Let us see if we cannot tease out the truth of the matter concerning the much-talked-about events such as 12:12 on 12 December 2012.  I will begin by asserting that there is absolutely nothing interesting about this date and time as compared to any other except that certain persons enjoy talking (endlessly apparently) about trivial matters.

In order for the numeric values of a date or a time to have some meaning (beyond, of course, the simple marking of the current agreed-upon time and date), the numbers must be drawn from some segment of reality and that segment reality must be marching along at the numeric rate we happen to be using to divide time.

Trouble is, all of our systems for measuring time (and thus date) are fully arbitrary.

The first day of the year has been moved all over the place in our calendar and there are dozens of other calendars (currently and throughout history). Not all calendars have leap years or any other systematic method for adjusting the shift of the calendar over the course of time. This is because a year isn’t exactly 365 days. Nor is each day exactly 24 hours.

The number of months, days in months, and days in the year has also changed and is different in all those different calendars. October, November, and December are based on the Latin words for eight (Oct), nine (Nov), and ten (Dec) because they were the eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the Roman system (later Augustus and Julius got months).

The number of hours in a day has changed and was most recently suggested to move into decimal form. The French in the 1800’s decimalized most measurements but failed to convince anyone decimalizing time was important. Days were broken into ten hours each under some ancient systems. For some systems or eras each hour was not the same (some hours were longer or shorter). This was because day and night were divided at sunset and sunrise, so the day hours in winter were pretty short while the night hours of those same periods were pretty long.

If you are in the Pacific Time Zone, when are you at the correct time? Is at the beginning edge of the zone? The ending edge? We just agreed to create the various time zones according to arbitrary (and squirrelly lines around the globe), mostly for commercial and political reasons. Then you have shifts for daylight savings. And why is this so-called midnight the start of our day?

The idea that these numbers, which are of a totally random and arbitrary nature, have some meaning can only indicate the meaning exists solely in the mind of the espouser. All of these numbers we have assigned in a perfectly arbitrary fashion. They don’t represent anything in reality. We just made up some numbers and assigned them to random points. If they mean anything, they don’t do so in reality.

If you are still in doubt, feel free to make a donation to me of all your worldly possessions and I will save your eternal soul from damnation.