Lost Theories

A really good article was posted today on ABCNews.go.com related to the season finale of Lost and what is in store for the series over the next 3 years. The story also contains some good commentary from Damon and Carlton related to who they would want on a deserted island with them from the cast and their thoughts about how the Internet has affected the series.

After three years and countless viewer questions, the executive producers of “Lost” have promised fans what they want most from the May 23 season finale: answers.

“We sort of see each season as a book, and we’re going to be concluding this book of ‘Lost,’” co-executive producer Carlton Cuse said during a break from editing the third season’s final episode. “The finale promises a showdown between our guys and the Others, and we really deliver on that.”

Notwithstanding the obvious libido-driven answers, if you could only choose 3 Losties to have on the Island with you, who would you choose?

Thanks to reader and contributor DocH (minor editing from myself):

I told myself I wasn’t going to take a side on the Jacob question, but, after watching The Brig, I think I’ll jump into the fray here. I think Jacob is a real, tangible, touchable human-being of normal (vice supernatural) abilities. He’s not deceased or “of legend”. Jacob doesn’t have 4 toes, isn’t a true prophet, and doesn’t have any unique ‘healing’ abilities.

Ben is not Jacob. Ben knows Jacob. Jacob is real and Ben is part of his stable of confidants. Ben is not the General, Jacob is. Ben is a Colonel in Jacobs’ army, and takes his orders accordingly.

Jacob is a modern day cult leader like Jim Jones in Guayana, Rev Moon of Korea, Bagwan Rajneesh in Oregon or the plural marriage guy they just busted from Utah. Jacob knows the power and unique qualities the island possesses, how to use what the island offers, but mostly how to manipulate his followers and elevate him to the demagogue status he desires. Ben and a few Others know about the island’s magic too. Jacob commands Jacob-oriented religion and devout followers ensue - folks are compelled to “prove themselves” by committing heinous acts they would not otherwise perform. After looking at all of those doe-eyed cultists ogling Locke in camp - I’d say most of them have spent more than a few days in the “brainwash” room on Hydra Island.

Ben is the public face for Jacob. Look at the way Ben publicly humiliated Locke when Locke wouldn’t prove himself in front of Jacob’s cult. The cult abandoned Locke - remember how eager they were when they thought Locke was “special” - “the one”. It was all a Jacob manipulation to ensure Locke was cast out. Why? Locke is wise to the unique qualities of the island - his paralysis, his bitten hand, dragged by smokie to the vent, his face-to-face with good smokie where he “saw into the heart of the island”. All this threatens Jacobs’ rule. Ben is the man in front of the curtain - Jacob is “The Man Behind The Curtain”, pulling all of the strings, rarely if ever seen by his cult, seen as need be by his Colonels, Captains and Lieutenants.

I don’t think Juliet has ever knowingly seen Jacob, but I do think she knows that Jacob is a flesh and blood person, not a deity. She was guest help for the cult fertility issue, but you know how it is with cults, the door only goes one-way. Once you are in the compound, they will never willing open the door to let you out. That is why Juliet has been in the extreme measure mode lately; the Ben operation, the Danny shooting, her cult trial, deceiving Sun about her D.O.C., and the secret alliance with Jack in beach camp.

The island does not cure - the doctors cure. The island heals - rapidly and freely. The island may also alter the normal aging process. Jacob, Locke and Ben all know this about the island. All of our doctors (Juliet, Ethan, etc…) know this too (Jack is just learning it though).

Since Jacob is not the ‘face’ of the cult, Jacob does not have to spend all of his time on the island. He gets away frequently to manage the business of the island. The business - exploit the capabilities of the island (a place for all to go and heal - for a significant fee of course) - and ultimately for the “Religion of Jacob” to go worldwide as the one true faith. With so much at stake why not just kill the Losties? Reason - Jacob is years away from taking the island public because of little things like; infertility, these nagging little smoke creatures that like to hurt folks (not good for business) - so they need test subjects. Losties, Tailies, special kids, pregnant-types, whatever they can get will fit the bill. Why not just kill Locke? Locke is gullible, he’d be more of an asset than a threat, if they can “bring him into the fold” and he’d make one heck of a poster-child for what the island is capable of.

So if Ben isn’t Jacob, who is? I don’t think it is one of the many rich corporate types that hover just out of sight, like one might suspect. The guys hiding in the corporate shadows are after the island themselves, either for profit and/or are in fear of what Jacobs little project may do to their long term bottom line and the global culture. It isn’t likely that any of our distinguished scientists from decades past are Jacob either, though they may have given rise to the Jacob phenomena.

Not from the past, not just off camera. How about a Jacob that has been hiding in plain sight the entire time? There is an old-world trick, where a royal would travel or visit foreign courts as a royal underling and the royal underling would pose as the royal. The hidden royal could observe, decide and eventually act without ever having revealed him or herself or putting themselves in harms’ way. Ben is the Colonel, but who wears Jacobs’ shoes? One of Bens’ Captains or Lieutenants? I cast my vote for Richard Alpert - he is Jacob, he is the puppet master behind the curtain and he perfectly fits the criteria outlined above.

Look at how Alpert comes and goes from the island (recruiting Juliet, kidnapping Cooper). Look at how Alpert is always around when important things are ‘apparently’ being decided by Ben (get me TMFT). And recently, with “The Brig”, Ben threw Locke his best “bad cop” impersonation - kill your father or you are an outcast, while Alpert simply manipulated Locke with his best “good cop” act, getting Sawyer to kill Cooper with - “John - we’ve never formally met - I don’t like Ben either - here is Sawyers’ file - read on…”. Locke AGAIN has fallen for the long con. Locke said I can’t kill, but in effect he did when he conspired for, solicited, and abetted the murder of Cooper, via Sawyer. Jacob (Alpert) and Ben now officially own Locke’s soul.

Now read the first 5 paragraphs again, only insert the word Alpert where the word Jacob is…

This was posted by one of our readers Harold during the commentary associated with the D.O.C episode (some minor edits were made to Harold’s comment).  I do not necessarily agree with everything here, but definitely feel that this is well thought out and deserving of its own post:

“I think that much of what is happening on the island can be explained using some of the concepts that are used in modern physics.”

Black hole

A black hole is thought to occur when a star collapses. The gravity is so great that light cannot escape. Once an object reaches the “event horizon” around the black hole, it is sucked-in and can never escape. Also, some scientists think that a black hole may act as a wormhole or portal to another location in space-time in our universe or to another universe.

The Island is, in some ways, like a black hole. The Island has unusual magnetic properties and objects seem to crash into it all the time. It is impossible or at the very least difficult to leave the Island. The submarine is used to leave and enter the Island, and in the episode with Juliet arriving on the island, she has to be sedated because the ride is so violent. Also, warping of space-time is associated with black holes/the Island.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

This is a theory in quantum mechanics that basically states it is impossible to know the exact location and speed of an object. Another way of stating it is that by measuring the location or speed of an object, one changes the object. This has to do with determinism. It used to be thought that using Newtonian theories of physics one could exactly predict what a complex system would do if one knew everything about the system. So if you knew everything about every atom in a person and each force acting upon that person you could exactly predict what would happen to that person. However, because of the uncertainty principle this is thought not to be true. No matter how much you know you can never exactly predict the future.

This comes up within the context of the show quite a bit. Desmond predicting the future and possibly changing it based on his actions. The issue of faith:
Can we change our destiny.

The Multiverse

Modern physics, using concepts such as string theory, believes that there are many dimensions and possibly an infinite number of universes. Each universe may exist slightly out of phase with each other. So one universe may exist where the flight 815 crashes and another where it does not. In one universe the bodies may be found while in another universe the flight may crash without the bodies found.

Multiple dimensions also may explain the circumstances on the Island that appear magical. For example, for a 2 dimensional creature, on a flat surface, events occurring in three dimensional space would appear magical. In the same way on the Island when things happen with the “smoke monster” maybe we are unable to perceive events occurring in higher dimensions impacting on a three dimensional world.

Summary

So, the Island is a “singularity”. It has properties because of its magnetism that make it act like a black hole. Space-time is warped and quantum mechanics is needed to explain occurrences. Perhaps the Others can somehow monitor different universes where there are different time-lines. So that when Ben shows Juliet that he cured her sister’s cancer and that she successfully had a baby, that would be representative of one potential timeline that he reveals to her. All of the unusual events on the Island occur because when there are extremes of forces such a gravity or magnetism, quantum mechanics tell us that anything can occur. Nothing is impossible. Events may have a low probability but they can occur. Desmond may also be able to see different time lines. He is therefore not really seeing the future but only seeing possible “futures” or “pasts” that may or may not be part of the time line we are observing.

I have not tried to explain everything but just to say that the crux of my theory would have to be that the Island represents a “singularity” because of its unusual magnetic properties and that ordinary physics that we use on a day-to-day basis cannot be used to explain things on the Island.

This is a theory by Lost Blog reader Bruce:

The last 15 to 20 episodes I believe have put in place the foundation for how Lost is going to end in 3 or 4 years. The ending I foresee leaves the show with endless possibilities for character development and twists. More importantly, any great series ending needs to:

• Address the producers’ respect for the mythology of the island
• Be true to its characters
• Be original

In the simplest form, I believe that one of the more dramatic shots of the series will be the Oceanic plane traveling above the Others’ camp and passing without incident. Pretty simple. From that point, however, the storyline layering will begin. The plane is passing over the island because Desmond has not yet pressed the button. This time, however, Desmond presses the button on time, so Oceanic does not crash. Desmond presses the button on time because through a series of time travel flashback episodes over the next 3 to 4 years, we are going to see Desmond get closer and closer to the focal point of the whole show…his failure to press the button before crashing the plane.

Contrary to what many have written about Desmond’s experience in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Desmond was not seeing his past experiences at the same time. Instead, the producers have beautifully set up a very simple time pendulum affect. He sees into the far away past and the far away future (e.g. saving Charlie repeatedly). The pendulum is swinging, and saving Charlie has in effect become his test for something bigger. If my guess is correct, we will see Desmond continue to save Charlie’s life until Desmond realizes he does not need to save Charlie’s life in order to really…save it. See below.

The layers of the final show continue. The magic of the series ending show really starts, though, on the Oceanic flight as it passes peacefully over the island as the Others watch. If the producers are truly courageous, we will see manifestations of all the characters’ back stories come to fruition on the plane. Will you see John Locke walking? Will Boone be alive and talking with his sister? Is Kate still in custody? Are Jack and Claire talking about the death of their father and then realizing they are related? What makes this possible ending so interesting is that the producers can make us to see the characters on the plane reflect the life they led while on the island in the prior 6 or 7 seasons. What would be far more interesting, though, is if the characters remember what they experienced. The producers could creatively weave in the principles of faith and science. Almost anything is possible.

I do not know how the producers would play out this great moment. In many ways I really do not want to know…that is what makes this show so unforgettable.

But, what about Desmond? Remember, the pendulum has gone back and forth in time and now it rests on the focal point of so many lives — pressing the button before the plane crashes. You might ask if the pendulum was swinging during this time, why not tell Penelope about his duties in the hatch and the affects of the electromagnetic anomalies. I believe in a future episode he is going to do just that but she is not going to believe him until he turns up missing on the boat trip. In the show’s second greatest twist (after Locke’s “Walkabout” episode), we will see that Penelope’s last scene in the final episode of Lost Season 2 did not take place at the time of the hatch implosion, but back in time to the electromagnetic anomaly leading to the Oceanic crash.

Now Penelope is looking for the electromagnetic anomalies and Desmond will realize the benefit of giving her the “bread crumbs” to find him while the pendulum swings. What a great ending it will be to see our hero rescued by Penelope.

If the Lost producers are seeing an ending similar to this, the character story lines are endless and how they are perceived in the end are not predetermined. In other words, there is great artistic license.

If I am correct, I expect Charlie to die before the end of this season or early in the fourth. Charlie’s death will serve a critical purpose to the long term plot. Desmond met Charlie in his last flashback episode, but Charlie did not remember him on the island, despite Desmond’s hysterics on the street in front of him. This plot device makes no sense unless we find out that Charlie never meets Desmond in the future. I believe Desmond will realize that as the time pendulum swings, he does not have to save Charlie’s life every week in order to….save his life. Desmond only has to make sure the plane passes safely. In effect, Desmond will realize that Charlie is really slowing him down in getting to the point where he can reunite with Penelope.

This is really exciting.
Bruce

I wrote this comment back on October 28, 2006:

I’ve predicted this since Desmond returned in the season 2 finale. As you might remember, Desmond went to medical school and is a trained doctor. Now the losties have a new doctor in Desmond and Jack will join The Others.

With last week’s Lost episode “Stranger in a Strange Land”, my prediction proved to have been more or less right as Jack traveled toward “Othersville” with Ben, Juliet and The Others.

So will Jack join the Others out of his own will, or is he planning to run for the hills the first chance he gets?

The question depends on how important The Others are in the overall Lost story. If they, like I would tend to believe, play a major part in the story, my guess is that Jack will gradually learn who The Others are and why they are on the island. After some time he will come to understand their objectives and even sympathize with them.

When Kate, Locke and Sayid finally come to save Jack (come on, you know it will happen), I’m not so sure that Jack will want to be saved anymore.

Meanwhile, the losties have found a new doctor and possibly a new leader in Desmond. But will he be able to overcome his personal demons and become a “great man” or is he destined to be Locke’s sidekick?

It’s also interesting to look back at the episode where we first met Desmond - “Man of Science, Man of Faith”. At the time I didn’t think about it, but the man of science is clearly Jack, while Desmond is the man of faith.

What do you think the future has in store for the two doctors?

While watching “Flashes Before Your Eyes” last night I was once again reminded of Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof’s favorite graphic novel “Watchmen”.

You see, Desmond’s strange abilities, or his destiny if you will, seems very similar to the character Dr. Jon Osterman aka Dr.Manhattan in Watchmen. Take a look at this quote about Dr.Manhattan from Wikipedia:

After his transformation, Jon begins to experience time in a non-linear, “quantum” fashion; it is implied that Jon is aware of and experiencing all the moments of his life simultanously. Jon is not omniscient; he remains reliant on his intellect to reach conclusions, but his range of sensory data has been abruptly extended, in proportion to the lessening of his emotional capacities. This often leads him to arrive at conclusions greatly different from those available to normal humans. His already weak will (marked by his apparent submission to his father’s career plans, whatever they might be) becomes sublimated further during this time. He increasingly has difficulty acting in what those around him consider the present moment, leading to many accusations and even the public perception that he is emotionless and uninterested in human affairs (for instance, he does nothing to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, even though he is aware it is going to happen). However, during the course of Watchmen he displays powerful emotion several times. His apparent lack of sentiment is more a matter of radically altered priorities, owing to a colossal, unbridgeable gap of perception between Jon and the rest of humanity.

Quite a few similarities to what happened to Desmond in last night’s episode, huh?

Push the button, save the world!

So what really happened to Desmondo? Did he just have a flashback or a dream, did he travel in time or is he experiencing past, present and future all at once?

The way I interpreted “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, Desmond has discovered that time is a repeating cycle. This is probably the second or third time Desmond has been on the island, and every time he has to do the exact same things to save the world and make sure that everything goes on as usual until the world ends, the universe dies and everything starts over again.

When Desmond turned the failsafe key, something happened that enabled him to see glimpses of the past and the future but he clearly doesn’t remember everything from the future (or past, depending on how we look at things), that’s why he doesn’t know how Charlie is going to die yet. And if this is the second cycle, did he save Charlie from the lighting in a previous cycle but fail to save him from drowning?

Free will versus Destiny

A major theme through Lost has been free will versus predetermined destiny. Desmond’s story in “Flashes Before Your Eyes” clearly points to everything having a predetermined destiny. Desmond has to give up Penny and save the world. The thing is, Desmond is a coward, and he knows it. Previously he has done everything that was predetermined for him to do, but this time he is rebelling against his destiny and changing it by saving the bartender and saving Charlie. Desmond is growing as a character and is starting to overcome his obstacles.

When Lost moves closer to the end, I think we are going to see that everything has really been about a fight against the characters’ destiny and the predetermined the end of the world as foreseen by the Valenzetti Equation. This time, the world will be saved, and Desmond is going to play a vital part, he just has to take control of his destiny and prove that he is a great man.

Remember, only fools are enslaved by space and time!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to digg it.

It was right before my eyes and I didn’t see it!

When Dr.Richard Alpert was trying to convince Juliet to come work for Mittelos Bioscience he showed her MRI scans of a womb. After quickly examining the scans, Juliet says it’s a human womb and judging from the decomposition of the endometrium it’s probably from a woman somewhere in her 70s. To our surprise, Dr. Alpert reveals that the woman is only 26.

When Juliet asks what happened to the woman, Dr.Alpert replies by asking her if she would be interested in having complete freedom and money to find out.

Lost Time and Life-Extension

Let’s take a moment to think about this. Who is this woman and what happened to her?

When we think of a 26-year old woman, we think of someone who looks young and beautiful, like Kate. But what if the woman is 26 but has aged as much as a 70-year old?

I think we are starting to get closer to what Mittelos are really researching. As you might remember, Mittelos is an anagram for “Lost Time”.

What if people start ageing very fast once they come to, or more probably, once they leave the Lost island. Could this be how time is “lost” and the reason why people aren’t allowed to leave?

As you might also remember from The Lost Experience, one of the main areas of focus of The Hanso Foundation is life-extension. Maybe time is somehow slowed down on the island, through the use of electromagnetism or by other means, to extend the life of those who live there, but with the opposite effect once a person leaves the island.

Another theory which Lesley and Hammer started discussing in the comments of the previous post about Mittelos Bioscience is that one or more women on the island are infertile due to premature ageing of the womb.

We don’t know what such a condition could be caused by, but considering that Juliet is a fertility specialist, this could be an interesting theory.

Either way I think we have to start thinking about the possibility that there is something very strange going on with time on the Lost island since the writers have hinted at a time difference several times now. This is what Damon Lindelof said in a recent interview:

We know that the Others taped the Red Sox win the World Series in 2004… so that would seem to indicate that time flows the same both on and off. But then again, when the sky turns purple and the ground shakes… wait. Hold on. Carlton is wringing my neck.

Ever since the sky turned a bright violet, Desmond seems to be able to predict the future, but what if he is actually seeing the real time outside the island while the time on the island is delayed. That would mean that the events that happen on the island have already happened in the timeline outside the island.

I’ve researched the bright violet sky a bit, and if I’m not mistaken, it seems like a strong electromagnetic force, like the destruction of the hatch, could distort space and time according to Einstein’s theories. Did the explosion/implosion cause time to be delayed or was time already being delayed with some form of electromagnetic shield which is now gone?

My head is starting to spin and I’m getting confused, but next week’s Lost episode is apparently focusing on Desmond, so maybe it won’t take long until we find out what the time really is on Lost.

Until then, what do you make of all this? Is time on Lost distorted?

Lost Blog reader Distefano sent me a mail earlier today with a video he had found interesting. After watching the video, I wasn’t really convinced by the idea of a machine that amplifies and broadcasts brainwaves , so I asked Distefano why hee thought such a machine was the answer to many of Lost’s questions. He answered:

My opinion is that the island has been made to collect every bit of information possible to obtain, Dharma could have wanted to create a machine able to gather the world’s memory (so they’re recording every waveform, data…). But the process and power needed are so strong that people living near this machinery become mad or something like it, even their brainwaves are amplified, collected and spread. The people living on the island are under the influence of residual data due to system malfunction or something like that.

Pretty hard to explain but I found in the video something that is hard to deny. The influence of everyone and everything on everyone and everything on the island. The only scientifical way for them to view these dead people, to hear whispers, maybe for the others group to know everything about the survivors is because the thoughts of everyone are somehow amplified and that anybody in vicinity of the machine may be able to receive this piece of information.

I thought the answer was pretty interesting, and while I’m still not convinced that the visions on Lost are caused by some form of collective mind, the idea of a machine intended to gather all the information on this planet, sort of like Wikipedia on steroids, is intriguing. What do you think?

Contactmusic.com reports that Dominic Monaghan, who plays Lost’s Charlie asked the writers about some of his theories about the show:

“One of the theories I came up with was that we’d all in some way pissed off some huge billionaire.

He’d managed to get us all on a plane and have it crash into this island so that he could watch us from his castle with hidden cameras and create a “Truman Show” nightmare for us all.

Maybe I’d s**gged his daughter, or Evangeline’s character, Kate, had stolen money from his bank, or Josh’s character Sawyer, had fandangled money out of him. But it got pooh-poohed by the writers.”

The billionaire Dominic is referring to is clearly either Alvar Hanso or Charles Widmore, with my bet being on Mr.Widmore, the father of Desmond’s girlfriend, Penelope Widmore.

While I agree with Dom that Widmore probably has a lot to do with the larger story of Lost, I don’t think he got them all together and crashed the plane on the island because he was mad at them. It is an interesting theory though.

What do you think about Dominic’s ideas? Did Mr.Monopoly send them to the island?

This theory was written by Jaystao for our Lost Theory Competition

The island is a naturally formed ecological computer that exists partly in the psychological spirit and also as a real place.

Eons ago, a cosmic event occurred (most probably the cataclysm caused by a comet striking the earth and layering part of the earth’s crust with cosmic radiation). The aftermath of this event was a ‘pocket’ of radio-active stardust that lay dormant in the earth’s crust, but contaminated magnetic materials causing strange fluctuations in the earth’s geo-magnetic field. Over time this attracted liquid iron from the earths mantle, which caused a volcanic vein to appear through the ‘pocket’; eventually erupting and creating an island in the mid Pacific, much like the geological particulars of how Hawaii was formed.

The cosmic irradiated material was distributed causing an atmospheric grid to appear around the island, still attracted to the pocket’s geo-magnetic pull (yet buoyant enough to remain air born). Some of the hybrid dust remained in the atmosphere, some remained on the island and within the lava vein. The high mineral content of the volcanic material, coupled with rain water and sulfuric acids, caused the material to crystallize (similar to how normal volcanic mineral deposits form crystal). These crystallized particles soon formed a complex ecological chain. The tiny fragments of dust-crystals in the atmospheric grid (perhaps seeded by repeated eruptions and forming from water vapor, ultra-violet light, electrolysis and cosmic radiation from the sun) helped to create a ‘holographic’ and sonic reverberating grid around the island with the crystal particles forming a reflective and unified field. Repeatedly renewed by cyclic conditions of the weather and solar influences they also attract rain vapor more readily then normal dust particles. In turn these enhanced particles fall to the earth as rain, thus reseeding the island with ’solar enhanced’ crystal fragments.

Plants enhanced by this form of sustenance coupled with photosynthesis produce a naturally forming ozone gas around the island’s inner field. This gas acts as a ‘plasma’ field for an electrical current to flow (much like what is found in a plasma globe). It can also be breathed in by living organisms as well as imbibed. It is conductive and helps to create a magnetic ‘picture’ of a persons limbic system once a hybrid state is achieved.

The final hybrid state is a sentient creature able to tap into this ordered ‘matrix’ of the island – preferably in a dream state, in which the subconscious mind forms a relationship with the island’s ‘electro-magnetic’ template and imprints itself, like the blank slate of a magnetic strip (similar to a record player or CD).

Finally, the ISLAND has an agenda. Perhaps made complex by the various protagonists who at one time or another have ‘imprinted’ their collective minds and souls on to its template, but the agenda is simple - The will to escape its earthly confines and return to its solar origins. This overwhelming ‘urge’ or attraction is at the heart of whatever psychological and social particulars its various hosts and protagonists form.

- Jaystao