Lost Island is not reality, it's Jacob's/Dharma's Test Tube by Ursula Pitino

Ok. Stay with me and don't tell me to smoke another until you digest everything and place any detail of the show in.

Dharma new the end of the world was coming and the date is calculated. I presume they think (since this is the peak of the cold war) it will be by war and not natural destruction. They begin a series of studies on human behavior and heuristics, Pushing senseless buttons, etc. All data is stored. Daniel Faraday kept a journal of his time travel theories, but it also had alot of info on Dharma, a secretive operation so I assume he had a connection with them when he tested the machine on himself. We learned that he suffers from memory loss from experimenting on himself. When he travels through time, only it is travel of the consciousness. Theoretically, you can have someone gone consciously for let's say, 3 year and have them return only a few minutes later to the real life. Of coarse, as we have seen, Daniel's own girlfriend suffered temporal displacement and perhaps is stuck in the alternate consciousness. Jacob is a rep of Dharma that uses the islands properties to hold peop! le's consciousness to study their behavior in an isolated society. Others are presumed to have come before and in typical Lord of the Flies fashion:" They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same."JACOB: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress. Smokey is almost like a computer, collecting people's experiences for behavioral study. Dharma realizes that some people may become temporally displaced, but they consider it a greater good to save humanity, so if a certain percentage dies, it is a means to a greater end. MIB is one of these and resents and hates "Jacob" for it.

Consider some facts:
1. They crash on a strange island. Jack wakes up but doesn't remember everything. We know there is a time discrepancy between the real hour they crashed and the island time.

2. There's a smoke monster, whispers, dead people, time travel. Things that obviously don't happen in the real world.

3. We are shown flashes of their past lives, and it's uncanny how everyone is so interconnected even from before the plane crash.

4. Ben, Eloise, and Widmore seem to know what is going to happen and are manipulating people, but only when they need to be put back on track. I'm still not sure who the "others" are in this scheme and need to work it out

5. Jacob's rule is he cannot tell you what to do, because it is a test of leadership, morality, and most importantly to them, how to live in peace. I can't even count how many people have been killed on the show so far, but it is far more than people on a remote island should be doing I presume.

4. The "candidates" all have had their share of troubles and all consider themselves a victim of their circumstances. They have not taken control or responsibility for their actions and lives until now on the island
Jack: has trouble with situations out of his control and doesn't know how to deal with failure
Kate is the runner
Sayid turns to violence and coercion
Hurley thinks his life is all bad luck and can't actively try to change it
Sun/Jin can't stand up to authority
Sawyer uses deceit to get to his ends
I'm going to assume the last on is Locke, who despite being dealt the worst cards out of all is known as a man of faith, and famous for "don't tell me what I can't do.
What a motley crue to replace a perceived God! The truth is any leader and human has all these faults to varying degrees. The question is who is the most moral and can serve as a role model for human peace. Who and how can they grow. We assume the candidate will replace Jacob, but in fact, will become the model of leadership in their test.

5. A war is being planned and it is the final decision time, to test the candidates and see who can end it in peace. Only Desmond is trying to wake everyone up before the final exam! That's why Eloise said "you're not ready"

6. There have been many references to the "rules". Ben said it when Alex was killed. Obviously MIB was told this, and it has been referenced other times.

Think about it, if MIB wants to get off so badly he can turn the donkeywheel and exit in the Tunisian Desert anytime. I would have to assume when the Oceanic 6 and Ben go back it's still alternate reality somehow then. He obviously has Locke's memories to know about it. He must know the game but for some reason can't cheat. Desmond will somehow convince Flocke to become Locke, by giving him a near death experience. The candidates role however, is to stick together till the end and prevent destruction. Desmond will help them get their bearings by finding their constants.

Game Over

Losties are back on the plane. The answer is Locke and Jack are both candidates, for after all, isn't life about balance; man of sicence/man of faith, one that agonizes over decisions and one that has leaps of faith, black and white.