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My stance is that if Daniel never sent Des back, then he would not have found the right calculations. At least he would not have followed the path that lead to the island. I think that Daniel in 1996 always met with Desmond (if only his blasted memory would let him remember Des back on the island!) However “Desmond Hume will be my constant” proves they met.

Future-Dan told Desmond the settings as a way to prove to past-Dan that they had actually met, it was strictly brought up in that context.

That would suggest that the only reason Des travelled from Glasgow to Oxford on his two days off was to watch a rat run through a maze and nothing else. He didn’t learn anything that Dan couldn’t have told him on the telephone in the present.

I don’t understand how future Daniel can tell his past self the settings if he learnt them from his futureself? It just goes in a loop, the settings can’t just materialise from nowhere. Like you say he must have refined his experiment in the years leading up to 2004. Therefore it’s got to create an “alternate” timeline, as this would have changed the future surely if his future intervenes with his past?? Pfft. I’m really confused too >.<

Also, how did Eloise run the maze using info. from the future if Daniel never actually teaches Eloise to run the maze after it has done so.

JacksEyes, you bring up a great point. Everything that 1996 Dan told Desmond, 2004 Daniel could have told him over the phone.

Daniel was obviously a little spoofed when he heard what was happening to Desmond on the plane. I think that Daniel manipulated Desmond in a way so that 1996 Desmond would go to Oxford and meet 1996 Daniel. This would lead to Daniel having a constant in Desmond if the same happened to him. Hence “if anything goes wrong Desmond Hume is my Constant”.

If he just told Des over the phone in 2004 “You need a constant” it would have helped Des just the same. He would have called Penny and it would have been over with. But, I think Daniel moreso wanted to help himself in this episode.

Yes, I believe that Daniel needed Des to show up as his constant, but I also believe that Daniel didn’t already know the calculations. He appeared to be excited to try it out on Eloise. He wouldn’t have done that if he had already known them. And I am with out Rose - how could Eloise have run the maze, knowing the future, if she dies before Daniel can teach it to her?

Lostandgone, 1996 Daniel did not know the calculations, but somewhere between then and now he did figure them out on his own. That is how he knew what to tell Desmond in 2004.

And Eloise died about 75 minutes after the experiment. Remember, Des woke up and Daniel told him he had been out for 75 minutes. So in the time Desmond was passed out, Daniel could have taught Eloise the maze. We don’t know what he was doing during that time.

Everyone seems to think Eloise never runs the maze in the future, so how does she ever learn to run it right? Wrong, Eloise does run it in the future. We saw it in the episode that she ran the maze right after he used the machine. That was the future compared to when he was using the machine on eloise.

But how can you teach Eloise to run the maze, if she already knows how to run it…since she has “been” to the future and learn’t it from there.

How can you ever orignally learn it if you were taught it from something which relies upon you learning it from something your going to do in the future due to learning it from the future? … hmm…

But who taught her how to do it?

However, my question remains, why did Desmond have to go to Oxford at all.

The only answer so far is from irocz28, and its a reasonable one, to provide Daniel with a constant. Maybe Daniel is now a bit more stable too.

You all are forgetting that Desmond was going to die unless he found a constant. He needed to make contact with Penny in 1996 AND 2004 in order to survive. He did not remember the number so had to make contact in 1996 so he could call her in 2004. Daniel knew this and also needs desmond as a constant.

Puchinta, Desmond made contact with Penny in 1996 over the telephone at the army barracks. And how did Daniel know that Desmond didn’t know the number?

I stand by the thought that the only reason Daniel told Desmond to go to Oxford was to provide him with a constant to help himself, not to help Desmond. I think the writers purposely made this blatently clear for us on the last scene.

I thought the reason he had to go back was to get the phone number for Penny, his constant - if Dan just told him over the phone to find his constant that would have been useless as he didn’t have Pennys number & Penny wouldn’t have been waiting for his call either?

Maybe Desmond was told to go to Oxford to talk to Past Daniel just because the alarm had been alerted on the boat, and Daniel knew that it gave him too little time to talk to Desmond via the phone about what was going on.

And i agree with what HeroHurley said, it would have been easier if Daniel just said about him needing a ‘constant’ but … in the perspective of the episode layout, with the alternating between times, the information gathered from each ‘blackout’ was quite convienenant as each helped come to the conclusion that Desmond could ring Penny (e.g. Past Desmond convientantly made it to Penny and got her number just before he woke up and Sayid fixed the phone)

New to the site. Been reading a while, finally registered. I read this theory about Eloise someplace else, it may have been here…..its all a blur!

The reason Eloise died, is preceisely because Daniel did not teach her the maze. When she reached the point where she was actually supposed to learn the maze and didn’t, her brain couldn’t assimilate the knowing of the maze with the not ever learning it. The two timelines didn’t match up causing some sort of brain infarction. We see this start to happen with Desmond and the guy from the ship (nosebleeds). Maybe because Eloise has a rat sized brain and Desmond has a human sized brain, he is able to withstand more of the time inconsistancies before his brain infarcts completely. Not sure how the constant works into this theory. Possibly just having a constant allows a person to get past the differences between the present/past/future?

That makes alot of sense now. Thanx for clearing that up, golionsgirl :)

Maybe the first time Daniel ever saw the warning in his notebook was on the Island after he had helped Desmond. Maybe it hadn’t “materialised” there until after he did what he did. Maybe he was surprised to it and was reading something that had just appeared (in his own handwriting) in his journal.

I have to go along with what golionsgirl said, it makes sense.

This discussion seems to have timeshifted forward to the next page “The Rat Problem”.

Just to add though,. I like LouisWu idea of the new notes appearing in Dan’s book. Could this be comparable to the picture frame changing in Miles’ flashback?