1/26/09- SEASON FIVE
[Note: I've just finished teaching a 3-week intensive Winterim class, and have a very full plate this coming semester, with teaching and research. I'll drop in periodically to post some observations about Lost, definitely one of the greatest television shows of all time! A hearty thank you to Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, J.J. Abrams, and the rest of the crew at Lost, for your wonderful work on this superb show! Please tune in to Jeff Jensen, J. Woods and the other excellent pundits for their great weekly analyses. Please forgive any redundancy in my observations with what these and other pundits have already posted online.... I'm intentionally posting my observations without having seen/read what the other pundits have said, a time-tested technique for stimulating originality/creativity.... But given the zeitgeist effect, and the admittedly large shared interpretive history of our cherished show, I would not be surprised if some/many of these observations have already been made.... Still, I'm hoping there may be some novel twists/insights for us all to consider....]
The Antikythera Mechanism and Other Ancient Technologies-
Now THIS is one I know everyone picked up right away, when the good doctor was handed the sonar image of what lie behind the rock wall heating up the drill bits.... The wheel that Ben turned at the end of Season Four appeared on that image, and it sure reminded me of some of the x-ray images associated with this fascinating bit of ancient tech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
And, I'm sure the device Fionnula Flanagan was using at the end of "The Lie" has already been identified and discussed at length. Lost ancient knowledge and technology....
Per my prior musings, I would not be surprised to see a marine chronometer being used on the Black Rock, to help track the island's movements in space and time. A record of this is in the ledger won by Charles Widmore at the auction....
It will be interesting to see if they do play off of the reincarnation/ancient tech confluence that I mentioned last year.... One of my surmises was that it would be interesting and intriguing to see Hurley on the island, in ancient garb, speaking in an ancient tongue, in charge of the rations for an ancient workforce building the ancient tech devices on the island, leveraging the power of the island's unique electromagnetic properties to great and myriad advantage. [Please see my prior writings on the Casimir Effect, etc., in this regard....]
And given that Charlotte is an expert in anthropology and dead languages, when the island 'record skips' spacetime back to ancient times, her skills will most definitely be valuable in dealing with the installers and original users of the ancient tech. Will our intrepid band of Lostees 'record-skip' back in spacetime, only to witness BEN speaking in an ancient tongue, to members of an 'ancient tech device' cult, catalyzed and controlled through Ben's ability to wield tech-based, but seemingly magical, powers? Or will the leader be.... Locke?
The flaming arrows are a clue that the island is actually moving backward and forward in time, due in no small part to perturbations in the superstring vibrations/ resonances/harmonics comprising our known universe, perturbations arising from 'Bad Vibrations' (nod to Charlie and the Beach Boys) arising from Ben's act of relocating the island.....
And we may indeed find out that the secret to saving us from the impending apocalyptic disaster is to travel BACK in spacetime (actual, not flash-back) to course correct on the spacetime 'string', which is why the team comprised of Dan, Charlotte, and Miles is so apropos, given their knowledge and capabilities.... How ironic that the team may have to go back in time to learn more fully, from earlier occupants, how to operate and leverage the power of the island and its ancient tech (with Charlotte as translator), to help save us all in the modern era....
And are all past, present, and future occupants merely visitors on the island....? With only one true exception.... namely, Richard Alpert and his (seemingly) motley crew....? Are they the living vestiges of the lost Lemurians? Or are they truly the lost Atlanteans who, through leveraging the island's spacetime shifting powers, were indeed able to escape the disaster bearing down on Atlantis? Or is the island itself the lost City of Atlantis, shrouded in organic camouflage, maintaining its existence throughout the ages through lost ancient technologies.... Escaping imminent danger by moving from node to node, along the Earth's energy grid, as dire situations warranted?
The Twelve Tribes of Israel and Energy Grid (Vile Vortices) Theory-
The Energy Grid (Vile Vortices) Theory has been invoked since Season One of Lost as a source of insight into the show. How interesting to note the distinct possibility that moving the island may result in moving it to a different node/nexus on the grid of 12 energy nodes. I'm sure that others have postulated this already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vile_vortices
But here's where it REALLY becomes intriguing.... There are 12 vortices/nodes on the energy grid, and there are 12 tribes of Israel:
And how interesting that an island located at one of those vortices is associated with JACOB, leader of one of the Twelve Tribes.... While the show's writers may keep this on a more figurative level, it is intriguing to consider the implications if this also connects on a more literal level....
Who is Jacob? What is Jacob? Is Jacob the discarnate, disembodied sentience of the real, actual Jacob, funtionally instantiated in and through an island-enabled AI, drawing on and powered through the island's unique electromagnetic and Casimiric properties? And are the bodies in the cave not Adam and Eve, but Jacob and Rachel?
Are there other 'islands' or vortex/node-resident devices/artefacts, existing and operating at other vortices in the energy grid? If so, is there a maximum of 11 other such devices/artefacts? And what happens if one of the devices/artefacts is moved? Does it perforce displace something else resident at the vortex/node to which it is traveling? Or perhaps there is only one device/artefact (the island) that moves among the 12 vortices....
Another possibility, linking in part to my Diaspora-related writings, is that the island/Jacob is indeed one of Twelve Tribes, with the other 'islands' located on energy grids found on other planets spread across the universe.... This possibility dovetails in some intriguing ways with my prior writings on the possibility of the island being connected to some interstellar, intergalactic web of traversable wormholes, helping to disperse and 'seed' sentience throughout the universe (see especially my final piece of last year, in this regard...)
On the Functions of the Island-
I've previously surmised that the island may be an instantiation of the 'brain' of GAIA, and the 12 vortices are not unlike the neural network of the planet Earth. An inorganic interpretation would substitute a 'brain' for some mechanical device (ancient tech) or web of such devices, accomplishing much the same functions. And what might those functions be...?
THE ISLAND IS HELPING TO KEEP THE 'SUPERSTRINGS' OF SPACE-TIME REVERBERATIONS 'IN TUNE' ('GOOD VIBRATIONS')
What a nice cameo by the Michio Kaku lookalike (or was it the real article?), standing behind the camera filming the good doctor during his aborted spiel for the Arrow hatch orientation film! (Time's arrow....) This recent less overt nod to superstring theory helps confirm what some of us have suspected for a while.... Lindelof and Cuse have been drawing string theory into the show.
Daniel Faraday gave a good, accessible overview of the spatiotemporal 'hiccupping' in the Season Five opener, providing us with a fairly overt nod to string theory. My surmise is that what we saw is not unlike what happens when we snap a rubber band while someone is holding both ends of the band.... it fluctuates back and forth as a vibrating wave, propagating both forward and backward along the band, at the same time.... So when Ben moved the island, the consequence/effect was to perturb/disturb that space-time continuum (superstrings) by causing them to vibrate in some really weird ways, resulting in the 'record skipping' or spatiotemporal 'hiccupping.'
I strongly suspect that unless and until the Oceanic 6 get back to the island within 70 hours, this effect will only continue and get worse.... In effect, the superstring vibrations of space-time defining our existence on Earth will become irrevocably 'out of tune' ('Bad Vibrations'), propagating forward, backward, and outward, spreading its inexorable waves of disruption throughout spacetime....
In this sense, then, FATE or DESTINY is not unlike a person playing a violin or some other such stringed instrument.... And one of the functions of the island is to help keep our existence 'in tune' ('Good Vibrations'). [See also my prior writings on parallels with the 'tuning' portrayed in the movie 'Dark City'. See also Nikola Tesla's theories, and my musings on how they might be connected to Lost.]
What would happen if they (Ben, the Oceanic 6) do not return to the island and get the superstring vibrations/resonance back in tune? Will the fabric of spacetime be irrevocably ripped through the unleashing of disharmonic resonances/reverberances?
Will the record skip not simply up and down and along our 'known' string set of vibrations, but instead skip to other/alternate string sets of spacetime reality? [See my final posting of last year in this regard, especially the possibility of a looming 'brane war', requiring a Cosmic Course Correction....]
In this view, the past, present, and future of our existence is a sequence of vibrations or resonances along and within a superstrung universe.... So the past, present, and future of existence is a 'SONG' (Good Vibrations).1
When something perturbs or disrupts those vibrations, existence goes 'out of tune', with one result (or manifestation) being record skipping.... Ultimately the harmonic integrity of the 'song of life', up and down the superstrung universe, may be threatened unless actions are taken to 'retune' the universe. Getting the Oceanic 6 back to the island may be required in order to retune the song of our (their) existence (Good Vibrations).
And Aaron's return to and presence on the island must somehow threaten the harmonic integrity of that existence, which is why it is so important to consider who is raising him (i.e., who is more and less likely to want to bring him back to the island.)
Riffing on my prior musings that we may yet see a deep flash(actual)back showing John Locke as Jesus Christ, dying on the cross.... Will this be the first in a series of closing scenes provided in the series finale.... Locke dying on the cross, gasping with his last breath "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.... " Then flash to an orchestra playing Handel's 'Messiah', moving to a close-up of a violin player, focusing in on the exact moment when one of their strings 'pops', metaphorically signifying our own 'superstrung' reality skipping inexorably into 'Bad Vibrations'....
Next we see our cherished Flight 815 passengers on yet another plane, representing a different 'plane' of existence, experiencing turbulence from the wake of that popping spacetime 'Bad Vibrations' string set, signaling yet another opportunity for our intrepid band of heroes to figure out how to use the island to retune existence and restore a song of 'Good Vibrations'....
Dr. Todd J. Hostager
ENDNOTE:
1 All the more intriguing, when we ponder the importance of song to indigenous Australians:
"Songlines, also called Dreaming tracks by Indigenous Australians, are an ancient cultural concept, meme and motif perpetuated through oral lore and singing and other storytelling modalites such as dance and painting. Songlines are an intricate series of song cycles that identify landmarks and subtle tracking mechanisms for navigation." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songlines]
Hmmmm.... Consistent with the Lost theme of powerful lost ancient tech, how interesting it is, indeed, to consider that the Australian aborigines may have had an edge on us in apprehending some important characteristics underlying the fundamental nature of our universe, core aspects that we are just now confirming through high-powered research into superstrings.... The song remains the same....?
And what might we find if we followed Locke's example and journeyed on a Walkabout, retracing Rose and Bernard's route to where they heard of an energy 'vortex,' with Wayne Pygram in a decidedly un-Scorpius role.... I wonder what is hidden beneath that big rock known as.... Uluru, or Ayers Rock....?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayer%27s_Rock
Maybe something that would dwarf even the island in the scale and scope of its powers....