Bad Twin Case Study by Syphon1980

A couple months ago, my brother in law and myself had a debate about a family member of ours that has a gambling addiction/con artist. His stance on the situation was that because of her upbringing (or lack of) was the cause for her turning out the way she did. I was playing devil’s advocate and said that some people just have it innately in them to be a certain way (ie why hounds innately know to travel in packs, or a bird migrates back to the same breeding grounds each year).

(Tangent alert!) One thing we did agree on was the concept of choice: If you don’t choose your genetics and a persons actions are based on upbringing (knowledge that has been taught) and randomness (ie walking down a dark alley you get mugged, next time you would more likely avoid a dark alley), do we actually make choices?

Anyway, back to the debate. One of my key arguments for determining what is innate/genetic/nature vs. taught/nurture was case studies on twins. Twins are genetically similar or identical (nature) and if they are separated to some degree we can interpret how their experiences (nurture) can affect the person they become. Watching “Across the sea” reminded me about this debate and made me think Jacob is the control and MiB is the experiment to see how they differ due to experience differences.

An additional aspect of Lost has reinforced this idea of twin studies. What is the purpose of the flash sideways? We have genetically identical copies of the characters yet their experiences are somewhat different how does that affect outcome. Take for instance Desmond, regardless of situation he gravitates towards Penny.

Although this may be a "way off" theory it definitely is an interesting perspective of Lost. It also begs the question of, “What is fate?”. Is it the natural outcome that a person innately gravitates towards or is it something more mystical? Nothing is black and white, pardon the pun (puns are the ugly bastard children of comedy), or clear cut and that may the biggest red herring. If so we may need to re-evaluate our preconceptions of good/evil, fate/choice and nurture/nature.