| [Note: This version was posted at 9:08pm, CST, on 3/13/09. A version without pictures was posted at 4:48pm, CST, on 3/13/09.] TIME PASSAGES: TIME LOOP TRICKS ARE NOT JUST FOR KIDS OUT OF THE SHADOWS, WITH PLATO & VALIS Hang On Loopy, Loopy Hang On: Fighting Fate To Save The Planet- With no new episode this week, it's time to take stock of time (and other matters) on Lost.... What with all of the 'record skipping' and 'time looping' on the show, it's easy to fall prey to the seductive siren call of discerning hidden patterns in the time loop details. There are some excellent postings/sites devoted to this important aspect, as Lost aficionados are already well-aware.... One fairly common thread running through the postings is an intriguing notion that the island is a unique location on Earth, involving a temporal node or  convergence at which it is possible to experience and move between the past, present, and future. And, of course, we would be remiss if we neglected to note that Desmond thus far appears to be a unique person on Earth who is capable of flashing backward and forward through time. Readers familiar with my own postings will no doubt recognize my own affinity for (and inclusion of) key aspects of these themes throughout my writings to date. For example, re: Desmond, please see my "Desmond HEMA (Flashes)" piece and subsequent Des-centric postings. And in my 2/6/09 "Fate Accomplices" posting, I proposed that the real Dr. Manhattan on the show is the island itself-- the island is Manhattan-- complete with its own spacetime tuning function, adjusted courtesy of that (literally and figuratively cool) Frozen Donkey Wheel.  Although I'm still not entirely convinced that future Lost storylines will remain restricted to the range of possibilities defined by the "time is a street" explanation furnished by Faraday-- witness the use of time travel despite prior official discreditation by the Lost creative combine-- nonetheless there are some very interesting surmises out there on the internet regarding time loop dynamics and their potential impacts on future storylines. Exhibit A is a recent posting to the Tail Section (3/10/09), by Donald A. Salerno Jr.1 In that posting, Mr. Salerno posits the intriguing notion that the future dead can  speak to persons on the island in the present, and that this may in fact help to explain those ghostly whispering voices in the wilderness. To this surmise I would add the distinct prospect of the past dead speaking to those in the present. Moreover, it would be interesting to see the Lost creative combine explore more deeply the implications and mechanisms for persons alive in the past and future, on the island, to communicate with persons in the present (recognizing that 'the present' depends on where you sit in the spacetime continuum, of course.) In his theory, Mr. Salerno noted that: "There might be a way to transfer the consciousness/knowledge of someone presently living in and having knowledge of the future to their same body existing sometime in their past so that their present mind now knows the events of the future and they can now work in the past to change the events."  Does such a mechanism exist outside the show, in the real world of this island Earth on which we are currently traveling through space? Interestingly enough, the answer is yes! In my 2/29/08 posting ("The Constant"), I noted recent research on the use of sterile neutrinos as a means of effecting communication across time.  Most intriguing to me was Mr. Salerno's assertion to the effect that it may be possible to 'cheat' or circumvent FATE by actually turning Fate's own rules against it.... In particular, Mr. Salerno proposed that Locke was able to cheat Fate by returning to the island dead, retaining his future memories, and was subsequently returned to the world of the living by Fate, as his body had traveled to the island to a past time at which Locke was not (supposed to be) dead. In effect, the gambit of returning Locke to the island dead has forced Fate to reanimate Locke. Of course, it remains an open question as to when the non-Oceanic 6 members of the Ajira flight arrived on the island, and Mr. Salerno's theory hinges on Locke's dead body arriving sometime in the past, when Locke is still alive. And insofar as Mr. Salerno groups Christian Shephard in with Locke, the issue of whether or not Christian's dead body was brought to the island at some point in the past (when Christian was still alive) may render aspects of the theory problematic....  These key issues notwithstanding, I still find Mr. Salerno's notion of cheating Fate through traveling back in time DEAD to be an interesting way to try to thwart destiny. One alternative not discussed in his theory is the possibility of future persons trying to communicate with persons on the island in the present/past, to warn them to do something to avert the distinct probabilistic threat of a cataclysm, but NOT an actual cataclysm. Given the demonstrated role of probability on the show (probabilistic calculations regarding where the island will be, etc.), with probability/chance figured so prominently as it is against destiny/Fate, it may be possible that persons from the future are trying to communicate with persons in the present/past to prompt actions that avert the probability of a cataclysm but yet do not invoke the spatiotemporal wrath of Fate, as the cataclysm was not predestined as a done deal. Hmmm.... Still, what if the cataclysm were impending and actual, rather than probabilistic? Then I would absolutely love to see this as the final revelatory shocker in the series finale, in 2010.... If it is possible to turn Fate's own iron prison of rules against itself, then wouldn't it be neat to hear Faraday deliver THIS kind of speech.... Faraday tells our intrepid band of castaways about the ultimate secret of the island... That the island-- with its decidedly 'Manhattanesque' powers-- has enabled him (Faraday) to experiment with and refine devices that will successfully scale the island's powers up to the entire globe.... This was done through designing and installing 'Manhattanizing' equipment at each of the major energy nodes/pockets around the world, including Uluru/Ayers Rock, and beyond.  Of course, Faraday's saved the series finale shocker for last.... With tears streaming down his face, he sees Charlotte smiling at him in his own mind's eye, as reveals to the castaways that in order to save the Earth, we must first allow it to be killed.... Will this be the ultimate trump card in the war of free will against Fate? We must first die, to be reborn again.... As the deadly gamma-ray burst emanating from WR 104 (or, insert your own vision of what the cataclysm will involve) reaches the earth and 'cooks' our atmosphere, rending precious oxygen molecules apart, exposing the planet to lethal levels of radiation, thereby sealing our doom, Faraday admonishes the castaways to exit the Orchid hatch in order that they may die, to be reborn....  The shot moves back inside the subterranean catacombs intersecting the base of the Orchid hatch, to the small cavern at the base of spacetime's well... where Faraday has donned a survival suit to help insure he will remain alive long enough to pull the lever, to push the button.... no.... to... turn the Frozen Donkey Wheel far enough, after most of the billions of people on Earth have had time to die, activating the globe-spanning network of energy node devices, unsticking our planet from its spacetime moors, riding this island Earth back into the past..... In his last dying moments, as his soul is ripped from his body by Fate, Faraday slips a photo of Charlotte from the pocket of his suit, and bids her farewell....  Closing scene.... The planet is back in the past, life teeming, cataclysm averted.... JACOB now has another friend to converse with, trapped together in the Fateful prison of spacetime limbo on the island.... FARADAY.... And thus it is so, a recursive time loop again realized... just as it has happened before, and will happen again, on and on, through eternity....  Is there a scientific basis for this sort of 'karmic' recursive time looping, but writ large, on the scale of the planet and, indeed, the entire universe? YES! Recent research on Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has shown good promise in reconciling quantum mechanics with general relativity. Work in one of the subfields of LQG-- Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC)-- provides an intriguing basis for 'karmic' cycles of time looping, operating on a cosmic scale. 2  Hmmmm.... How might Mr. Salerno's proposition of thwarting Fate be possible, by returning DEAD from the future, to the past, forcing Fate to return you to life? One option is the multiverse approach proposed by Deutsch and others (see my postings from early 2008, in this regard.) Another option avoiding the multiverse approach is to adapt and leverage Joley Wood's notion of 'rewriting' existence... In this case, moving a world of dead people back in time, forcing Fate to reanimate them, might work if by so doing, the 'prior' version of each person were gone, and the new dead version reanimated in its place, effectively 'rewriting' you over your 'old self'. Alternatively, moving the dead back in time might simply be a means of transporting their souls back into their bodies, when the bodies were still alive at that earlier point in time.  Hmmm.... The possibility of having two copies of the same person/organism copresent in spacetime has been strongly suggested to us, in the Orchid hatch double-bunny tape, after all.... But presumably the second living bunny was generated Casimirically by transporting the first living bunny, through spacetime.... Heaven help us, should their noses touch! (Kaboom?!) But, more importantly, would Fate be so forcefully compelled to reanimate a dead Locke (or a dead planet full of people), were they transported back to some point in the past, where they were still alive...?  It appears Fate would NOT be so compelled, as perforce the 'past' version of the person would still be alive, unless some accomplice acted to kill the past Locke, so the future dead Locke would be reanimated by Fate. But then again, would not Fate choose to reanimate the past Locke, so as to thwart the transfer of future memories to the past? By refusing to reanimate the future dead Locke, and reanimating the just-killed past Locke, Fate could indeed regain the upper hand, saving the integrity of what happened....  Despite these unresolved issues with Mr. Salerno's theory, I remain intrigued by the notion I've raised above, namely the use of LQG/LQC as a potential scientific basis for understanding 'karmic' recycling phenomena from small scales (persons) to cosmic scales (the universe). Indeed, one class of extant surmises regarding the final reveal at the end of Season 6 is that of "recycling", with one variant proposing that we'll see the castaways show up again, on another flight, replaying the time loop of their existence yet again, in the closing scene of the show.... Friday The 13th, Part You/Me/We: Jason Meets Plato And Philip K. Dick?  Hmmm.... Isn't it interesting that on a day like today-- Friday the 13th-- we are more likely to catch some small and fleeting glimpses of how the mind can indeed matter. Of course, while in some parts of the world this confluence of day and date cues heightened vigilance to help ward off bad luck, in other parts of the world it signifies good luck, and in the remaining regions it passes without karmic fanfare, pro or con. For those regions associating Friday the 13th with bad luck, the field of vision expands as our perceptual and conceptual faculties include the realm of superstition as part of the 'lens' we use for seeing, learning, knowing, and being....  Remote associations, loosely coupled and decoupled cause-effect relations.... Non-linearity, recursion, and non-local causes and effects.... How interesting to consider that by allowing the more prototypical, devolved, archetypal, non-rational, and non-scientific view from superstition to intrude on our everyday sensibilities on Friday the 13th, we open ourselves up to seeing and experiencing connections in decidedly more connected ways which, ironically, may ultimately bridge to science as science probes further into the weirdly quantum nature of our existence in the universe.... Is that black cat which just crossed your path somehow quantumly entangled with spacetime events occcurring elsewhere? Does that darn cat belong to your next door neighbor, Schrodinger? And, on a more macroscopic level, what are the cumulative, fractal, effects of that cat crossing your path, rippling outward in spacetime like waves from a pebble (or a wedding ring!) tossed into a river? (Just ask Desmond... Or even Daisy, in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button....)  If this sounds a bit not unlike what the island is doing for Locke, and what the show (Lost) is doing for us devoted aficionados, you're right on the heuristic-function-money.... Expanding on and beyond our modern and postmodern sensibilities, our personal and collective mindfulness, in ways that sci fi legend Philip K. Dick surely would approve.... With Plato and Dick 'high-fiving' the continued efforts of Damon, Carlton, and the rest of the show's creative combine, Lost is helping us to learn by remembering the place and value of the prior flashes of insight we've experienced during moments of fleeting insight into our place-here-now in the moment, as we temporarily transcend the limits of our sensory, perceptual, conceptual, and scientific/technogically-enhanced mind, to experience flashes of MIND, Dick's plasmatic God-as-energy-information, seeing an expanded range of differences that make a difference (information).... 3 Once a week, from January to May, we are unshackled from the restraints of our everyday lives and are beckoned by Plato, Philip K. Dick, Alan Moore and others, channeled by and through the Lost creative combine, to emerge from the shadows of the cave of our ignorance (Plato) and the black iron prison of our modernist Empire-dulled/fettered sensibilities (Dick) to catch fleeting glimpses of the differences that make a difference, the deeper, non-local, quantumly-entangled flashes of connective insight that exist beyond the reach of our everyday minds....  Yes, like the island, the show has a profound heuristic effect on those who come into direct and extended contact with it. We are all castaways, tossing about in a sea foam melange of modernist/Empire/iron cage restraints and postmodernist derangement as experience and existence drifts further away from we to me, hoisting aloft the banner of self-interested deconstruction... Hmmm... 'Jason Vorhees meets Leatherface, wielding deconstructive chainsaw' is not a bad image for that banner.... See Philip K. Dick's Valis and the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura about the perils of idiocy vis-a-vis privacy/separateness/aloneness/alienation.... (per Endnote 3). I strongly suspect that Dick is smiling down on us as we watch Lost and share our flashes of transcendent, Manhattanesque insight into our own being-here-now, embedded within a broader Minkowskian ontology of considering how our cherished moments, as we move in and through spacetime right now, are projections onto a field extending forward and  backward in spacetime, not as separate entities but rather as facets or aspects of an ongoing narrative or song (Good Vibrations).... Philip K. Dick's transcendent flashes of insight beyond our 'normal' shadowy apprehension of existence (especially as captured in Valis and the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura), are flashes which perforce cannot comprise a complete MIND-ful plasmatic representation; what happened happened, and Dick's flashes of the transcendent are inherently enabled and limited by the nature and contents of his momentary flashes of insight, framed as they are in terms of information and medicine. In Philip K. Dick's view, Jesus Christ is one in a line of physicians who have come to heal us and teach us how to reconnect with the plasmatic God of energy-information. From this perspective we can see that Jesus plays an important and inherently heuristic role. So too, can we see that the island itself-- through its myriad functions and effects, including healing and teaching-- is playing a heuristic role quite literally for the castaways, be they Locke and others on the island, or  you and I on this island Earth. Like Locke, we are being opened up to transcendent flashes of mindful insight into the world beyond our world, the MIND beyond our mind. It will indeed be interesting to see if/when/how Darlton and crew riff on the 'Sophia' connection found in Valis, by representing the discarnate, discorporate mindful plasmatic energy-information (God) as an incarnated, incorporated Messiah.... While in prior years our surmises have tended toward an Aaron-centric model, I'm now wondering if we will serve witness to a series finale reveal along the  following lines, in May 2010: Aaron, Charlie Hume, and Ji Yeon end up on the island and assume their rightful, predestined roles, as the Holy Trinity, incarnate.... Now THAT would be some jaw-dropping ending.... Especially if they emerged from some safe haven during a heated good vs. evil battle waged on the island, joining hands in a circle, generating that signature soft glow, this time with pink, purple, and yellow intermixed in flowing, plasmatic splendor, as God the energy-information plasmate becomes incorporated and incarnated on this island Earth as the Holy Trinity (Aaron/Charlie/Ji Yeon).... The Last Picture Show: Thoughts On The Final DHARMA Training Film- And, in a final heuristic riff.... Per my prior postings (see esp. "Lost Legacy Theory"), televisionary masterpieces like The Prisoner have an enduring heuristic vitality due in no small part to their ability to engage audiences on multiple levels and stimulate ongoing dialogue and debate concerning fundamental issues impacting individuals and society, including free will, fate, science, power/politics, and more.... One of the critical elements ensuring sustained engagement, dialogue, and debate over the years is to leave some key questions unanswered.... If Lost follows this tried and true recipe for success, the creative combine will not attempt to tie everything up with a neat bow at the end of Season 6; instead, they will carefully pick and choose those questions which shall remain forever unanswered, and those issues which will remain unresolved. While I suspect they will not opt for a Prisoner-like ending which so thoroughly shocked much of  the viewership during the original telecast of that series in Britain, I would not altogether be surprised to see the very final moments of Lost involve something along the following lines.... An abrupt scene change, moving to the final installment in the series of DHARMA training films, only this time it's not in black and white, but rather in color, with Marvin Candle breaking frame, speaking directly to we the people/viewers, instructing us that what we have just seen (over the past 6 seasons) is a vast videotaped record of the DHARMA Initiative's attempts, during the past  decades, to find a way to change fate in order to help the planet avoid a future cataclysmic event, all in a manner that thwarts or circumvents FATE'S mechanisms for course correcting the effects of our self-interested, survival-driven exercises of choice/free will. As we will graphically witness during Candle's closing message, the DHARMA Initiative appears to have failed. Candle stares directly into the camera to address us and, as explosions rip through the walls of the recording studio and dusty debris flies everywhere, he implores us to join the cause to save humanity, to take up our arms against cruel fate, to keep our initiative going and, with his last, dying breath, he pushes a button causing a web  page to flash onscreen, flicker a few moments, then disappear.... As we frantically reach for the 'pause' buttons on our TIVOs and enter the web address into our browsers, we are taken to a page containing a vast web of active links leading to a range of different ways in which we can emerge from our shadowy Platonic caves to become engaged and involved as active agents in the world, helping to solve such problems as: disease, starvation, overpopulation, global warming, war, and more.... If this sounds a bit familiar, then the phone number listed on the web page-- to hear a personal message of encouragement from Carlton and Damon to get  involved in solving the problems of our world-- will not be surprising, as it will include the numbers.... Yes, it turns out that all along, the Lost creative combine has been functioning as the real Department of Heuristics, Researching our ability (via tracking our responses to the show) to Materially Apply what we've been learning, which in no small measure has involved relearning (collectively remembering) what others have previously discovered (Faraday, Locke, Hume, Plato, Dick, Moore, etc....) At the series' end in 2010, the ball will indeed be placed in our court.... Dr. Todd J. Hostager -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENDNOTES: 1. Please see Mr. Salerno's interesting theory at: 2. For more information on Loop Quantum Gravity and Loop Quantum Cosmology, please see: 3. For more information in these regards, please see Philip K. Dicks' brilliant novel Valis, and the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura exegesis from Valis: | |