LOST-Theories.com

OK. I’ve been grappling with the mysteries of LOST as has everyone else here, and I’ve come up with many incomplete theories, and for that reason, never posted. But a theory by segwaypirate dovetailed with some theories I myself have had and finally gave me the confidence to post. So, really, this is half his/ her doing. Segway’s theory was a reiteration of the Novikov self-consistency principle:

if you traveled back in time it would be to the same three dimensional brain that you left instead of creating a “new timeline” in history. In other words, you could travel back in time but physics would not allow you to change anything that would create a paradox. For example, if you went back in time and decided to shoot your own grandfather before he met your grandmother, the gun would jam or the bullet would miss or the guy would turn out to not be your real grandfather. No matter what you did the probability of succeeding would be 0. The principle suggests that it is impossible to create a paradox by going back in time….

Michael shooting himself would have prevented him from setting in motion an action that will affect the past.

I think this principle, elegantly presented by Segwaypirate, explains a lot on LOST.

But first, let me present my theory before I link it to Segways to explain why Aaron is with Kate, why Jin is not with Sun, etc.

As long as you’re alive in the present moment, you can’t have died in the past; that would present a paradox. We accept that because a dead person can’t come back to life—simple cause and effect. If you die in 2008, you have to be alive in 2004. Similarly, if you travel back in time from 2008 to 2004, whatever brought you to the place where you are in 2008—the circumstances that lead to you getting into your “time machine”—would have to happen in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 to lead to 2008, and the moment that gets you to your time machine, otherwise, you will not get back to the present moment that took you to the past in the first place. You must get to that point, and whatever got you to that point has to happen.

Let’s say you were poor in 2008 and decided to go back in time because you were poor and wanted to change your fortune. Well, even if you stave off poverty from 2004 to 2007, sometime in 2008 you will be poor again so that you can get in that time machine and change your destiny. This is the course correction part Ms. Hawking talked about—you can only forestall the inevitable for so long.

Let’s say, that you’re a scientist, and you’re naturally curious and, rich or poor, you’d hop in a time machine just because you were a curious scientist. Well, the universe will not course correct to make you rich or poor, it will course correct to make you a scientist.

So it is the moment one enters the past that is the moment that must be preserved. The closer one gets to that moment, the absolute less wiggle room there is. The most improbable events will be weeded out—not by fate, but by statistical improbability itself. The laws of probability state that a tennis ball, hit up against a backboard an infinite number of times, can align its atomic structure to go through the backboard cleanly and come out on the other side, the backboard intact. It is statistically improbable, and it could take a million years to happen, but it’s not impossible.

What is the moment all the Losties share? The moment of the crash. That is their entrance to the “time machine” of the island. That present moment, therefore, must be preserved. If it is not, it will create a paradox—or 325 paradoxes, to be more precise. If the Losties enter the time machine of the island, where they (most likely) go back in time, then everything else that happens in their past MUST align to get them there. If it does not, there will be no “present” self that enabled them to “go back in time” in the first place.

Thought of this way, the ridiculous “conincidences” and mere one or two degrees of separation between the Losties make a lot more sense. All the various Losties “universal course corrections” will have to get them to the same place, on the same flight, in the same section of the plane, so there paths are BOUND to cross. Think of it this way. Let’s say you go to work at a box factory, and all your coworkers came from disparate parts of San Diego to do so. Well, you are less likely to run into your coworker at 5 AM when you’re getting your donut and coffee near your house and coworker X is 30 miles away getting donuts and coffee near his house than at 7AM when you are both approaching the parking lot. You expect to see your coworker then, or even pulling into the parking lot, or even at the stoplight near the factory. You wouldn’t expect to see your coworker on the earlier end of your morning, when your houses are 30 miles apart. BUT, if you and your coworker were both sent to the past at a point 1 mile outside your door, circumstance would have to flow in the direction that would enable your coworker to be 1 mile from your door, and you would be more likely to “run into” your coworker. It is simple probability.

As for the plane crash itself, I think the paradox theory allows for this more than any other explanation I’ve heard. If you are guaranteed to enter the time machine of the island, the Novikov self consistency principle “keeps you alive” to be able to do so, otherwise, there would be a paradox.

The thing that brought you to the island, if you are on an island, has to happen. The thing that brought you to the airport that got you to the island has to happen. The thing that brought you to the tail section of the plane which is the only section that will fall without incurring damage has to happen, the fact that the tail section survives intact with everyone in it has to happen because you were on an island, alive, so, somehow you had to get there, so some fluke in the tail section has to occur to get you there. Fate is just probability spelled backwards (ok, not literally, but circumstantially ;-) The paradox principle is where fate/destiny and science meet.

If I remember correctly, at first, Charlie didn’t know how to swim—then somehow, he was a swimming champion, able to dive that far to the Looking Glass Station—I think this was a reworking of the past to prevent a paradox.

Also, there’s Desmond seeing Charlie on the street corner, busking…obviously, Desmond has been to the island and has knowledge fo Charlie, but Charlie doesn’t know who Desmond is…Desmond is carrying his “present” knowledge with him into the past when he relives it—as long as he doesn’t “change” anything, it’s all right…and I think that’s why Desmond is the key: able to go back and forth in time, he, and he alone is allowed to tweek it so that “everything works”– I know I’m getting vague here…

Onto pregnancies: If you come to the island/time portal pregnant, you’re OK, because being pregnant is a condition of your entrance, a part of your existence upon entering the past, and thus, will not cause a paradox, but if you aren’t already pregnant in the “present” then entering the past and working your way up back to your pregnant state will mean you will have to become “unpregnant.” An example: you are not pregnant in April 2008, but you go to the past of February 2008 and become pregnant. Well, somehow, to get you back to the state you were in in April 2008, you will have to become “unpregnant” because that’s how you entered the past. This is explains why Claire delivered Aaron OK and Danielle delivered Alex OK (if Alex really is Danielle’s). But….

If Sun, getting pregnant on the island, were to stay on the island, pregnant, the baby will be negated to prevent any sort of paradox, since she was NOT pregnant when she got on the island (because, if she’d been pregnant previously, there is a probability that she may not have left Korea in the first place, an that can not be the case is she is to be on the island). But is she is to leave the island, she is no longer in danger of creating a paradox. Jin, however, if he were to leave the island, would be. If he were to leave the island, he could potentially undo having created Ji Yeon. So he must stay (or that, at least, is my theory). I do not think he is dead…

As for Aaron. I think if Claire leaves the island she will only be able to do so having “undone” Aaron. Aaron would have to die so as not to enable a paradox. But he is free to go on his own. Or with someone who wasn’t pregnant (Kate!). As for how Alex grew up—I think it was the best of both worlds for Ben—he could raise Alex, but also leave the island, as it wouldn’t undo her existence, since he was not her real father.

As for the smoke monster—I don’t know. I’ve always thought that stills of pics of Flight 815 with the black smoke trailing from behind always reminded me of a version of the smoke monster. But the smoke monster obviously pre-dates Flight 815 or Danielle wouldn’t have known about it…so, maybe the original smoke monster came from Yemi’s Beechcraft? Amelia Earhart’s plane? I believe the smoke is a manifestation of “trapped time,” and it does resemble arcs of space through timebut, that part is a stretch (perhaps all of this is a stretch, but this is one humble woman’s attempt at a theory!)

Key characters

Short Name	Full Name	Episodes	Theories
Bernard	Bernard Nadler	2.19, 2.7	131
Charlie	Charlie Pace	1.7, 1.2, 2.10, 1.24, 3.21	403

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
3.22	Through The Looking Glass	5-23-2007	Jack	1252
3.8	Flashes Before Your Eyes	2-14-2007	Penny	233
1.10	Raised by Another	12-1-2004	Claire	104
1.4	Walkabout	10-14-2004	John	116

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