This builds on previous theories of mine (concerning Ben) but I just had a "Eureka" moment that I think concisely explains Richard's longevity. It takes *both* the FDW and "unsticking" the mind (aka Desmond, Eloise the rat, Minkowski).
If you have both powers...
1. The ability to transport your body through time
2. The ability to transport your mind through time
How hard could it be to live a really long long time? Assume you've lived long enough to figure out how to really control your mind jumps. You could jump backwards to any point in time... to a younger version of yourself, then head for the wheel to skip forward in time to catch up to where your mind was. The hard part is being able to find the island again each time you do this. The only catch is that you "undo" anything you might have done during intervening periods.
The ramification here is that even if you are the "leader" of your tribe, you will be out of contact (from their point of view) most of the time, even though you live ALL of it in your mind's eye. If nothing noteworthy happens for a while, then you unstick you mind and travel back... then donkey jump forward to catch up. Go back to the island, rinse, repeat. You'll have to install a proxy leader who is responsible for making all the daily decisions you can't make because "your not there". (Even though you are, everything you do is undone from your subjects perspective)
This only violates WHH dogma if you believe "time" is responsible for WHH and not people. Since WHH doesn't come from any reputable scientific time-traveling theories, I am operating under the assumption that WHH happens because one or more of the big players is doing his or her own course correction. If Player1 and Player2 both have future knowledge and time machine access, then anytime one of them changes something, the other can undo it. So Player1 keeps trying to get Charlie killed, but player2 keeps undoing the change. From the lostie perspective, you'd get WHH but only because one of the big end-game players is making it so. Theory by Albert Awol
If you have both powers...
1. The ability to transport your body through time
2. The ability to transport your mind through time
How hard could it be to live a really long long time? Assume you've lived long enough to figure out how to really control your mind jumps. You could jump backwards to any point in time... to a younger version of yourself, then head for the wheel to skip forward in time to catch up to where your mind was. The hard part is being able to find the island again each time you do this. The only catch is that you "undo" anything you might have done during intervening periods.
The ramification here is that even if you are the "leader" of your tribe, you will be out of contact (from their point of view) most of the time, even though you live ALL of it in your mind's eye. If nothing noteworthy happens for a while, then you unstick you mind and travel back... then donkey jump forward to catch up. Go back to the island, rinse, repeat. You'll have to install a proxy leader who is responsible for making all the daily decisions you can't make because "your not there". (Even though you are, everything you do is undone from your subjects perspective)
This only violates WHH dogma if you believe "time" is responsible for WHH and not people. Since WHH doesn't come from any reputable scientific time-traveling theories, I am operating under the assumption that WHH happens because one or more of the big players is doing his or her own course correction. If Player1 and Player2 both have future knowledge and time machine access, then anytime one of them changes something, the other can undo it. So Player1 keeps trying to get Charlie killed, but player2 keeps undoing the change. From the lostie perspective, you'd get WHH but only because one of the big end-game players is making it so. Theory by Albert Awol
