| [Note: A version without pictures was posted at 9:38pm Central-DST, on 5/18/10. This version was posted at 10:34pm CDST, on 5/18/10.] WHAT THEY DIED FOR: SOULFUL SACRIFICES ENERGIZING A SOURCEFUL NEW GODS 'FIFTH WORLD' GENESIS WILL LOCKE'S RESURRECTION HELP TO SAVE THE DAY, PAVING THE WAY FOR A TRUE 'CHILDHOOD'S END', PROGRESSING TOWARD AN OMEGA POINT EDEN? Kudos all around the horn to the entire Lost creative combine for providing us with a rousing penultimate chapter in the book of mirror twin, yin/yang alt/verse enlightenment. As usual, we'll start with some real-time highlights and commentary on tonight's episode, then proceed to pondering what lies beneath the shadow of future plotlines.... (FST= Flash Sideways Timeline, OT= Original Timeline)  1. (FST) Jack's eye view... He wakes to yet another mirror twin 'verse veil piercing.... Juliet's coming to the performance.... SUPER BRAN...! Is Jack the Super Bran Super Man who will team with Des The Flash in THE END, to tackle the Smokey/Flockey/Anti-Monitor, all in a Crisis On Who Knows How Many Earths...? 2. (FST) Des is a tricky one.... posing as an Oceanic official, telling Jack they found his missing cargo....! 3. (OT) Jack treats Kate's wound, echoing Kate treating Jack's wound in the series premiere, all in a mirrorful way, of course.... Kate and Jack agree that they have to kill Flocke.... If only they were to deploy the Reverse Loophole strategy outlined in my 5/15/10 posting... Anyone got some Jacob's Ash on hand, for a Flocke mudpack....? Heh-heh-heh....! 4. (OT) Flotsam from the sailboat washing ashore.... as Sawyer looks dolefully out across the sea, now joined by Kate, Hurley, and Jack.... DESMOND'S in a well... they're going to get him...  5. (FST) Oh no, not again...! Des fires up the car as he gazes at Locke, but BEN stops him... as FST Ben flashes on OT Des...?!! Yes, the verse veil piercings are becoming more and more 'real'.... foreshadowing the looming merger of the OT/FST....? 6. (OT) Ben, Miles, and Alpert are on the trail to get the C4 behind the bookcase back at the DHARMA camp. Miles is getting 'wonky' around dead people.... Ben's daughter buried by the fence.... 7. (OT) They take all of the C4... to blow the plane all to HELL (of course!) Now here's Zoe and Widmore...! 8. (OT) Yes, WATER you doing here... Widmore.... Jacob invited Widmore back to the island.... Flocke's coming in an outrigger.... They need to hide.... 9. (FST) Dr. Linus, I presume... Ben fought for Locke... He saw something... Des wants Locke to let go..... 10. (FST) Des wants to see a detective.... Ford, that is.... Des turns himself in... Kate and Sayid in jail with Des... Des is channeling some meta-level awareness thingy, not a bit unlike ELOISE and, of course, Jacob.... Yes, DES' presence in the OT, in the WELL most likely has had a pronounced effect on the nature and extent of his enhanced cross-verse consciousness in the FST....  11. (OT) Hurley sees young Jacob... who wants his/Jacob's ashes...! They are indeed powerful, given the Rules of the Game... and it would do them well if the castaways had some J-Ash when doing battle with Flocke.... As I mentioned in a prior posting, it's too bad Widmore didn't use his considerable mainland resources to develop and deploy a range of sonic gun weaponry, including rifles and pistols, all aimed at disrupting the integrity of that plasma ion cloud beasty, Smokey, moving out and about through leveraging magnetohydrodynamic properties, tapping the island's unique energy pockets....12. (OT) Flocke's HEEEERE! Ben's embracing Destiny by waiting for the inevitable.... Now there's that siren call again, ala the Morlocks in the classic Time Machine, then the clunky sound, and SMOKEY takes Alpert for a ride... Ben offers Flocke some lemonade! He offers Ben the island once he leaves, if only Ben will kill some people for him.... 13. (FST) Yes, OT Ben wants to Rule the World (cue Tears For Fears) ala Napoleon, but teaching European History as a Ph.D. is the next best thing... or is it...? Those who cannot do... teach...? Danielle says it's ok for Dr. Linus to come over for Uncle Ben night... Har-har-har.... 14. (OT) Ben leads Flocke right to Widmore and Zoe... he wants to see them killed by Flocke.... Sorry CHARLES (CHARLIE!)... Zoe's throat is slit, as she is now POINTLESS... a huge shout out to the LOSTISAGAME site.... 15. (OT) Widmore tells Flocke that Des was a measure of last resort. Ben kills Widmore so he can't save his daughter... more wicked, twisted darkside justice...  16. (OT) Now Jack can see Jacob, as can Kate and Sawyer.... JIN KWON's name on the wall... What did they die for... Jacob will now tell them, around the campfire... One of them will have to start protecting the island.... 17. (FST) Locke's in Jack's office running down a laundry list of Jungian synchronicities... nod to Doc Jensen here... Yes, it's happening for a reason... FST Locke is becoming more and more like OT/Hunter/Man of Faith/trueLocke...!  18. (OT) Jacob brought them there because of his mistake... making the monster...ala Frankenstein... now they must protect the light from being put out, lest Darkness cast its pall across the mainland... Hmmm.... What if.... What if... the light of life is the SOURCEful core, akin to a motherboard in a large quantum computer, generating the virtual reality emulation on this island Earth...? (More on this, below....) 19. (OT) Not-so-surprising reveals regarding why they were brought there... Actually, we are ALL flawed in our own ways, from Adam and Eve onward, so we all go to the island each and every day of our life... Would we be brave enough, like Jack, to take up the mantle as Island Protector? Does he realize what sacrifices the position will entail? At some point, you just go with the flow of it all... destiny calls.... Jack embraces his Fate much as a Man of Faith would, becoming his own OT mirror twin in the process (nod to Joley Wood).... 20. (OT) The HEART of the Island... beyond the ridge.... Now Jack will be able to get there... Jacob's incanting/praying over the water, then takes Jack's cup and offers it to him to drink... mirroring fakeMom/Jacob's prior passing of the torch... Jack will have to do it as long as he can.... Now he's like Jacob.... 21. (FST) In the van Des is definitely channeling meta-awareness now echoing OT Flocke, with his deals and promises.... FST Ana Lucia's there at the dock, and Hurley's working with Des.... Des and Kate are going to David's concert... to pick up/recruit Jack and Juliet.... Des is again flashing on OT ELOISE here, assembling them like the Oceanic 6, only this time it may very well turn out to be for a return to the island, now sunken... all in order to enact the looming merger of the OT/FST timelines, with water once again playing a key role.... 22. (OT) Smokey likes to feel his feet on the ground, as it reminds him he was once human... Flocke looking over the edge of the well mirrors trueLocke peering down the Swan Hatch tunnel, unearthed with Boone so long ago.... 23. (OT) Smokey needs Des to do what he can't do... put out the light, enabling him to get off the island.... This strongly suggests that the SOURCEful Light of Life (LOL) is more than some life-imbuing and sustaining organic fluid, riffing on the Star Wars Midichlorian concept... Given the DES trump card, there must be some EM involved.... Hmmm... What if the LOL is also riffing on TRON and Frank Tipler's Omega Point Theory, with the SOURCE being the core processor 'motherboard' generating the local/Earthbound 'reality program' we know as 'LIFE'.... (More on Tipler's OPT, below....) 24. Is Desmond needed so desperately by Flocke because as per my recent postings, SMOKEY really is an electromagnetically-enabled entity, a  magnetohydrodynamic plasma ion cloud, crackling with 'life' and consciousness, but susceptible to disruption through sonic and EM means...? This is a highly plausible scenario, to be sure... Smokey can't put out the islandlight as it is associated with EM, so he needs Des to do his dirty work.... A more complex denouement would cast Des in the role of a FLASHlike entity moving through spacetime, perhaps to the very dawn of life on the planet, to snuff the islandlight out untold eons ago, wiping the entire history of life on the planet out of existence, providing a decidedly dark blank slate on which the Evil One could rewrite existence in his own image, mirroring the Anti-Monitor's agenda in Crisis On Infinite Earths.... Snuffing the Light of LIfe out could provide Smokey with the opportunity to free his Mirror Matter evil bottleverse minions to roam wild and free on this island Earth, across the Milky Way galaxy, spreading their dark ALEful virus throughout the known universe in the process....  25. And how interesting to see those lightful fireflylike 'LOL' embers glowing and flowing throughout the dark looming nightfall, in the final episode trailer shown to us at the end of 6.16.... This image reminded me of the von Neumann ships used to seed the light of life and sentience throughout the universe, helping us on a cosmic scale to 'make progress' toward an ultimate Oneness of Omega Point Reality. (More on this, below....) 1 The Lost Garden Of Eden: Jack Kirby's 'New Gods' Series As A Source Of Insight Into What They Died For And Whether They Should Protect Or Destroy The Island- Yes, the Light of Life-infused SOURCESTREAM ushering from the 'Sheol' Cave of Souls provides us with far more than an additional key piece in the puzzle that is  Lost; the LOL sheds a fulgently revelatory light across the entire puzzleboard. In my 5/13/10 Light Of Life Game posting, I explored some connections arising from a view that focused on the central role of SOULS in the Light of Life (LOL) Game on the island.... Who knows how long the island has endured this core competitive struggle, but for sure we know that it has been for more than two millennia, as Jacob the Protector-- and his fakeMom before him-- have fought the good fight for the continued integrity of the LOL Sourcestream, while Smokey/fakeMIB has worked his wiles to erode the purity of the stream, striving to secure a final release for himself and his evil minions, from an LOL-infused, fluid-borne islandcork imprisonment.....  In the present posting I'll shift the focus to another key plane of revelatory insight illuminated by the LOL 'reveal' in episode 6.15: The Light of Life SOURCEstream directs our attention to the nature and historical function of the island as a literal GARDEN OF EDEN.... My 3/23/10 Ab Aeterno posting lays some of the groundwork for these insights, leveraging Jack Kirby's NEW GODS series to Lost, exploring connections among the island and Kirby's notions of NEW GENESIS, the SOURCE, and a SOURCE WALL. Among other things, I pointed to the darkside mirror-twin New Genesis/Eden equivalent-- APOKILIPS-- as a viable candidate for the 'HOME' to which Smokey may aspire to return... In addition, the SOURCE concept certainly helped shed some light on the nature and functions of the island, surrounded as it is by a protectively turbulent SOURCE WALL:  "The Source can be considered a shared Consciousness in the DC Comics Universe, where it is the non-religious equivalent to Buddha-nature. It is the "source" of all that exists. Alternatively, it can be considered a description of the Creator God of the Universe, a science-fiction analogue based on Judaeo-Christian doctrine. Mostly associated with the New Gods, the Source was the supposed origin of the "god-wave" that is believed to have been responsible for creating and empowering the "Gods" of the DC Universe with their divine abilities. It also seems to be partially responsible for the ability of DC residents to develop super-powers, especially those which defy physics." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(comics) ]  Yes, this is the SOURCE to which Allison Janney in the role of Mother of Light SOPHIA referred in episode 6.15.... As I noted in my Ab Aeterno posting: "Deaths on the island-- including that of Jacob-- may be necessary in order to move from the equivalent of a Fourth World to a Fifth World reality. This dovetails well with my view of AARON, JI YEON, CHARLIE HUME, and perhaps even DESMOND as evolutionary NKOTB, ushering in the reign of a 'Fifth World'.... Jacob was likely aware of this kind of dynamic in play." 2  Will we learn that this is in fact What they died for.... Their deaths were necessary in order to usher in a new era for humanity? Or were these very same deaths really focused less on humanity and more on the Protection and maintenance of a race of Overmindlike 'gods'...? If the deaths were focused on the latter, then a supremely plot-twisting finale would entail the growing realization among the remaining castaways that instead of working toward a higher purpose through making progress for the species at large, moving up the Jacob's Ladder of Enlightenment and more, they (and we) were instead being played as fools in a larger looming game of self-interested survival among the Overmind gods, powered by a soulful SOURCE, located within the LOL cave. Here I can envision a series-ending scene involving a castaways strike force rigging the Jughead bomb in the Original Timeline with a new detonator in order  to finally 'kill' the island Sourcestream, thereby effectively freeing themselves and the entire species from the prospects of serving the whims and dictates of yet another ruling class of 'Fifth World' Overmind gods. Why did we see a sunken island in the FST? Because in The End we may learn that Jack and the others in the OT realized that to finally seal the cork/deal on Smokey's fate and free the species from a continuing rule by Overmind gods, they had to nuke the island, freeing the imprisoned Lost Souls and releasing all of the darkside and lightside energy in the process....  Were they-- and we-- lied to about the critical role of the LOL SOURCEstream in ensuring the continuation and continued propagation of life as we know it, on this island Earth....? And will this ending signal a new beginning for the species, having made sufficient progress up the Jacob's Ladder to realize a true CHILDHOOD'S END, as I predicted in my 5/14/09 The Incident posting? Yes, this may indeed turn out to be the case, especially if Darlton continue mining the rich narrative vein associated with our inherent drive to work through our COSMIC DADDY (and Mommy) ISSUES.... Will 'killing' the island turn out to be the functional equivalent of taking that first fearful Leap of Faith from the veritable nest, winging outward on our own, taking flight under the power of our own abilities and faculties, however flawed they may still be...?  Or will the Lost creative combine choose a 'Fifth World' NEW GODS plotpath, riffing on a 'Raise The Titanic' theme by enlisting a cadre of FST'ers (Jack, Desmond, ?) to swim down to the sunken island and implement actions aimed at reviving the island and its LOL Sourcestream, bringing new and full life to the FST world? If this is how the series will end, then look for a dramatic rising of the sunken island back to the surface, with Aaron, Ji Yeon, and Charlie Hume present and accounted for, setting foot on a newly sparkling and sandy beachline, walking hand-in-hand toward the Four-Toed Statue, in an overt and moving homage to the final scene in that classic 1968 motion picture.... Planet of the Apes.... The Lost Garden Of Eden, Part Deux: Flashing Outward To Glimpse The Larger Cosmic Narrative Tapestry Looming On The Horizon- In recent postings I've noted some distinct parallels among the island and the THIRD HEAVEN concept, which is exactly what the island should be if it really were the literal Garden of Eden, before and up to the Fall of Humanity.... "In the Greek Pseudepigrapha Apocalypse of Moses the Third Heaven is the paradise where Michael buries Adam to await resurrection. In the earlier section of the myth where Satan transforms himself to an angel of light, and works with the serpent to trick Eve, there is no identification of the Eden paradise as "Third Heaven", which may indicate that Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise led to paradise being relocated in an area beyond human access." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Heaven] Yes, this does indeed make sense.... The island was the Garden of Eden portrayed in the Bible, with the Light of Life pouring out from this SOURCE,  flowing throughout the land and the sea, infusing a pre-Fall paradise on Earth with ageless, healing, vibrant life.... But wait.... Heh-heh-heh.... The Evil One transforms himself and tricks Eve, and the Fall of Humanity changes the very nature of the species and the paradisical Eden island itself. On the heels of humanity's expulsion from paradise, we see that the island was then "relocated in an area beyond human access...." THIS is the transformation of the island from Garden of Eden to Third Heaven, now afloat in a quantumly foamy and chaotic manner on the oceans of the Earth, shielded from view by the turbulent 'event horizon' of a Source Wall. In addition to changing the location and accessibility of this paradise, the transformation from Garden of Eden to Third Heaven expanded the nature and functions of the island to include evil with the good: "In the later Pseudepigrapha Book of the Secrets of Enoch, the Third Heaven is described as a location "between corruptibility and incorruptibility" (2 Enoch 8:5) containing the Tree  of Life, "whereon the Lord rests, when he goes up into paradise." (verse 3) Two springs in the Third Heaven, one of milk and the other of honey, along with two others of wine and oil, flow down into the Garden of Eden, which is also located there. (verse 6) In contrast with the common concept of Paradise, 2 Enoch also describes a place of torment existing in the Third Heaven, "a very terrible place" with "all manner of tortures" in which merciless angels torment "those who dishonour God, who on earth practice sin against nature," including sodomites, sorcerers, enchanters, witches, the proud, thieves, liars and those guilty of various other transgressions. (2 Enoch 10:1-3) In the Slavonic version of the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, also known as 3 Baruch, the author is shown a Phoenix, and a dragon residing there is said to eat the bodies of "those that have spent their lives in evil".... According to Islamic legend, Muhammad's journey into Paradise included an admission to the Third Heaven by the angel Gabriel, in which he met Joseph, who received him warmly. Islamic tradition also places Azrael, the angel of death, in the Third Heaven." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Heaven] The tests, trials, and tribulations faced by myriad groups of people 'accidentally' brought to the island over the ages fits the bill, set as this 'game' is on an island located "between corruptibility and incorruptibility"; this sounds like the perfect  place in which to truly judge the nature and contents of one's heart, mind, and soul.... And the collection of Flight 815 castaways certainly has its fair share of "the proud, thieves, liars and those guilty of other transgressions." Yes, the island even has its own version of "a dragon" in the form of a Godzilla-roaring, chain-fettered SMOKE MONSTER, a definite front-running-candidate for AZRAEL...! And finally, the two springs found in the Third Heaven certainly are not at all inconsistent with my 5/13/10 Light Of Life Game proposals regarding the mirror-twin, dualistic, Sheol-like nature of the island and its Sourcestream, fueled as it may well be, by both dark and light souls.... 3  What potential plotlines lie beneath the shadow of a Third Heaven interpretation of the Lost island? If Darlton and company choose not to enact some variant of a NEW GODS/SOURCE-based finale as outlined in the previous section, then I would not at all be surprised to see them leverage a Garden of Eden/Third Heaven angle to bridge to a larger cosmic tapestry involving Dr. Frank J. Tipler's OMEGA POINT THEORY (OPT)....  The key to understanding this bridge lies in the realization that, within OPT, what some are viewing as a literal GARDEN OF EDEN may really turn out to be what Tipler calls a "von Neumann probe", one of many such probes used to seed the Milky Way galaxy and the entire Universe with life and intelligence. By virtue of their function, Tipler calls these 'probe' spaceships "mind children", setting in motion an inexorable march toward a growing diffusion and saturation of the known Universe with information, establishing the conditions for making sufficient progress that the OMEGA POINT may ultimately be reached: "The Omega Point is a term used by Tulane University professor of physics and mathematics Frank J. Tipler to describe what he maintains is a physically-necessary cosmological state in the far future of the universe. According to his Omega Point  Theory, as the universe comes to an end at a singularity in a particular form of the Big Crunch, the computational capacity of the universe (in terms of both its processor speed and memory storage) increases unlimitedly with a hyperbolic growth rate as the radius of the universe goes to zero, allowing an infinite number of bits to be processed and stored before the end of spacetime. Via this supertask, a simulation run on this universal computer can thereby continue forever in its own terms (i.e., in "experiential time"), even though the universe lasts only a finite amount of proper time. Tipler states this theory requires that the current known laws of physics are true descriptions of reality, which he says implies that there be intelligent civilizations in existence at the appropriate time in order to force the collapse of the universe and then manipulate its collapse so that the computational capacity of the universe can diverge to infinity. Tipler identifies this final singularity and its state of infinite informational capacity with God." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point_(Tipler)  What if.... What if.... We were to learn in The End that the Garden of Eden island in Lost is really one of many von Neumann probeships used to spread life and sentience throughout the universe, all in a SOURCEful manner? Echoing 2001: A Space Odyssey, X-Files, and more, will we learn the truth of our extraterrestrial lineage as star children of God, now sufficiently 'progressed' to have arrived at a TIPPING POINT in the species, facing the very real prospects of a CHILDHOOD'S END to the 'Game'....? "The implication of this theory for present-day humans is that this ultimate cosmic computer will be able to run computer emulations which are perfectly accurate down to the quantum level of all intelligent life which has ever lived, by recreating simulations of all possible quantum brain states within the emulation. This would manifest as a simulated reality. From the perspective of the recreated inhabitant, the states near the Omega Point  would represent their resurrection in an infinite-duration afterlife, which could take any imaginable form due to its virtual nature.... Tipler says this would be accomplished by "downloaded" human consciousness on quantum computers in tiny starships that could exponentially explore space, many times faster than biological human beings. Tipler argues that the incredible expense of keeping humans alive in space implies that flesh-and-blood humans will never personally travel to other stars. Instead, highly efficient uploads of human minds ("mind children" as Tipler calls them, they being the mental uploads of our descendants, or of ourselves) and artificial intelligences will spread civilization throughout space. According to Tipler, this should likely start before 2100. Small spaceships under heavy acceleration up to relativistic speeds could then reach nearby stars in less than a decade. In one million years, these intelligent von Neumann probes would have completely colonized the Milky Way galaxy. In 100 million years, the Virgo Supercluster would be colonized. From that point on, the entire visible universe would be engulfed by these "mind children" as it approaches the point of maximum expansion. Per this cosmological model, the final singularity of the Omega Point itself will be reached between 1018 and 1019 years." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point_(Tipler)  Picture a huge fleet of spaceships deployed to seed organic life and sentience throughout the universe--equipped of course, with a renewable Source of soulful energy-- and you have the recipe for a literal Garden of Eden cradle of life, ala the Lost island.... And for all of you fans of the idea that John Locke should be literally resurrected back from the dead as the series heads toward its conclusion, take heart in the intriguing and O. Henry-twisty plotlines suggested by the following: "In his controversial 1994 book The Physics of Immortality, Tipler claims to provide a mechanism for immortality and the resurrection of the dead consistent with the known laws of physics via the use of computers which use the entire universe to compute on and  which diverge to a state infinite computational resources that Tipler terms the Omega Point and which he identifies with God. The line of argument is that the evolution of intelligent species will enable scientific progress to grow exponentially, eventually enabling control over the universe even on the largest possible scale. Tipler predicts that this process will culminate with an all-powerful intelligence whose computing speed and information storage will grow exponentially at a rate exceeding the collapse of the universe, thus providing infinite "experiential time" which will be used to run computer simulations of all intelligent life that has ever lived in the history of our universe. This virtual reality emulation is what Tipler means by "the resurrection of the dead." In more recent works, Tipler says that the existence of the Omega Point is required to avoid the violation of the known laws of physics." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_J._Tipler ] What if.... What if.... In addition to serving witness to John Locke actually and truly resurrected from the dead, the final 'twisty' plot reveal at the very end of Lost is that What They Died For in the end was the promise of finally realizing Tipler's Omega Point, and now we can see that the Game of Lost is really a Tiplerian Omega Point VIRTUAL REALITY EMULATION run by an all-powerful intelligence, meaning that the Omega Point may have ALREADY been achieved..! 4 ----> Actually, considering tonight's episode and Points #23 and #24 above, it is certainly not outside the bounds of plausibility to consider that the Evil One might just well want to thwart the OPT from becoming realized, and snuffing out the LOL quantum computing cores distributed throughout the universe would be one way of achieving this goal, helping Smokey to set the stage for remaking the universe in a decidedly Anti-Monitor manner, in his own dark mirror-matter image.  Throughout the series to date, have we been witnessing a Leonard SIMS-like simulation, a Tiplerian virtual reality emulation enabled on Earth by a von Neumann Omega Point probeship, out-Matrixing THE MATRIX? Is SIMS the uber-overmind Omega Point godhead, rendered with sly self-deprecating humor in the OT 'reality emulation' as a drooling, NUMBERS-TANTRIC psych ward patient, a supreme irony as these patients are divergent from what we believe to be 'REALITY', only the joke may well be on us as we learn that there are multiple Separate Realities (nod to Castaneda)  now being run as virtual reality emulations, meaning that in no small way we are the delusional ones who are the SIMS, trapped as we are within an Omega Point 'reality emulation'.... Again, how ironic it is that we may learn that it is Leonard Sims who has the 'true' insight into the Sims-like nature of our reality emulation.... Are the numbers a core part of some FRACTAL HEURISTIC ALGORITHM generating the emulation? Or are the numbers simply a filename for the 'Reality Emulation' Program generating the OT? Will we witness trueLocke's resurrection in an Omega Point-generated afterlife emulation? Was The Incident really providing us with a glimpse into the Omega Point Theory subtext of Lost, showing us the 'Reality Emulation' capabilities of the Island-cum-von Neumann probeship? If so, are we in for a RIVERWORLDian riff on Omega Point Theory, with QUANTUM SUICIDE as a means of moving SOULS from one 'Reality Emulation' to another, ad infinitum? Is this WHAT THEY DIED FOR.... Quantum Suiciding to a new and better 'world'....?  Hmmm.... This may very well be the type of finale that Michael Emerson was hinting at in his remarks during a recent interview: "For me, the ending of the series required some analysis. It’s not given to you on a dish, neatly organized with a fancy bow put on the end of it. What it does have is a great soulfulness and the ending is human scale." 5 What lies beneath the shadow of the concluding plotlines of Lost? Time will tell.... Dr. Todd J. Hostager _________________________________________________________________________ ENDNOTES: 1. Of course, another reference in the spellbinding 'fireflylike' embers shown in the trailer at the end of episode 6.16 is to a song by PARADISE LOST called "EMBERS FIRE":  A fallen time that's bygone
A crude elite that's from a distant zone
You turn a blind eye on what's `brave'
You don't know if it's the truth you told
Anger looks on the quiet dreaming
Seals the sense incandescent ones
Hold back desire for danger
A bet you lose, you'll have no way to turn
I see the man who lives and breathes corruption
Into a circle that you call your own
 Don't run away, from the pain. A claim that you deal with
A power game, from within. Impossible for you to see this
Laid down the laws of deceit
The ones who cherish are the ones who'll go
Into the ashes of a tortured world
Only in mind's eye can you see a light
Harmony breaks, dark awakes, in old eyes -the trouble feel it
Here to stay, mark the way, improvise the judgement hearing
Anger looks on the quiet dreaming
Seals the sense incandescent ones
All remains of the glowing embers
Is a bleak cold irrelevance Hopefully this song does not signal that in THE END it will all, indeed, after all... be....LOST.... 2. For more information on The SOURCE and other NEW GODS connections to Lost, with intriguing plot implications for The End (6.17/6.18), please see:
3. Please see the following for more information on this dualistic, mirror-twin view of souls and water on the island:  4. Tipler's Omega Point Theory (OPT) bridges physics, computing, religion, and more... With its emphasis on an energy/information-based Oneness generating virtual reality emulations, OPT does appear to share some core commonalities with: (1) the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment and NIRVANA; and (2) the PLATONIC view of deeper reality residing in the ESSENCES which underlie the shadowy surface/material appearances we apprehend through our flawed 'cave-bound' sensory and perceptual apparati. In contrast to an OPT/NIRVANA/PLATONIC ESSENCES view of making PROGRESS through achieving a higher-order plane of ephemeral, immaterial existence involving a merger with some energy or information-based Oneness separated from material planes of existence, we find that a close inspection of what the Bible says about HEAVEN and the NEW JERUSALEM and NEW EARTH to come provide us with a decidedly physical perspective that puts the MATERIAL APPLICATIONS back in the HEMA.... Please see Randy Alcorn's "Heaven" (2004) for a strong indictment of the erroneous Platonic perspective on Biblical eschatology:  "Why are we so resistant to the idea that Heaven could be physical? The answer, I believe, is centered in an unbiblical belief that the spirit realm is good and the material world is bad, a view I am calling Christoplatonism.... Plato, the Greek philosopher, believed that material things, including the human body and the earth, are evil, while immaterial things such as the soul and Heaven are good. This view is called Platonism. The Christian church, highly influenced by Platonism through the teachings of Philo (ca. 20 BC-AD 50) and Origen (AD 185-254), among others, came to embrace the 'spiritual' view that human spirits are better off without bodies and that Heaven is a disembodied state. They rejected the notion of Heaven as a physical realm and spiritualized or entirely neglected the biblical teaching of resurrected people inhabiting a resurrected Earth.... Christoplatonism has had a devastating effect on our ability to understand what Scripture says about Heaven, particularly about the eternal Heaven, the New Earth." [Source: Alcorn, R., (2004) Heaven, p. 52.]  Indeed, the VERY interesting heading to the very next section of this book reads: "HEAVEN AS SUBSTANCE, EARTH AS SHADOW", and the connections to Lost (including the FST) are intriguing, to say the least.... "Though the idea of Earth as Heaven's shadow is seldom discussed, even in books on Heaven, it's a concept that has biblical support... [The book of Hebrews] says that earthly priests 'serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven' (Hebrews 8:5)... The book of Hebrews seems to say that we should see Earth as a derivative realm and Heaven as the source realm." [Source: Alcorn, R., (2004) Heaven, p. 53.] And the Biblical anti-Platonist view of the afterlife does shed some very relevant light on the prospects of a resurrected trueLocke in The End:  "Any views of the afterlife that settle for less than a bodily resurrection-- including Christoplatonism, reincarnation, and transmigration of the soul-- are explicitly unchristian. The early curch....The truth of Christ's resurrection repudiated the philosophies of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. Nevertheless, two thousand years later, these persistent heresies have managed to take hostage our modern theology of Heaven. Our incorrect thinking about bodily resurrection stems from our failure to understand the environment in which resurrected people will live-- the New Earth. Anthony Hoekema is right: 'Resurrected bodies are not intended just to float in space, or to flit from cloud to cloud. They call for a new earth on which to live and to work, glorifying God. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body, in fact, makes no sense whatever apart from the doctrine of the new earth." [Source: Alcorn, R., (2004) Heaven, p. 111.]  Accordingly, will we witness a resurrected, corporeal trueLocke helping Jack and others in the OT to save the day? Will the final, closing chapter in The End show us a tangible, corporeal, literal HEAVEN on NEW EARTH, with all of our cherished Lost castaways now made whole, welcomed into the open arms of their Cosmic Daddy, with Locke and Helen dancing a fast and furious jig, celebrating an end to their Walkabout spacetime journey, as they once were Lost, but now are Found....  5. Other viable candidates for 'soulful' endings on a human scale include the New Kids On The Block variants I've proposed in the past, including the New Gods Fifth World possibility outlined above and in my 3/23/10 Ab Aeterno posting, as well as the Childhood's End scenario mapped at the end of my 5/14/09 The Incident posting.... In the latter I proposed that the NKOTB on the evolutionary scale of species-progression-- esp. Aaron, Ji Yeon, and Charlie Hume-- may be called upon to channel the island's energy to stop some impending global doom, as in the case of an incoming asteroid or an approaching gamma ray burst.... saving the planet while ushering in a new era in the progress beyond the species.... shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to be sure.... for the new Star Children.... | |