My theory from last week (entitled Whatever Happened, Didn't Happen) seems to be bolstered by the events in Namaste. It seems that Lost theorists are now divided into two camps.. the multiple timeline camp, and the single timeline camp (we'll call them the "others"). As I mentioned in my earlier theory, I believe that the single timeline theory is a long-con perpetrated by the creators and writers and that none of the "in the know" characters on Lost really believes in the course-correction or single timeline theory.
It seems, however, that the "others" are doing the bidding of the writers by going to extreme and even bizarre lengths to explain away the evidence brought forth in Namaste. I mean "a second bunch of barracks"? Really? Really? C'mon. The others continued to use the dock and the buildings adjacent to the docks and it is highly unlikely that the others would have left all of the destruction and Dharma paraphernalia we see in the devastated barracks. Likewise, since Juliet lived on the Island as an other for years, it is very unlikely that she passed these devastated barracks (all in full Dharma regalia) without peering in and seeing Dharma photos with the 815ers in them. Please, ever since the Others took over the Barracks they are clean, neat, and in good repair. There is no sign that Dharma was ever there. We would be foolish indeed to believe that hey left perfectly good buildings near the docks in total repair with Dharma propaganda everywhere. It is obvious that! what we are seeing is an alternate reality where the Others never took over the barracks. Perhaps they lost the big war. There are innumerable permutations of what could have changed in the alternate timeline. But some huge change - perhaps the losties joining Dharma, or Sayid being captured, or one of the Losties (probably Kate) going off on her own, has changed the reality. What we are not seeing (with Sun and Frank) is an alternate future, but an alternate NOW in 2008. The air field is there, but not completed. Dharma started work on the airfield, but the others were BUILDING on it. It is obvious that the airfield is not in the same condition it was when Sawyer and Kate were working on it, because there are no BUILDINGS or structures near the airfield when seen from the air.
There is no indication that the "smokey like" tree movements that Sun and Frank see is actually the smoke monster. It seemed to me that the trees were moving as someone was walking away from watching Sun and Frank. That someone was Christian. There are many explanations for this. Maybe Christian is linked with smokey. Maybe Christian controls smokey. Maybe Christian becomes smokey. Who knows, but the trees moving does not somehow delete all the other mountains of evidence that prove that Sun, Frank, Ben and the 316ers are in an alternate NOW in 2008.
The outriggers are there. No reason to believe that that info contradicts the alternate timeline theory. The outriggers could have always been kept there, even before the Others took over all the Dharma facilities. Ben would know.
Listen, time is not a "line" anyway. That is the first error of the single timeline theorists. Time is more like a fabric. There are threads running in many different directions. Think of a normal timeline. Draw one out on a piece of paper. Except don't put a < at the beginning or a > at the end because time is finite. It has a beginning and an end. Put an A at the beginning and a B at the end. We'll call this line AB. Time has physical properties like a chair or a table. Einstein proved this. Now draw a vertical line intersecting your horizontal line. We'll call this line XY. This is a line showing the eternal now. On it, multiple things can happen, but all right now. So right now I am typing this, and that is my timeline. You may be sipping a cold beer. That is your timeline, but both events are happening on XY at a specific NOW on AB. Here is where it gets freaky. Draw a horizontal line through YOUR line on XY. This is your timeline. The horizo! ntal line AB is my timeline. These are all in a single time dimension, but physicists speculate that there can be multiple time dimensions, just as we have multiple spatial dimensions. As more lines of the fabric are drawn, we see the detail of a large cloth or the fabric of time. Time travel can happen in several different ways in fiction, but in real science it can only happen one way that we know about. Time travel happens because time passes differently based on physical properties and attributes. For example, time passes differently in Colorado at the Naval Observatory than it does at Greenwich, England. This is a quantifiable fact. Altitude affects time, but at a very, very, small level. Direction and speed (vector) also affects time. If you put two atomic clocks on identical airplanes going in opposite directions around the equator, the two clocks will experience time differently, and when the planes land, there will be a discrepancy between the clocks. If ! you take identical twins and put one of them on a rocketship. ! And if that rocketship can travel at .999 X the speed of light, it will take that rocketship 9 years (at the location of the rocketship) to travel to Alpha Centauri and back. But on earth, when the traveling twin returns (9 real years older), his twin brother would have been dead for over a century. THAT is real time travel.
But on Lost, we are dealing with the mystic creation of backwards time travel, and in backwards time travel there is the reality that changing minute events (not to mention the mammoth changes being caused by the losties) changes the future. There MUST be different timelines, and it is not trite or tired to portray something that scientifically MUST be.
Again, every character who is pushing the single timeline theory OBVIOUSLY does not believe it, so why should you?
Something is messed up in the alternate NOW, and the losties are back on the Island to fix whatever is messed up. That is the reality of the show. The show runners are perpetrating a brilliant long-con by having these characters insist on some fantasy that doesn't exist.
But that is just what I think...
Your faithful scientist Theory by Faithful Scientist
It seems, however, that the "others" are doing the bidding of the writers by going to extreme and even bizarre lengths to explain away the evidence brought forth in Namaste. I mean "a second bunch of barracks"? Really? Really? C'mon. The others continued to use the dock and the buildings adjacent to the docks and it is highly unlikely that the others would have left all of the destruction and Dharma paraphernalia we see in the devastated barracks. Likewise, since Juliet lived on the Island as an other for years, it is very unlikely that she passed these devastated barracks (all in full Dharma regalia) without peering in and seeing Dharma photos with the 815ers in them. Please, ever since the Others took over the Barracks they are clean, neat, and in good repair. There is no sign that Dharma was ever there. We would be foolish indeed to believe that hey left perfectly good buildings near the docks in total repair with Dharma propaganda everywhere. It is obvious that! what we are seeing is an alternate reality where the Others never took over the barracks. Perhaps they lost the big war. There are innumerable permutations of what could have changed in the alternate timeline. But some huge change - perhaps the losties joining Dharma, or Sayid being captured, or one of the Losties (probably Kate) going off on her own, has changed the reality. What we are not seeing (with Sun and Frank) is an alternate future, but an alternate NOW in 2008. The air field is there, but not completed. Dharma started work on the airfield, but the others were BUILDING on it. It is obvious that the airfield is not in the same condition it was when Sawyer and Kate were working on it, because there are no BUILDINGS or structures near the airfield when seen from the air.
There is no indication that the "smokey like" tree movements that Sun and Frank see is actually the smoke monster. It seemed to me that the trees were moving as someone was walking away from watching Sun and Frank. That someone was Christian. There are many explanations for this. Maybe Christian is linked with smokey. Maybe Christian controls smokey. Maybe Christian becomes smokey. Who knows, but the trees moving does not somehow delete all the other mountains of evidence that prove that Sun, Frank, Ben and the 316ers are in an alternate NOW in 2008.
The outriggers are there. No reason to believe that that info contradicts the alternate timeline theory. The outriggers could have always been kept there, even before the Others took over all the Dharma facilities. Ben would know.
Listen, time is not a "line" anyway. That is the first error of the single timeline theorists. Time is more like a fabric. There are threads running in many different directions. Think of a normal timeline. Draw one out on a piece of paper. Except don't put a < at the beginning or a > at the end because time is finite. It has a beginning and an end. Put an A at the beginning and a B at the end. We'll call this line AB. Time has physical properties like a chair or a table. Einstein proved this. Now draw a vertical line intersecting your horizontal line. We'll call this line XY. This is a line showing the eternal now. On it, multiple things can happen, but all right now. So right now I am typing this, and that is my timeline. You may be sipping a cold beer. That is your timeline, but both events are happening on XY at a specific NOW on AB. Here is where it gets freaky. Draw a horizontal line through YOUR line on XY. This is your timeline. The horizo! ntal line AB is my timeline. These are all in a single time dimension, but physicists speculate that there can be multiple time dimensions, just as we have multiple spatial dimensions. As more lines of the fabric are drawn, we see the detail of a large cloth or the fabric of time. Time travel can happen in several different ways in fiction, but in real science it can only happen one way that we know about. Time travel happens because time passes differently based on physical properties and attributes. For example, time passes differently in Colorado at the Naval Observatory than it does at Greenwich, England. This is a quantifiable fact. Altitude affects time, but at a very, very, small level. Direction and speed (vector) also affects time. If you put two atomic clocks on identical airplanes going in opposite directions around the equator, the two clocks will experience time differently, and when the planes land, there will be a discrepancy between the clocks. If ! you take identical twins and put one of them on a rocketship. ! And if that rocketship can travel at .999 X the speed of light, it will take that rocketship 9 years (at the location of the rocketship) to travel to Alpha Centauri and back. But on earth, when the traveling twin returns (9 real years older), his twin brother would have been dead for over a century. THAT is real time travel.
But on Lost, we are dealing with the mystic creation of backwards time travel, and in backwards time travel there is the reality that changing minute events (not to mention the mammoth changes being caused by the losties) changes the future. There MUST be different timelines, and it is not trite or tired to portray something that scientifically MUST be.
Again, every character who is pushing the single timeline theory OBVIOUSLY does not believe it, so why should you?
Something is messed up in the alternate NOW, and the losties are back on the Island to fix whatever is messed up. That is the reality of the show. The show runners are perpetrating a brilliant long-con by having these characters insist on some fantasy that doesn't exist.
But that is just what I think...
Your faithful scientist Theory by Faithful Scientist
