ... It had generally been assumed that the frequency of geomagnetic reversals is random, and it was shown in 2006 that the known reversals conform to a Lévy distribution."
"At present, the overall geomagnetic field is becoming weaker at a rate which would, if it continues, cause the dipole field to temporarily collapse by 3000–4000 AD."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
So, a connection I fail to make is: how does a Mayan calender have even a remote association with geomagnetism, when it is not a concept that was understood by the the Mayan people?
Please understand, my goal is not to win an argument here, it's simply to try and help people realize that when you make a hypothesis, you need to fairly asses the evidence from all sides, and avoid jumping to a conclusion, letting syllogism override sound logic.
-Dondante
P.S. I took the time to write a thoughtful reply, please do the same.