We have a number of 'time' theories springing forth, so here's my thoughts on those...
For a start, any theory that mentions 'iterations' or 'loops' is going against WHH, for pure WHH would contend that the future has never been changed by someone travelling to their past, so there has only ever been one 'iteration', only ever one 'loop'.
Another theory which is picking up pace is that of time dilation. I'm not on board with the wormhole/blackhole theories regarding this, as it just doesn't make any sense if you apply General Relativity to them - the fact that the rest of the planet doesn't seem to be ripped apart by the gravitational effects needed to produce the dilation required.
We have been given examples of something weird happening with regards to time when objects and/or people try to move between the Island and 'the outside world'. For example, people on the Island with the corpse of the dead doctor (Ray) at their feet were able to communicate to the freighter where the doctor was still alive. With regards to the doctor's causal time line, they were talking to 'the past' as the doctor has not yet died. If the freighter crew knew what they were on about, they'd realise that they were talking to 'the future' with regards to the doctor's time line. Would he have been able to ask the people on the Island to examine the corpse to see how he died, so he could try to avoid dying? WHH says no.
Does this also apply to Faraday's experiment with the rocket? It is sent from the freighter, but is 'late'. He calls the freighter but they have already sent it. If this were the same scenario as the doctor, then the rocket should have arrived before the freighter sent it. It could be argued that the Island is now 'ahead' of the freighter, in that the rocket is delayed by having to 'catch up' with the Island to arrive to Faraday in the future. Are the Island and the outside world out of sync with regards to time, and the phase difference between the two is constantly changing? Perhaps the frequency of this oscillation is ~ 0.154 mHz – in other words, it returns back to its starting point after 108 minutes? This may explain why the doctor ended up on the Island before he died (i.e. 'early') but the rocket ended up 'late', and also the comments made about the tides on the Island?
[Weird coincidence: if we assume the Ancients had eight fingers and toes based on the statue, and thus operated in base-8 rather than base-10 (decimal), then '108' by them would be written as '154', and "once every 108 minutes" expressed as Hertz is 0.154 mHz. The Dharma symbols are all 8-sided too - perhaps these symbols weren’t 'created' by Dharma at all, but originated from the Ancients, and were taken on by Dharma when they arrived on the Island? Another side note: why does the Swan clock show hieroglyph symbols when the button hasn't been pressed? This would imply that the warning sign to say "Warning! Press the button now!" was designed for someone who could read hieroglyphs?]
Or it could be that the Island and the freighter are in sync with regards to time, and it’s just the communication signal which is shifted in time, and Faraday is talking to the future in the case of the rocket, and to the past in the case of the corpse. There has been an example of this communication phenomena in a Star Trek episode (a Deep Space Nine one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Her_Voice), where a planet and a starship are in sync with regards to time, but the communication signal between the two of them is being shifted in time. In the episode, the ship races to save someone on the planet surface even though she is already dead – their signal is shifted in time so they are talking to her in the past when she was still alive.
If the Swan is indeed linked to the Orchid somehow, and is dispersing some sort of energy that was at one time used by the Orchid, perhaps this 'dump' of the energy every 108 minutes is producing a time-shift effect around the Island? Whether it is shifting the whole Island, or producing some sort of 'halo' which shifts communications passing through it, I don’t know.
Perhaps the Incident is when the Swan power surge was sent through to the Orchid to trigger the 'exotic matter', something went wrong, and the time-shift halo around the Island was created? Hence Chang's warning not to use the Swan computer for communication (not realising that WHH, so you can't change the past with the computer).
We have seen both Locke and Ben turn the FDW, and be transported in time AND SPACE. They are moved to the Tunisian desert, and a period of time seems to have elapsed. I argue this against the fact that time is running at different speeds on the Island compared to the outside world, and they have been transported instantaneously to the desert, as this opens a can of worms with regards to how this time shift would have affected the clocks of Michael, Tom, Widmore, and other people that have left the Island. The issue is that Ben and Locke seem to have 'lost' different amounts of time even though they both turned the same FDW and ended up in the same desert. Given that the polar bear seems to have also ended up in the desert, but I doubt it used the FDW, can we assume it was sent using the Orchid vault? Did it travel BACKWARDS in time in order to decompose so thoroughly before Charlotte saw it?
Was the Orchid station abandoned because something went terribly wrong (the Incident), or because they considered the Orchid as useless? Was the polar bear the Orchid test subject, and possibly involved in the Incident? The Swan energy source was used to 'trigger' the Orchid exotic matter in order for the vault to work - Dharma thought they were sending the bear FORWARD in time where it would arrive back in the vault, but it vanished before their eyes and never came back? So they considered the experiment a failure and abandoned the Orchid? Or did the Incident occur, sending the bear to the desert, creating the time-shift halo, and maybe damaging Chang’s arm?
For a start, any theory that mentions 'iterations' or 'loops' is going against WHH, for pure WHH would contend that the future has never been changed by someone travelling to their past, so there has only ever been one 'iteration', only ever one 'loop'.
Another theory which is picking up pace is that of time dilation. I'm not on board with the wormhole/blackhole theories regarding this, as it just doesn't make any sense if you apply General Relativity to them - the fact that the rest of the planet doesn't seem to be ripped apart by the gravitational effects needed to produce the dilation required.
We have been given examples of something weird happening with regards to time when objects and/or people try to move between the Island and 'the outside world'. For example, people on the Island with the corpse of the dead doctor (Ray) at their feet were able to communicate to the freighter where the doctor was still alive. With regards to the doctor's causal time line, they were talking to 'the past' as the doctor has not yet died. If the freighter crew knew what they were on about, they'd realise that they were talking to 'the future' with regards to the doctor's time line. Would he have been able to ask the people on the Island to examine the corpse to see how he died, so he could try to avoid dying? WHH says no.
Does this also apply to Faraday's experiment with the rocket? It is sent from the freighter, but is 'late'. He calls the freighter but they have already sent it. If this were the same scenario as the doctor, then the rocket should have arrived before the freighter sent it. It could be argued that the Island is now 'ahead' of the freighter, in that the rocket is delayed by having to 'catch up' with the Island to arrive to Faraday in the future. Are the Island and the outside world out of sync with regards to time, and the phase difference between the two is constantly changing? Perhaps the frequency of this oscillation is ~ 0.154 mHz – in other words, it returns back to its starting point after 108 minutes? This may explain why the doctor ended up on the Island before he died (i.e. 'early') but the rocket ended up 'late', and also the comments made about the tides on the Island?
[Weird coincidence: if we assume the Ancients had eight fingers and toes based on the statue, and thus operated in base-8 rather than base-10 (decimal), then '108' by them would be written as '154', and "once every 108 minutes" expressed as Hertz is 0.154 mHz. The Dharma symbols are all 8-sided too - perhaps these symbols weren’t 'created' by Dharma at all, but originated from the Ancients, and were taken on by Dharma when they arrived on the Island? Another side note: why does the Swan clock show hieroglyph symbols when the button hasn't been pressed? This would imply that the warning sign to say "Warning! Press the button now!" was designed for someone who could read hieroglyphs?]
Or it could be that the Island and the freighter are in sync with regards to time, and it’s just the communication signal which is shifted in time, and Faraday is talking to the future in the case of the rocket, and to the past in the case of the corpse. There has been an example of this communication phenomena in a Star Trek episode (a Deep Space Nine one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Her_Voice), where a planet and a starship are in sync with regards to time, but the communication signal between the two of them is being shifted in time. In the episode, the ship races to save someone on the planet surface even though she is already dead – their signal is shifted in time so they are talking to her in the past when she was still alive.
If the Swan is indeed linked to the Orchid somehow, and is dispersing some sort of energy that was at one time used by the Orchid, perhaps this 'dump' of the energy every 108 minutes is producing a time-shift effect around the Island? Whether it is shifting the whole Island, or producing some sort of 'halo' which shifts communications passing through it, I don’t know.
Perhaps the Incident is when the Swan power surge was sent through to the Orchid to trigger the 'exotic matter', something went wrong, and the time-shift halo around the Island was created? Hence Chang's warning not to use the Swan computer for communication (not realising that WHH, so you can't change the past with the computer).
We have seen both Locke and Ben turn the FDW, and be transported in time AND SPACE. They are moved to the Tunisian desert, and a period of time seems to have elapsed. I argue this against the fact that time is running at different speeds on the Island compared to the outside world, and they have been transported instantaneously to the desert, as this opens a can of worms with regards to how this time shift would have affected the clocks of Michael, Tom, Widmore, and other people that have left the Island. The issue is that Ben and Locke seem to have 'lost' different amounts of time even though they both turned the same FDW and ended up in the same desert. Given that the polar bear seems to have also ended up in the desert, but I doubt it used the FDW, can we assume it was sent using the Orchid vault? Did it travel BACKWARDS in time in order to decompose so thoroughly before Charlotte saw it?
Was the Orchid station abandoned because something went terribly wrong (the Incident), or because they considered the Orchid as useless? Was the polar bear the Orchid test subject, and possibly involved in the Incident? The Swan energy source was used to 'trigger' the Orchid exotic matter in order for the vault to work - Dharma thought they were sending the bear FORWARD in time where it would arrive back in the vault, but it vanished before their eyes and never came back? So they considered the experiment a failure and abandoned the Orchid? Or did the Incident occur, sending the bear to the desert, creating the time-shift halo, and maybe damaging Chang’s arm?
