LOCKE: That's why you and I don't see eye-to-eye sometimes, Jack -- because you're a man of science.
JACK: Yeah, and what does that make you?
LOCKE: Me, well, I'm a man of faith. Do you really think all this is an accident -- that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence -- especially, this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.
JACK: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?
LOCKE: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place; you've seen that, I know you have. But the island chose you, too, Jack. It's destiny.
JACK: Did you talk with Boone about destiny, John?
LOCKE: Boone was a sacrifice that the island demanded. What happened to him at that plane was a part of a chain of events that led us here -- that led us down a path -- that led you and me to this day, to right now.
JACK: And where does that path end, John?
LOCKE: The path ends at the hatch. The hatch, Jack -- all of it -- all of it happened so that we could open the hatch.
JACK: No, no, we're opening the hatch so that we can survive.
LOCKE: Survival is all relative, Jack.
JACK: I don't believe in destiny.
LOCKE: Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet.
Man of Science, Man of Faith, the first episode of season two of Lost, remains one of the most beloved episodes out of all three seasons. Although I doubt it can beat Walkabout or Through the Looking Glass in final voting, it should make its way into most Top Ten lists. At first glance, the significance of the title of that episode seems very obvious: the episode continues to address this conflict of perspective that Locke explicitly spelled out in Exodus. Looking further into the episode, though, one might come across a different interpretation. The ostensible man of faith, Locke, plays a relatively minor role in the actual episode, while Jack assumes center stage dynamically. Is it possible that the title Man of Science, Man of Faith refers to just one individual and not two? Can we regard Jack as both a man of science and a man of faith? Jack understands and recognizes the laws of science that control our universe, and yet, at his core, he still believes in destiny. Sarah’s successful surgery was purely the result of luck (what Christian Shephard referred to as, “that one percent chance that everything is going to be okay”), and yet it was also a miracle that defined people’s lives. As Locke pointed out in Exodus, Jack did not know yet that he believed in destiny, but Through the Looking Glass shows that Jack eventually does come to terms with these beliefs.
Immediately following the fantastic season three episode The Man from Tallahassee, I published an essay in the theories section of this webpage that I called the Unity theory. In that essay, I tried to argue that the show Lost has always possessed a thematic balance between its realism and its fantasy elements. Neither the man of science nor the man of faith will triumph over the other. For any question that you might pose, two separate and equally correct explanations exist. For example, take the series-long question: why did the plane crash? The man of science would say that the plane crashed as a result of pure coincidence. Desmond’s battle with Kelvin caused the system failure at the electromagnetic station, which pulled the plane to the island and ripped it apart. The group of strangers on Flight 815 just happened to be flying in the right place at the right time. There was no conspiracy, and fate did not cheat in any way, but this accident came as the result of the free and independent decisions of countless individuals. On the other hand, the man of faith would argue that everyone was brought to the island for a reason, and that each person had a role to play in a larger chain of events. I submit that both of these explanations are correct simultaneously, and one cannot ignore the impact of either force. Everything happens for a reason, but nothing happens without a cause.
Several times throughout the course of three seasons, the series has introduced hints of the supernatural, only later to debunk them by revealing the ultimate cause. In The Man from Tallahassee, Ben famously declared that the island contained a magic box that manifested the wishes of its inhabitants. Naturally, I predicted that Ben was using the Magic Box as a metaphor for the effects he perceives, and that we would later learn that Cooper arrived at the island through conventional means of transportation. A few episodes later, we witnessed Naomi’s famous declaration that “They were all dead,” which was followed by an explosion of time-travel/alternate-universe/parallel-universe/purgatory theories. I held firm to my affirmation that Naomi was either lying, or an outside entity had faked the crash to hide the island’s secrets. These science-fiction red herrings have been a part of the show since the beginning, and will continue to try to keep viewers guessing until the end.
Again and again, the show reconfirms the fact that the world of Lost still obeys the same laws of causality as our world. Remember when Walt was reading a polar bear comic book in season one? A full season later, the DHARMA Initiative video showed that the polar bears arrived at the island as part of zoological experiments. Again and again, the show reconfirms that its timeline still follows the same linear path as our world (the same inescapable arrow of time that Hawking described). Viewers keep attempting to come up with grand theories that can link together all the puzzle pieces into one coherent whole. Vozzek’s ‘Theory of Everything,’ the great Gendanken experiment, and countless other fan works provide good examples of this phenomenon. While the efforts are admirable, the majority of these theories operate like a person’s response to a Rorschach Inkblot Test: the subject reads into the image so much that the response reveals more about the subject than it does about the object. (The screen-cap of Jacob is perhaps the best example of how Lost is like a Rorschach test; you can see whomever you want to see in that shadow, be it Locke or Jack or Roger or Christian or someone else altogether.)
People have tried to bring in all sorts of interpretations from other pieces of literature to help ‘explain’ Lost. People have tried to read into every minor off-hand comment made by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as dogma. Ultimately, what matters most is the episodes themselves. In the end, the only theories about Lost that make any sense are the theories supported by evidence from the series as a whole. Anything else will make your theory more speculative and more autobiographical than it is informative. Viewers continue to make many wild guesses about how to fit the puzzle pieces together to figure out the picture on the box. For the most part, these theories tend to swing way too wildly in favor of sci-fi/fantasy/quasi-religious explanations that do not fit the show’s overall dramatic character. Truthfully, the current pieces could fit together in an infinite number of ways. For the most part, Desmond was always wise enough not to jump to conclusions before watching the pieces start to fall into place. We should follow his noble example.
I will re-state the four premises that I initially proposed under the Unity theory as a framework for interpreting all events on Lost.
First Premise: Free will is inviolable. With the massive number of coincidences in the past, the power of fate seems very strong. However, each character's actions are determined by his or her own free will. Fate (i.e. the initial arrangement of the universe) influences human decisions only indirectly.
Although the conflict between fate and free will remains a recurring theme throughout the series, the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes provides the best meditation on this subject. In his inner journey, Desmond goes to great lengths to convince himself that fate was in control of his actions. However, the episode reveals that Desmond decided to follow that path for different reasons altogether. It was not fate, but Desmond’s own desire to prove himself to Charles Widmore, that caused him to throw away his engagement ring. Penny (just like Ruth) rightfully calls Desmond out as a coward for not accepting responsibility for his own actions.
Second Premise: There is one and only one timeline. This timeline is never interrupted or corrupted in any way. Time is the universal invariant.
This assertion flatly refuses the possibility of time travel, alternate universe, or time loop theories. The Mobius strip is only a symbol to explain the recurring theme that characters must relive their inner conflicts again and again throughout life. Many people have gone to great lengths to try to read into the brainwashing slogan ‘Only fools are enslaved by time and space.’ In my mind, though, the phrase has an alternate meaning that these viewers did not anticipate. You are a slave to time and space if you believe that this story cannot be explained with a single linear timeline. The writers of the show are not enslaved by time and space, because they have already mapped out each character’s past, present, and future.
Third Premise: The flashbacks are absolutely reliable. The numerous coincidences we see in flashbacks are not the result of false or collective memories. Every small detail in each character's flashback in fact occurred exactly as shown on screen.
In addition, Jack’s flash-forward shown in Through the Looking Glass meets these requirements as well. The events of the flash-forward are not merely one possible future, but the only possible linear continuation of the Lost narrative. Jack and Kate will leave the island and Jack desperately will attempt to return. The show will not cheapen each viewer’s emotional investment in these scenes by revealing them as a false future.
Fourth Premise: No events in Lost violate the physical rules that govern our reality. Ben talks about the magic box on the island only as a metaphor to describe the effects that he perceives. Teleportation, psychokinesis, and mental conjuring are not possible on Lost.
This fourth premise will probably generate the most controversy. The show has already introduced three apparent contradictions of this claim, but each of these objections remains consistent with the overall laws of causality on the show. These three counterexamples are: (1) the smoke monster, (2) the island’s healing properties, and (3) the countless visions experienced by the island’s inhabitants.
(1) The smoke monster (aka Cerberus or the security system) has only appeared in a handful of episodes. Quite simply, we do not know enough about the smoke monster to attempt to explain its purpose. Unlike the visions and whispers (which contain memories from an individual’s past), the smoke monster possesses the same objective physical appearance to all viewers. It shows traits of both biological and mechanical creatures. The smoke monster could either represent a natural organism that has adapted to its environment, or a piece of advanced technology hidden on the island. Eventually, the series will reveal both the reason and the cause for its existence.
(2) People do indeed heal from injury more quickly on the island than they do in the rest of the world. The island’s energy has apparently repaired Locke’s broken spine, cured Rose’s cancer, revitalized Jin’s fertility, and brought Mikhail back from near-death time and again. As Isaac the faith healer described in S.O.S., “Perhaps this energy is geological … magnetic … or perhaps it is something else.” Moreover, a person’s rate of healing has a correlation with their own will. Although the island’s healing properties are clearly a fictional plot device, its operation is not entirely inconsistent with medical science. Environmental factors do affect the body’s regenerative capabilities, and psychosomatic factors do affect the rate of recovery. Both of these factors seem extremely exaggerated on the island, but the principles of science are not ignored. After all, miracles do not run contradictory to nature, only to what we know of nature.
(3) Almost every inhabitant on the island has seen or heard something that might not really have been there. Characters hear eerie whispers containing overlapping voices from their past. The island appears to have the ability to reanimate the dead and to manifest other apparitions from the past. Over the course of three seasons, Jack has seen his late father, Shannon and Sayid have seen Walt, Locke has seen Boone and Walt, Eko has seen Yemi, and Ben has seen his dead mother. Other similar visions are also worth noting here: vivid dreams experienced by Locke, Eko, Claire, Hurley, and Charlie; Boone’s drug-induced trip of Shannon’s death; Hurley’s hallucination of his imaginary friend Dave; etc. Each of these visions seemed to communicate something to the characters, and to lead them onto a certain path. Like the ghosts in Shakespeare, these apparitions were all terrific storytelling devices that enriched the impact of each episode. However, the most important characteristic of each of these visions is that the details of the vision came from the person’s own memories and not from any outside source. Each of these visions also occurred during periods of physical and emotional distress. Clearly, some environmental characteristic of the island makes its inhabitants more susceptible to seeing visions and hearing voices, but the underlying content of those visions resides in their own memories.
Consider the following exchange between Jack and Locke in the classic episode White Rabbit, which includes the very first example of these visions.
LOCKE: Why are you out here, Jack?
JACK: I think I'm going crazy.
LOCKE: No, you're not going crazy.
JACK: No?
LOCKE: No, crazy people don't know they're going crazy. They think they're getting saner.
LOCKE: So ... why are you out here?
JACK: I'm chasing something. Someone.
LOCKE: Ah. The White Rabbit. "Alice in Wonderland."
JACK: Yeah. Wonderland ... because who I'm chasing, he's not there.
LOCKE: But you see him?
JACK: Yes.
LOCKE: But he's not there. And if I came to you and said the same thing, then what would your explanation be as a doctor?
JACK: I'd call it a hallucination. The result of dehydration, posttraumatic stress, not getting more than two hours of sleep a night for the past week -- All the above.
LOCKE: All right, then you're hallucinating. But what if you're not?
JACK: Then we're all in a lot of trouble.
LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack. Meat and potatoes. I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in ... magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it, and we all feel it. Is your White Rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?
JACK: That's impossible.
LOCKE: Even if it is, let's say it's not.
JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?
LOCKE: I don't know. But I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I
saw ... was beautiful.
As far back as early season one, Locke presents to us the correct attitude that we should take toward apparent supernatural occurrences on Lost. First, he asked for a scientific explanation that could have caused it, and admits that this explanation is most likely correct. Then, he also accepts the possibility that the event might have some larger purpose in their lives. That larger force goes by many names on Lost (fate, destiny, luck, the universe, God, Jacob, the island, etc.), but all of these words are just human attempts to personify the seemingly omnipotent force that guides the events of our lives. Lost is an amazing work of art, but this attitude should not only inform our opinions about the series, but about life itself. This conflict speaks to the very core of what it means to be human. We cannot escape the physical laws that govern out universe, but, through the power of human will, we can ascribe meaning to the events of our lives.
We are all men of science and men of faith.
(Special thanks: Erin Luhks, Mike Hilferty, Greg and Betsy Main, and DarkUFO.)
Theory by Luhks
JACK: Yeah, and what does that make you?
LOCKE: Me, well, I'm a man of faith. Do you really think all this is an accident -- that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence -- especially, this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.
JACK: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?
LOCKE: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place; you've seen that, I know you have. But the island chose you, too, Jack. It's destiny.
JACK: Did you talk with Boone about destiny, John?
LOCKE: Boone was a sacrifice that the island demanded. What happened to him at that plane was a part of a chain of events that led us here -- that led us down a path -- that led you and me to this day, to right now.
JACK: And where does that path end, John?
LOCKE: The path ends at the hatch. The hatch, Jack -- all of it -- all of it happened so that we could open the hatch.
JACK: No, no, we're opening the hatch so that we can survive.
LOCKE: Survival is all relative, Jack.
JACK: I don't believe in destiny.
LOCKE: Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet.
Man of Science, Man of Faith, the first episode of season two of Lost, remains one of the most beloved episodes out of all three seasons. Although I doubt it can beat Walkabout or Through the Looking Glass in final voting, it should make its way into most Top Ten lists. At first glance, the significance of the title of that episode seems very obvious: the episode continues to address this conflict of perspective that Locke explicitly spelled out in Exodus. Looking further into the episode, though, one might come across a different interpretation. The ostensible man of faith, Locke, plays a relatively minor role in the actual episode, while Jack assumes center stage dynamically. Is it possible that the title Man of Science, Man of Faith refers to just one individual and not two? Can we regard Jack as both a man of science and a man of faith? Jack understands and recognizes the laws of science that control our universe, and yet, at his core, he still believes in destiny. Sarah’s successful surgery was purely the result of luck (what Christian Shephard referred to as, “that one percent chance that everything is going to be okay”), and yet it was also a miracle that defined people’s lives. As Locke pointed out in Exodus, Jack did not know yet that he believed in destiny, but Through the Looking Glass shows that Jack eventually does come to terms with these beliefs.
Immediately following the fantastic season three episode The Man from Tallahassee, I published an essay in the theories section of this webpage that I called the Unity theory. In that essay, I tried to argue that the show Lost has always possessed a thematic balance between its realism and its fantasy elements. Neither the man of science nor the man of faith will triumph over the other. For any question that you might pose, two separate and equally correct explanations exist. For example, take the series-long question: why did the plane crash? The man of science would say that the plane crashed as a result of pure coincidence. Desmond’s battle with Kelvin caused the system failure at the electromagnetic station, which pulled the plane to the island and ripped it apart. The group of strangers on Flight 815 just happened to be flying in the right place at the right time. There was no conspiracy, and fate did not cheat in any way, but this accident came as the result of the free and independent decisions of countless individuals. On the other hand, the man of faith would argue that everyone was brought to the island for a reason, and that each person had a role to play in a larger chain of events. I submit that both of these explanations are correct simultaneously, and one cannot ignore the impact of either force. Everything happens for a reason, but nothing happens without a cause.
Several times throughout the course of three seasons, the series has introduced hints of the supernatural, only later to debunk them by revealing the ultimate cause. In The Man from Tallahassee, Ben famously declared that the island contained a magic box that manifested the wishes of its inhabitants. Naturally, I predicted that Ben was using the Magic Box as a metaphor for the effects he perceives, and that we would later learn that Cooper arrived at the island through conventional means of transportation. A few episodes later, we witnessed Naomi’s famous declaration that “They were all dead,” which was followed by an explosion of time-travel/alternate-universe/parallel-universe/purgatory theories. I held firm to my affirmation that Naomi was either lying, or an outside entity had faked the crash to hide the island’s secrets. These science-fiction red herrings have been a part of the show since the beginning, and will continue to try to keep viewers guessing until the end.
Again and again, the show reconfirms the fact that the world of Lost still obeys the same laws of causality as our world. Remember when Walt was reading a polar bear comic book in season one? A full season later, the DHARMA Initiative video showed that the polar bears arrived at the island as part of zoological experiments. Again and again, the show reconfirms that its timeline still follows the same linear path as our world (the same inescapable arrow of time that Hawking described). Viewers keep attempting to come up with grand theories that can link together all the puzzle pieces into one coherent whole. Vozzek’s ‘Theory of Everything,’ the great Gendanken experiment, and countless other fan works provide good examples of this phenomenon. While the efforts are admirable, the majority of these theories operate like a person’s response to a Rorschach Inkblot Test: the subject reads into the image so much that the response reveals more about the subject than it does about the object. (The screen-cap of Jacob is perhaps the best example of how Lost is like a Rorschach test; you can see whomever you want to see in that shadow, be it Locke or Jack or Roger or Christian or someone else altogether.)
People have tried to bring in all sorts of interpretations from other pieces of literature to help ‘explain’ Lost. People have tried to read into every minor off-hand comment made by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as dogma. Ultimately, what matters most is the episodes themselves. In the end, the only theories about Lost that make any sense are the theories supported by evidence from the series as a whole. Anything else will make your theory more speculative and more autobiographical than it is informative. Viewers continue to make many wild guesses about how to fit the puzzle pieces together to figure out the picture on the box. For the most part, these theories tend to swing way too wildly in favor of sci-fi/fantasy/quasi-religious explanations that do not fit the show’s overall dramatic character. Truthfully, the current pieces could fit together in an infinite number of ways. For the most part, Desmond was always wise enough not to jump to conclusions before watching the pieces start to fall into place. We should follow his noble example.
I will re-state the four premises that I initially proposed under the Unity theory as a framework for interpreting all events on Lost.
First Premise: Free will is inviolable. With the massive number of coincidences in the past, the power of fate seems very strong. However, each character's actions are determined by his or her own free will. Fate (i.e. the initial arrangement of the universe) influences human decisions only indirectly.
Although the conflict between fate and free will remains a recurring theme throughout the series, the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes provides the best meditation on this subject. In his inner journey, Desmond goes to great lengths to convince himself that fate was in control of his actions. However, the episode reveals that Desmond decided to follow that path for different reasons altogether. It was not fate, but Desmond’s own desire to prove himself to Charles Widmore, that caused him to throw away his engagement ring. Penny (just like Ruth) rightfully calls Desmond out as a coward for not accepting responsibility for his own actions.
Second Premise: There is one and only one timeline. This timeline is never interrupted or corrupted in any way. Time is the universal invariant.
This assertion flatly refuses the possibility of time travel, alternate universe, or time loop theories. The Mobius strip is only a symbol to explain the recurring theme that characters must relive their inner conflicts again and again throughout life. Many people have gone to great lengths to try to read into the brainwashing slogan ‘Only fools are enslaved by time and space.’ In my mind, though, the phrase has an alternate meaning that these viewers did not anticipate. You are a slave to time and space if you believe that this story cannot be explained with a single linear timeline. The writers of the show are not enslaved by time and space, because they have already mapped out each character’s past, present, and future.
Third Premise: The flashbacks are absolutely reliable. The numerous coincidences we see in flashbacks are not the result of false or collective memories. Every small detail in each character's flashback in fact occurred exactly as shown on screen.
In addition, Jack’s flash-forward shown in Through the Looking Glass meets these requirements as well. The events of the flash-forward are not merely one possible future, but the only possible linear continuation of the Lost narrative. Jack and Kate will leave the island and Jack desperately will attempt to return. The show will not cheapen each viewer’s emotional investment in these scenes by revealing them as a false future.
Fourth Premise: No events in Lost violate the physical rules that govern our reality. Ben talks about the magic box on the island only as a metaphor to describe the effects that he perceives. Teleportation, psychokinesis, and mental conjuring are not possible on Lost.
This fourth premise will probably generate the most controversy. The show has already introduced three apparent contradictions of this claim, but each of these objections remains consistent with the overall laws of causality on the show. These three counterexamples are: (1) the smoke monster, (2) the island’s healing properties, and (3) the countless visions experienced by the island’s inhabitants.
(1) The smoke monster (aka Cerberus or the security system) has only appeared in a handful of episodes. Quite simply, we do not know enough about the smoke monster to attempt to explain its purpose. Unlike the visions and whispers (which contain memories from an individual’s past), the smoke monster possesses the same objective physical appearance to all viewers. It shows traits of both biological and mechanical creatures. The smoke monster could either represent a natural organism that has adapted to its environment, or a piece of advanced technology hidden on the island. Eventually, the series will reveal both the reason and the cause for its existence.
(2) People do indeed heal from injury more quickly on the island than they do in the rest of the world. The island’s energy has apparently repaired Locke’s broken spine, cured Rose’s cancer, revitalized Jin’s fertility, and brought Mikhail back from near-death time and again. As Isaac the faith healer described in S.O.S., “Perhaps this energy is geological … magnetic … or perhaps it is something else.” Moreover, a person’s rate of healing has a correlation with their own will. Although the island’s healing properties are clearly a fictional plot device, its operation is not entirely inconsistent with medical science. Environmental factors do affect the body’s regenerative capabilities, and psychosomatic factors do affect the rate of recovery. Both of these factors seem extremely exaggerated on the island, but the principles of science are not ignored. After all, miracles do not run contradictory to nature, only to what we know of nature.
(3) Almost every inhabitant on the island has seen or heard something that might not really have been there. Characters hear eerie whispers containing overlapping voices from their past. The island appears to have the ability to reanimate the dead and to manifest other apparitions from the past. Over the course of three seasons, Jack has seen his late father, Shannon and Sayid have seen Walt, Locke has seen Boone and Walt, Eko has seen Yemi, and Ben has seen his dead mother. Other similar visions are also worth noting here: vivid dreams experienced by Locke, Eko, Claire, Hurley, and Charlie; Boone’s drug-induced trip of Shannon’s death; Hurley’s hallucination of his imaginary friend Dave; etc. Each of these visions seemed to communicate something to the characters, and to lead them onto a certain path. Like the ghosts in Shakespeare, these apparitions were all terrific storytelling devices that enriched the impact of each episode. However, the most important characteristic of each of these visions is that the details of the vision came from the person’s own memories and not from any outside source. Each of these visions also occurred during periods of physical and emotional distress. Clearly, some environmental characteristic of the island makes its inhabitants more susceptible to seeing visions and hearing voices, but the underlying content of those visions resides in their own memories.
Consider the following exchange between Jack and Locke in the classic episode White Rabbit, which includes the very first example of these visions.
LOCKE: Why are you out here, Jack?
JACK: I think I'm going crazy.
LOCKE: No, you're not going crazy.
JACK: No?
LOCKE: No, crazy people don't know they're going crazy. They think they're getting saner.
LOCKE: So ... why are you out here?
JACK: I'm chasing something. Someone.
LOCKE: Ah. The White Rabbit. "Alice in Wonderland."
JACK: Yeah. Wonderland ... because who I'm chasing, he's not there.
LOCKE: But you see him?
JACK: Yes.
LOCKE: But he's not there. And if I came to you and said the same thing, then what would your explanation be as a doctor?
JACK: I'd call it a hallucination. The result of dehydration, posttraumatic stress, not getting more than two hours of sleep a night for the past week -- All the above.
LOCKE: All right, then you're hallucinating. But what if you're not?
JACK: Then we're all in a lot of trouble.
LOCKE: I'm an ordinary man, Jack. Meat and potatoes. I live in the real world. I'm not a big believer in ... magic. But this place is different. It's special. The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it, and we all feel it. Is your White Rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here happened for a reason? What if this person that you're chasing is really here?
JACK: That's impossible.
LOCKE: Even if it is, let's say it's not.
JACK: Then what happens when I catch him?
LOCKE: I don't know. But I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I
saw ... was beautiful.
As far back as early season one, Locke presents to us the correct attitude that we should take toward apparent supernatural occurrences on Lost. First, he asked for a scientific explanation that could have caused it, and admits that this explanation is most likely correct. Then, he also accepts the possibility that the event might have some larger purpose in their lives. That larger force goes by many names on Lost (fate, destiny, luck, the universe, God, Jacob, the island, etc.), but all of these words are just human attempts to personify the seemingly omnipotent force that guides the events of our lives. Lost is an amazing work of art, but this attitude should not only inform our opinions about the series, but about life itself. This conflict speaks to the very core of what it means to be human. We cannot escape the physical laws that govern out universe, but, through the power of human will, we can ascribe meaning to the events of our lives.
We are all men of science and men of faith.
(Special thanks: Erin Luhks, Mike Hilferty, Greg and Betsy Main, and DarkUFO.)
Theory by Luhks
