We were told something very specific by Daniel in "The Constant" about the way time travel works on this show. He said that its your consciousness that travels in time, not your body. This has been proven on several occasions. In "Flashes Before Your Eyes" Desmond time traveled when he turned the fail-safe key, only to wake up nearby the hole where the Swan station used to be. In "The Constant" Eloise the rat is motionless in her maze while she is traveling. In "The Constant" Daniel informs Desmond that while he was "gone" he had been catatonic and Daniel moved him to the chair. We see this happen to Desmond on the Kahana as well, and we also see it happen to George Minkowski.
So now we know that when people time travel on the show, their bodies remain in the previous time, while their minds are in the past or future.
Okay, so with that in mind ... How did our Losties wind up on the island? Their plane crashed onto the island. But the island exists in the past right?
When the Swan station was still working, the act of pressing the button reset the island to 108 minutes in the past, exponentially. So every time the button was pressed it went another 108 minutes into the past. So by the time the Oceanic 815 people arrived, it was 108 minutes times the number of times the button was pressed since it started getting pressed. According to the Swan Station video, the video was made in 1980, so figure people started pressing the button in 1980. Let's do the math: The button is pressed every 108 minutes, which is every 1.8 hours. There are 1440 minutes in a day, so the button is pressed 19 times a day. There's 365 days a year, so the button is pressed 6935 days a year for 24 years, which is 166,440 times the button was pressed between 1980 and 2004 (we're approximating since we don't know what day & month the button was first pressed on), which if we multiply by 108 minutes, tells us that the island exists approximately 17,975,520 minu! tes or 34.2 years in the past. So yeah that's right, the island now exists at a time before Dharma actually started pressing the button. Whoa.
Okay back to reality.
When Desmond failed to push the button in time on September 22, 2004, it caused an electromagnetic pulse that caused a rift in the time barrier around the island (also making it visible for a split second to the outside world). Doing this, caused the plane to fall into the rift and time travel, but because the plane didn't enter on the exact mathematical bearings that would prevent side effects, the whole plane experienced side effects, one of these being everybody's consciousness on the plane to go back in time (along with the plane itself) while the catatonic bodies of the passengers stayed with the plane in real time ... at the bottom of the ocean.
Okay, so there was no faked crash. Everybody really did die and the plane is sitting at the bottom of the ocean (on the exact location where the island should be in present time). But at the moment that the plane hit the time rift, all of the people's consciousness went back in time, back to the time that the island exists in (approximately 34.2 years in the past. So they are dead, but they are also on the island.
So this makes things a little weird.
Remember when Daniel told Desmond that his consciousness went back in time, he told him that Desmond's mind went back to the year 1996. So Desmond thought it was 1996. His body was his body from 1996: haircut from 1996, clothes from 1996, etc.
So when the passengers of Oceanic 815 went back in time, they're now 34.2 years in the past. So Locke is not paralyzed because he wasn't paralyzed 34.2 years ago. Rose doesn't have cancer, because she didn't have it 34.2 years ago. And here's where things get freaky. What about the people who aren't approximately 34 years old yet. Well, now they exist before they were born. This includes Claire & fetus Aaron, Walt, Shannon, Boone, Charlie, Nikki, Paulo, Kate, Hurley, Ana-Lucia and possibly Sun, Jin, Eko, Sawyer & Jack (we don't really know their ages). If you've noticed no one over the age of 34 has died yet. And a good portion of the young ones have died (Shannon, Boone, Charlie, Nikki, Paulo, Ana-Lucia). So maybe if you exist before you were born, the universe course corrects you to die.
It could be that, or it could be that they haven't found their constant. I'd like to hear people's comments about which characters have a constant and what they are. Personally I think Locke's constant is the island.
Theory by Scott Gingold
So now we know that when people time travel on the show, their bodies remain in the previous time, while their minds are in the past or future.
Okay, so with that in mind ... How did our Losties wind up on the island? Their plane crashed onto the island. But the island exists in the past right?
When the Swan station was still working, the act of pressing the button reset the island to 108 minutes in the past, exponentially. So every time the button was pressed it went another 108 minutes into the past. So by the time the Oceanic 815 people arrived, it was 108 minutes times the number of times the button was pressed since it started getting pressed. According to the Swan Station video, the video was made in 1980, so figure people started pressing the button in 1980. Let's do the math: The button is pressed every 108 minutes, which is every 1.8 hours. There are 1440 minutes in a day, so the button is pressed 19 times a day. There's 365 days a year, so the button is pressed 6935 days a year for 24 years, which is 166,440 times the button was pressed between 1980 and 2004 (we're approximating since we don't know what day & month the button was first pressed on), which if we multiply by 108 minutes, tells us that the island exists approximately 17,975,520 minu! tes or 34.2 years in the past. So yeah that's right, the island now exists at a time before Dharma actually started pressing the button. Whoa.
Okay back to reality.
When Desmond failed to push the button in time on September 22, 2004, it caused an electromagnetic pulse that caused a rift in the time barrier around the island (also making it visible for a split second to the outside world). Doing this, caused the plane to fall into the rift and time travel, but because the plane didn't enter on the exact mathematical bearings that would prevent side effects, the whole plane experienced side effects, one of these being everybody's consciousness on the plane to go back in time (along with the plane itself) while the catatonic bodies of the passengers stayed with the plane in real time ... at the bottom of the ocean.
Okay, so there was no faked crash. Everybody really did die and the plane is sitting at the bottom of the ocean (on the exact location where the island should be in present time). But at the moment that the plane hit the time rift, all of the people's consciousness went back in time, back to the time that the island exists in (approximately 34.2 years in the past. So they are dead, but they are also on the island.
So this makes things a little weird.
Remember when Daniel told Desmond that his consciousness went back in time, he told him that Desmond's mind went back to the year 1996. So Desmond thought it was 1996. His body was his body from 1996: haircut from 1996, clothes from 1996, etc.
So when the passengers of Oceanic 815 went back in time, they're now 34.2 years in the past. So Locke is not paralyzed because he wasn't paralyzed 34.2 years ago. Rose doesn't have cancer, because she didn't have it 34.2 years ago. And here's where things get freaky. What about the people who aren't approximately 34 years old yet. Well, now they exist before they were born. This includes Claire & fetus Aaron, Walt, Shannon, Boone, Charlie, Nikki, Paulo, Kate, Hurley, Ana-Lucia and possibly Sun, Jin, Eko, Sawyer & Jack (we don't really know their ages). If you've noticed no one over the age of 34 has died yet. And a good portion of the young ones have died (Shannon, Boone, Charlie, Nikki, Paulo, Ana-Lucia). So maybe if you exist before you were born, the universe course corrects you to die.
It could be that, or it could be that they haven't found their constant. I'd like to hear people's comments about which characters have a constant and what they are. Personally I think Locke's constant is the island.
Theory by Scott Gingold
