hey guys, ive spent the better part of this year worrying about 2012. mister o'neils articles on UT put most of my fears to rest but no one has been able to waylay my fears about the novelty theory (if you dont know what it is look it up on wikipedia) ive heard some peapole say its psuedosceintific nonsense put they dont say why! please if some one could somebody help im really scared

I wouldn't worry about it. If you juggle words and numbers around for long enough, you can probably predict the End of the Universe at any time you want to.

To help put your mind at rest:

From the wiki article you mention, this month, November 2008, should be a 'great period of novelty'. Now, assuming you don't count Mr Obama, and if nothing else happens this month, would you be reassured?

Hi some dumb kid, welcome to BAUT.

The nonsense about 2012 is just that, nonsense. If you've read through the stuff on UT, you should have some pretty good answers already.

Its a very broad topic and its hard to address all possible aspects of it. Is there some particular aspect of it that that makes you think it might have some grain of truth? Is there some particular question you have about it, or about something that was on UT?

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Lol @ Swift. I didn't notice the OP's handle, and I was floored by your apparent ad hom. Silly me.

Anyway ... I'm in a very lazy mood today, so don't feel like looking up novelty theory. *Sigh* Okay I'll take a look anyway.
[Insert random "hmms" and "hrmphs" so you get the soundtrack to me reading the article]

Okay, so to put the theory in simple terms, major events in the universe can be predicted based on a pattern discovered by the theorist's creator.

Here's the thing; numerology "works" because of the very nature of numbers*. If you take a large pool of data (such as dates, in this instance), and start with events that you want to connect, but don't care how you connect them, you're going to be able to come up with some pattern that "works". Further, the "prediction dates" are often made "fuzzy" to futher achieve the illusion of underlying accuracy. Further still, when you have ill-defined definition of what a "major event" is, it's even easier to define a pattern.

*when I say "the nature of numbers" i mean that large numbers are representative of smaller sets of numbers and numbers, digits, etc can be easily manipulated to fit into each other or to be compatable. Here's an example: my last customer paid his insurance premium of $313. 3 + 1 + 3 = 7. Barak Obama was elected president on the fourth(4) day of the eleventh (11) month. 11 - 4 = 7. Because I didn't care about how I related the two data items, it was easy to quickly find a way to make them appear to be related. But did Obama's victory have anything to do with this customer's insurance premium? (dodging any political quips) No.

I think I'll start refering to numerology and related theories as the "Alpha-bit soup effect". Throw enough data around and you'll find something that superficial appears related. ("Brian! There's a message in my cheerios! It says 'ooooooo!'" -Family Guy).

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Oh, my bad (and not for the OP's name ). I didn't realize that there was actually something called Novelty Theory, I thought the OP was just interested in the novel theories of 2012 (or something).

Anyway, here is the wikipedia article about Novelty Theory.

Ok, so nothing novel happened, for example between 4 billion years ago and 65 million years ago? Things like the formation of life on Earth weren't novel (or this theory doesn't explain them). And there were much bigger extinction events than the "dinosaur" one, why aren't they predicted?

SDK (mind if I call you SDK, it would make Fazor happy), I stand by my original assessment: Nonsense.

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All moderation in purple

Of gosh, Googling Novelty Theory just gets better and better.

This is a very long webpage from some nonsense called "crystalinks.com". Its all about Conical Hats and their magic abilities, or something.
Well, given all that, these must be GODS!.

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All moderation in purple

Welcome to BAUT, SDK!

You don't have to worry about any 2012 theories. There are always people who predict doom for the world, but by coming here to ask for information, you've shown that you're smart enough to have some doubts.

Which is a good thing.

So relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy this wonderful world without end.

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thanks guys im starting to feel better but i would like to get some more opinions

PS: my "handle" as fazor put it refers to the the fact that A: im 14 and B: im very curious about science but dont know much about it so most of my questions are usally kind of silly to knoledgeable people

It's okay, I'm only a year older than you, and your questions can't be dumber than the ones I get asked at school. There was this one girl who though Venus was in another galaxy! Can you believe that?

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Isn't this the same as the timewave zero nonsense?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

yep thats it

yep thats it

You're not his 'brother's friend' are you?

lol no

some dumb kid, I'd like you to meet obscured by clouds. obscured by clouds, some dumb kid.

BAUT topic Novelty theory ~ Timewave Zero

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its not that im not grateful for you guys posting thease links to older threads but there not what im looking for i need the exact reasons this thing is a bunch of bull honkey

... and you looked in the cited material and didn't see it?

Maybe someone will research it for you, then. (Because, if a member already knew it cold, then it probably would have been mentioned in one of the prior topics -- but you didn't find it there.)

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I have generally tried to debunk fears of doom in 2012.

However, I have recently come to the realization that there is indeed a potential for catastrophe in 2012.

2012 will be another election year. God save us.

It isn't science. Some guy came up with an idea while on a mushroom trip, declaring there is a property called "novelty" that will just happen to reach a limit in 2012. Wow, what a shock. I think Maksutov summed this up nicely in the timewave zero theory thread (and I like having a good opportunity to quote him) so:

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Hi some dumb kid.

I also think it is a fascinating hypothesis. From what I have read about it, it seems to be tied into the concept of emergence, in that any given system, complexity tends to arise. I think what McKenna was getting at is that increasing complexity, whether it be ideas, technology, etc. = novelty.

Kind of hard to prove though.

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SDK (by the way, there are no dumb questions, no really, there aren't):

Did you see my comments in post # 5?
Similarly, why does this theory explain things like 9/11, but not events that killed many more people, like World War II or any major natural disaster?

I also find it more than a little curious that some of the "novelty events" last for decades (such as "around late 18th century when social and scientific revolutions progressed") and some last a single day, like 9/11/01. What kind of force is this that sometimes last for decades and other times lasts for a day or so?

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

swift on a history chanel documentery they said that it did predict world war 2 and the fall of the soviet union (than again on that same documentery they said that the mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012 wich they did not) however i did hear a complaint online that the assination of JFK took place when the timewave graph said nothing would happen! not a mass war but certinly an important event

This gets back to my point that these theories do not define what is an important event, which is why they have never and will never predict one. Instead, they pick a pattern arbitrarilly, then AFTER a supposed "predicted date" look to see what happened that was "important".

And because "importance" is subjective, it's a game that you as the "fortune teller" will never lose. If you want to test it, try this game. The 7th day of the month is divinely cursed. On every 7th day of every month, a major event will happen. Now, if you read enough news from around the world, what do you think the odds are that you'll find a headline in bold on the seventh day of every month?

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but "I saw it on the History Channel" is not really the same as "it's true." A lot of their programming is quite good. Any time they're talking about prophecies, though, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

What Gillianren said, except I would probably say some of their programming is good, not "a lot". And they have been going downhill, they are probably at more than 50% garbage, IMHO.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

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All moderation in purple

As Fazor said, you can pick any date and find something, especially after the fact. I still want to know why this theory thinks the dinosaur extinction was a more novel event than the creation of life, or the development of multi-celled life. It seems to me more novel to make things more complex, then to destroy things.

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All moderation in purple

fazors argument is really solid but im still a little spooked

Does it account for the invention of sliced bread? Apparently that's important, as everyone seems to use it as a benchmark.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Every since I saw the OP, I've been trying to find this smilie Neo once used on me. Finally remembered where it was:

Hey, its a spooky world. You just can't let it get to you. Deal with the things you can do something about and don't let the things you have no control over keep you up at night. Failing that Spanish test next week is more likely to kill you than some "timewave" (and no, I don't think failing the Spanish test will kill you either).

One general rule about conspiracy theories and other crackpot ideas - it is up to the people pushing these ideas to prove to you why their idea better explains the world than what is generally accepted. Often you will hear these people say "prove me wrong". NO - it is up to them to prove their ideas are right.

Another good rule to learn is Occam's razor. The general idea is often expressed as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best". So, which explanation is more likely, that there is some sort of thing called timewaves, that no one has ever observed or seen, and through completely unknown means causes all sorts of destruction, or someone has a goofy idea that means nothing.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple