There has been a lot of speculation about the grand mystery of the Island having something to do with a black hole / wormhole that is warping time.
This does not really explain the ginormous amount of "coincidences" that have occurred on and off the island. You could try to explain some of them away by saying that the people caught in the supposed time loop are somewhat aware of previous versions of events (as certainly seems true with Ben). However, this does not explain tremendously unlikely events like the fact that the numbers were broadcast from the island and eventually get transmitted to Hurly and win the lottery... Black holes do not control lotteries...
I would like to suggest that the central mystery of the island revolves around something like the "infinite improbability drive" from Douglas Adams' lore. In that universe, it is possible to turn a key and cause the absolutely most unlikely possibility that ever occurred, like transporting a starship across a galaxy in the blink of an eye. As a byproduct of an emergency activation it even transformed a nuclear missile into a sperm whale... As I said, infinite improbability...
Other than a type of "Jacob is God" explanation, how else could you explain the box that you could ask for whatever you want? Ben asks it for something and out jumps someone that is both Locke's father and Sawyer's tormentor?
Well, it would be a little less than satisfactory if Darlton had to pull some crazy "deus ex machina" out of their collective %^&^%*-es. If this could never possibly happen in real life why bother to build it such a grand altar?
Also, something like an improbability drive needs to be used to overcome the quantum mechanical effects that would completely scramble anything (including Ben) that would make it through any wormhole that could even technically be made on earth. For instance, one that wouldn't require more matter with negative energy density than the entire mass of the universe. :P
I had a more technical theory, but in the end it came down to a play on words between uncertainty and "improbability". It came off sounding too Star Trekkie, and I'm letting J.J. Abrams play with Trek at the moment.
Theory by Palirath
This does not really explain the ginormous amount of "coincidences" that have occurred on and off the island. You could try to explain some of them away by saying that the people caught in the supposed time loop are somewhat aware of previous versions of events (as certainly seems true with Ben). However, this does not explain tremendously unlikely events like the fact that the numbers were broadcast from the island and eventually get transmitted to Hurly and win the lottery... Black holes do not control lotteries...
I would like to suggest that the central mystery of the island revolves around something like the "infinite improbability drive" from Douglas Adams' lore. In that universe, it is possible to turn a key and cause the absolutely most unlikely possibility that ever occurred, like transporting a starship across a galaxy in the blink of an eye. As a byproduct of an emergency activation it even transformed a nuclear missile into a sperm whale... As I said, infinite improbability...
Other than a type of "Jacob is God" explanation, how else could you explain the box that you could ask for whatever you want? Ben asks it for something and out jumps someone that is both Locke's father and Sawyer's tormentor?
Well, it would be a little less than satisfactory if Darlton had to pull some crazy "deus ex machina" out of their collective %^&^%*-es. If this could never possibly happen in real life why bother to build it such a grand altar?
Also, something like an improbability drive needs to be used to overcome the quantum mechanical effects that would completely scramble anything (including Ben) that would make it through any wormhole that could even technically be made on earth. For instance, one that wouldn't require more matter with negative energy density than the entire mass of the universe. :P
I had a more technical theory, but in the end it came down to a play on words between uncertainty and "improbability". It came off sounding too Star Trekkie, and I'm letting J.J. Abrams play with Trek at the moment.
Theory by Palirath
