When Alternate Realities Collide...

I've long believed that the events of the Lost Experience ("TLE") were meant to parallel what's happening on the show. I suspect, for example, that Ben imprisoned Jacob much like Thomas Mittelwerk did Alvar Hanso. But after the Season 3 finale's intriguing hints of a parallel "looking glass" reality, I think the connections may well run deeper and prove even more direct. Fans will recall that TLE was billed as an "alternate reality game." At the time, I interpreted this description as an attempt to capitalize on the popular ARG phenomenon, as well as a metaphorical comment on the effort to build a new world for Lost on-line. Now, however, I wonder if this characterization of TLE events as constituting an "alternate reality" was meant to be quite literal.

I'm not referring to the Island itself, which is more like a conduit between worlds. I submit that the survivors of Oceanic 815 left our reality when they crashed, then entered the alternative TLE reality when Naomi's freighter rescued them. The major clue for me is Christian being alive in the big flash forward. But even if Jack's references to his dad were the ravings of an addict, Kate's appearance sans disguise, driving a nice car and maybe even married(!) points to some pretty major changes. Then there's the funeral, which I'm assuming was for someone they (and we) knew well. We didn't learn precisely who because the deceased, unlike Jack, apparently adopted an alias upon returning to society. Maybe this person discovered that he/she was already dead or never existed in TLE reality...



Remember Geronimo Jackson, the band whose album we saw in the Swan Station? I'd never heard of them and neither had Charlie, despite being a self-professed expert in all things musical. Yet Rachel Blake (i.e., a TLE character who turned out to be Hanso's granddaughter) casually quoted a Geronimo Jackson song as if we'd be sure to get her reference. I believe this is because Geronimo Jackson (like Blake and Hanso both) actually originated in TLE reality. Admittedly, a few people in our world know of the band -- the writers and Eddie (i.e., the undercover cop who got a Geronimo Jackson t-shirt from his father). But these anomalous appearances are actually exceptions that probe the rule -- they suggest that TLE reality is bleeding into our own, presumably via the Island conduit...



So how does the Island serve as this bridge between alternative realities? Whether by freak of nature or advanced technology, the Island exists out of phase with TLE reality and our own, occupying both and neither simultaneously. As a result, people and things can cross from one world to the next via the Island -- the trick is finding it in the first place. My suspicion is that knowing the right physical location is not enough by itself. Access further requires that the Island be in phase with reality like guitar strings vibrating together in harmony. That's the significance of the Looking Glass code, which was the opening notes to Good Vibrations. It also explains Charlie's reference to the Flash, who traveled to parallel earths in the DC Multiverse by vibrating at different frequencies.



Another important clue along these lines may actually be the Numbers. Most interpretations focus on the symbolism of specific numerals or the mathematical relationships between them. Few, however, consider the significance of six, which is the total number of Numbers. It turns out that six is the minimum number of values required to specify the state of an object at any given moment in three-dimensional space -- three components of position plus three more of momentum or velocity. Sometimes, for statistical purposes, it's useful to imagine the object moving through a six-dimensional "phase space" wherein each point along its trajectory can be expressed as a list of six numbers describing a different state of the object in question. Here's a phase portrait of a simple pendulum:



Phase space is imaginary and can't be experienced like physical space. But the concept may nonetheless be crucial to finding the Island because it describes more than just physical location. Practically speaking, the Island must attain the proper energy state, as expressed by all six of the Numbers, to be in phase with (and thus visible to) both realities. The Swan Station was apparently designed to make the Island inaccessible by preventing it from reaching that energy state. When Desmond was late entering the code, Swan's containment system briefly failed, allowing the Island to reach an energy state that made it visible to Oceanic 815. Now that Swan has imploded, the Island may be permanently in phase, or cycling regularly in and out of phase, with our reality and TLE's.

But wait, you might be wondering, didn't TLE establish that the Numbers refer somehow to humanity's extinction? In fact, they do, and here's where things get really interesting. I mentioned in passing that depicting trajectories through imaginary phase space is sometimes useful for statistical purposes. More specifically, such phase portraits are used in all manner of fields to make probabilistic predictions about the future behavior of dynamical systems. Enzo Valenzetti was, of course, a mathematician and expert in probability. His eponymous equation could presumably be depicted as an abstract phase portrait. That's why the Numbers are the "core factors" of the Valenzetti -- they describe the starting point for the Apocalypse in 6-D phase space.

So why is the Island ground zero for this impending catastrophe? Ironically, it's the fault of the Dharma Initiative, which hailed from TLE reality. Somehow, in the course of studying the Island, the scientists inadvertently created a link with our world (i.e., the first Incident). That allowed people and things to cross over from our reality into TLE's -- and vice versa -- creating countless paradoxes large and small. The Swan Station was basically, as Kelvin suggests, a plug in a giant dam. It was meant to prevent further leakage between our two worlds, which Dharma realized -- too late -- would cause humanity's extinction in both realities. Unfortunately, Swan merely postponed the inevitable catastrophic merging of these twin realities, much like Desmond only delayed Charlie's demise.



The merging process resumed with the crash of Oceanic 815, when the Island briefly reached 4,8,15,16,23,42 due to Desmond's delay in entering the code. Now that Swan has imploded, and the Island occupies this six-Number state on a regular or permanent basis, the process should accelerate. Indeed, as several posters have noted, the purple sky that followed Swan's implosion echoes the "red sky" event in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which presaged the merging of the DC Multiverse into a unified reality, destroying all other parallel earths. The survivors of Oceanic 815 are merely one manifestation of a similar phenomenon. Another is people with special abilities like Desmond and Walt. In a nod to Donnie Darko, they're "living receivers" whose powers are meant to facilitate this merging of "tangent universes" into one.



So is it really inevitable that we all die as a result of this merging? That's where the analogy to Charlie saving Desmond comes back into play. Des wondered if taking Charlie's place might somehow free the latter from his cycle of inevitable death. Along similar lines, I wonder whether one reality might be preserved by somehow sacrificing its twin. In fact, if you really want to follow me down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass, consider the possibility that there's a hidden fight for the future presently taking place on Lost. Perhaps the end game of the show will be all about whether light or dark prevails when alternate realities collide...