Lift It Up, Part1? by SpLoDGe

Inspired by Faraday’s explanation of the island being like a spinning record and theories following this analogy I would like to put in my two pennies worth. It has been mentioned on this site that when Desmond spoke to Jack in the stadium and he told him to “lift it up” he may have been using an analogy similar to the one that Faraday used. He meant the stylus of a record player. Time as a track on a record and the stylus plotting the course of the present. In fact I think this is the way that the frozen donkey wheel works. It resets time on island like taking the needle off the record at the end of the song and putting it back on near the start of the same song. When the wheel was turned the stylus was taken off 2004 and put back down on 1977. The song then replays from that point and the people relive their lives without any knowledge of the future or that they have done it before. I suspect that the isl! and does something similar naturally, since Mrs Hawking said the island was always out of time. The island could have been replaying time over and over.

Maybe this is why the people on the island get a sense of déjà vu, like Kate recognising Charlie or Rose’s exclamations of déjà vu when they first came to the island. The Others may have a stronger feeling of déjà vu after countless enactments or many plays of the record or maybe they have learned of this phenomenon. I recall the comment from Ben to Richard, “You do remember birthday’s don’t you, Richard?” as if they’ve given up on celebrating them. Dharma may have inoculated themselves from the effects with vaccines handed out to staff arriving on the island. I think that the person who is in the FDW chamber is able to overcome the memory loss. I think that turning the wheel floods the chamber with EM and it sends the mind of the person within the chamber back in time into their past self. Ben for example has become the leader of the Others because of his future knowledge. I remember all the times people have made comments like, “You’re not supposed to! ” do something or other and Ben said that about the O6 leaving the island, they weren’t meant to leave. There a high chance that he would have had this knowledge of the future from 1974, since that’s where the most of the survivors of 815 ended up.

This phenomenon is similar to what Desmond experienced when he was hit with electromagnetism after he turned the failsafe key. It was a permanent thing for Ben unlike Desmond, I believe that Ben was able to know everything he’d experienced in the future from the point from when his mind from 2004 entered his 1974 body. Since he was, lets say, 9 years old, just for this theory and if the idea of him resetting time to 1974 is correct. Desmond just seemed to just have flashes into his past and he was going backwards and forwards through time. Daniel explained it in The Constant, “it is unpredictable”. I think that the wheel makes it potable and permanent somehow. Perhaps the containment of the electromagnetism in the chamber makes the process more permanent.

If Ben has knowledge of the future then putting the wheel off its axis was intentional. If he knows that the survivors of 815 crashed on the island, then he will know what he is accomplishing by sending them to the past. He remembers that they were there and then over the years he has discovered why and what can be done, he wants to change something. I believe that Ben realised that it was Locke turning the wheel that sent them to the 70’s so he got in their first to do something different. He cannot change the fact that they went to the past because if he does things might not turn out as they should. He wants the timeline to unfold as he remembers it or he won’t know what will happen and he will not be able to change it. If he knows which event follows which other event then the timeline is plottable and can be manipulated. Think of the theories about the paper which Caesar found. It’s all about little pushes. He sent them to other points in time along the way, those! time shifts. Are those pivitol meoments where having knowledge of the future at that point in time would have helped the characters make the correct decision. In that case maybe he was influencing them all along.

I think little pushes have been going on throughout the show. What we think of as flashbacks are actually people with knowledge of the future manipulating the past. When we see a flashback it is actually a new memory or new events which happen to a character’s past. Sayid is an excellent example, he only became an interrogator because of Inman. Convenient that Inman was in Sayid’s past, no? Inman did not need Sayid to interrogate his commanding officer because he spoke the language himself. Inman wanted Sayid to learn about interrogating and changed his path in life. Did Inman have knowledge of the future of the island? Why else would he want to manipulate Sayid in this way? I think Inman could have turned the wheel and maybe that’s the job of the Others and how Jacob can brings people to the island, by changing the course of their destiny with little pushes. Did Desmond also give Jack more faith because he was able to save Sarah? Did Jack really save her or was her si! tuation not as desperate as he thought? Did someone change Sarah’s accident so that she could be saved, maybe not, but Desmond giving him such a pep talk before he saves her to bolster Jack’s belief in faith not science?

JACK: Her name's Sarah.
DESMOND: What'd you do to her then?
JACK: Do to her?
DESMOND: You must have done something worthy of this self-flagellation.
JACK: I told her -- I made a promise I couldn't keep -- I told her I'd fix her and I couldn't. I failed.
DESMOND: Well, right. Just one thing -- what if you did fix her?
JACK: I didn't.
DESMOND: But what if you did?
JACK: You don't know what you're talking about, man.
DESMOND: I don't? Why not?
JACK: Because with her situation that would be a miracle, brother.
DESMOND: Oh, and you don't believe in miracles? [Jack chuckles and shakes his head.] Right. Well then, I'm going to give you some advice anyway. You have to lift it up. (He may be saying "lift her up".)
JACK: Lift it up?
DESMOND: Your ankle. You've got to keep it elevated. It's been nice chatting.
JACK: Jack.
DESMOND: Jack, I'm Desmond. Good luck, brother. See you in another life, yeah?

Now that is a Desmond who is acting on knowledge of the future, right there. Does Jack have to lift up the stylus off the record player and replay the song? That’s not my idea, I stole that one. I wish I could give credit where credit’s due but I forget who said in on this forum.

When Des tells Jack to “lift it up” is he telling him that he needs to turn the wheel? If Ben and Locke failed then maybe Jack can do a better job. Maybe we are yet to see an alternate universe where Jack is the leader with future knowledge. That could be a way for the writers to show us what has been going on all along. If we were to watch Jack turn the wheel and see him act with knowledge from the future then maybe we (as viewers) will then come to realize that’s what John did and that’s when Ben did and when they had turned the wheel. That their minds were sent into their own bodies in the past and were acting on knowledge from the future. Maybe these are the different plays of the record or iterations of time on the island each one led by a different person who has turned the wheel and we have been watching a mix of them all. Maybe Jack did turn the wheel but we just haven’t seen it yet.

I think that déjà vu is the first stage to understanding the island. The second stage is true knowledge of the future which comes from turning the wheel. I think we have been watching this progression for the different characters on the show with scenes mixed in together from different iterations. Could the final stage be a progression of understanding which makes a person God-like, such as Jacob? Perhaps all Jacob is, is a man with a higher level of understanding or knowledge of the future. Can he see the future from the beginning of time or does he have to write it down?