Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

In 108: Restoring the Lost Sun, I speculated that Hanso planned to use the Island to safeguard his master race from whatever apocalyptic hell befell the rest of humanity. But where is the Island, and why can't anyone see it? As Sawyer's reading of a Wrinkle in Time suggests, the answer to both questions lies in the 4th Dimension.

Background
Once again, the "rainbow" of Revelation 4-3-2 provides a clue. Pinnerman first persuaded me that the Philadelphia Experiment, aka "Project Rainbow," is a major influence on the show. And I've long loved clayseason's speculation that the Island is located inside a tesseract accessible via portals accross the planet.


(Adapted with permission from CS's Wrinkle in Time thread.)

Mysterious jazzman unified these ideas with his provocative suggestion that the Island was inside a hypersphere (i.e., the 4D equivalent of the 3D sphere). Another key insight was yung's that the Island's origins yielded its own magnetic field out of synch with the earth's. The final puzzle piece was magnetic resonance imaging, which lacenaire highlighted with this intriguing screencap on Freud Meets the Matrix.



Nuclear magnetic resonance results when an oscillating (e.g., rotating or alternating) magnetic field is applied at a right angle to a static (e.g., permanent) magnetic field. Such magnetic resonance has many useful real-world applications, most notably the aforementioned MRI technology in medical diagnosis. That much is science.

Any serious scientist will also tell you that gravity and electromagnetism are two separate and unrelated forces. Einstein struggled in vain to find a unified field theory, a goal that remains the holy grail of physics. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientific types insist the distinction is illusory, that the right electromangetic force will affect space-time just like gravity.



The "how" goes back to Nikola Tesla, whose scientific discoveries formed the basis of MRI technology. Tesla claimed to have discovered a new type of longitudinal (as opposed to transverse) scalar electromagnetic wave. Some say his experiments using such longitudinal scalar waves to transmit power wirelessly were the true cause of the Tunguska devastation.



Late in life, Tesla further claimed to have used these concepts to unify the fields in a dynamic theory of gravity. He never published his claims but they nonetheless spawned an entire pseudo-science of scalar electromagnetics. Proponents believe that gravity is really the force of longitudinal electromagnetic waves affecting space-time in the fourth dimension.

Desmond's Snowglobe
Tesla's technology supposedly formed the basis for Project Rainbow, the military experiment that culminated in the disastrous disappearance of the USS Eldridge. The premise is that three electromagnetic field coils are arranged so their magnetic fields cancel each other out in three dimensions but generate powerful longitudinal scalar em waves in the fourth dimension.

The resulting fourth-dimensional "hyperflux," as one author terms it, can be used to affect the fabric of space-time. The key is to pulse the coils at the proper frequency:

We are held to three dimensional space by an elastic force that can only be overcome by either expending a lot of power to charge an x-y-z coil, or to pulse the coil at the resonant frequency of fourth dimensional space. Think of space as a flat rubber sheet. To deviate a point on the sheet up or down, you can either push and hold it down with much effort, or you can vibrate the sheet so that the points on it swing up and down. If you get the mix of frequencies just right, you create a standing wave on the sheet, equating to minimal energy being used to get maximum warp in this sheet.

Wrinkle the sheet of space-time at its resonant frequency and the eventual result is jazzman's hypersphere:

If the standing wave in the rubber sheet is of sufficient amplitude, this wave rips itself out of the rubber sheet and becomes a rubber balloon. If you map the magnetic field of an x-y-z coil, it looks like an unfolded hypersphere. If the resonant frequency is reached, this field collapses into a magnetic hypersphere, carrying all objects in its proximity out into hyperspace. The teleporting object is encased in a bubble of space floating somewhere in the fourth dimension, disconnected from three-dimensional reality.

This is Desmond's snow globe. The Island's static magnetic field combines with that of the earth, which both interact with the oscillating field in Swan Hatch. The resulting magnetic resonance wrinkles space-time sufficiently to envelope the Island almost completely in the fourth dimension. That's how Hanso planned to shield the Island from apocalypse.



Tesla's Egg and Oscillation Resonance
So what's behind the concrete in Swan Hatch? My guess is a glorified version of Tesla's Egg of Columbus, which used rotating magnetic fields to stand a copper egg on end, and supposedly inspired Project Rainbow's coil arrangement.




The 108-minute countdown may relate to the periodic electromagnetic pulse of the coil at the resonant frequency of space-time. Many threads have noted the link between 108 and the basic structure of the universe. A related possibility is that entry of the code interrupts forced-oscillation resonance that would otherwise rip the Island's wrinkle in space-time apart.

You're likely familiar with this effect, though you may not realize it. A famous example is the opera singer whose sustained high note shatters crystal glass. Another is the Tacoma Narrows bridge, which purportedly collapsed when the wind caused the bridge to gyrate at its precise structural frequency. You may have seen pictures or film of the collapse.



Forced-oscillation effect is what created, and may even maintain, the Island's wrinkle by vibrating space-time in the fourth dimension. But too much vibration eventually causes the snowglobe to shatter like the opera singer's glass. We were witnessing the start of that effect in at the end of Season 2.

The electromagnet was spinning faster and growing stronger, atttracting metallic objects to the concrete. The magnetic resonant effect even seemed to be warping space-time, as suggested by the shaking, which was felt across the Island. When Des turned the key, the result was noise and a bright white light, yet another sign of scalar electromagnetism.

The implication seems to be that activation of the fail-safe does the same thing as entering the code during system failure (but presumably only once). My guess is that both preserve the integrity of the space-time wrinkle by reversing the polarity of the electromagnetic field, interrupting the fourth dimensional hyperflux. This polarity reversal is what sent the quarantine door flying to the beach like a rail gun.




Pfft! and Penny's Sign
Ordinarily, that venting process creates no major effects. In the case of system failure, however, an excess of scalar energy builds up in the fourth dimension from the oscillation-resonance overload. When the hyperflux ends, that energy gets vented into our dimension, briefly enveloping the Island in a bubble of scalar energy known as a Tesla shield:

The air molecules and atoms in the shell are totally ionized and thus highly excited, giving off intense, glowing light. Anything physical which hits the shell receives an enormous discharge of electrical energy and is instantly vaporized -- it goes pfft! like a bug hitting one of the electrical bug killers now so much in vogue. (Full text here.)

Obviously, Flight 815 didn't go pfft! and the foregoing is anything but a rigorous description. Still, scalar waves have been blamed by conspiracy buffs for the Challenger and TWA 800 crashes, among other aeronautical disasters. Such a scalar electromagnetic effect could also explain the anomaly that Penny's monitors detected at the south(?) pole.

I like the latter possibility because it dove-tails neatly with renewed speculation following the Foot that the Island was once home to an ancient Atlantis-like civilization. Some believe that Atlantis was plugged into an ancient planetary power grid that operated by the same wireless transmission principles espoused by none other than our own Mr. Tesla.



Perhaps our Portugese friends detected the electromagnetic anomaly via the remains of that ancient planetary grid.

Fixing a Hole...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived the Fourtoes, a race of technologically advanced beings capable of great feats of genetic engineering and inter-dimensional wormhole travel. Ordinarily, the Fourtoes observed a kind of prime directive, not interfering with less advanced species. But when one maverick Fourtoe named Demiurge found himself marooned on an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet orbiting a small unregarded yellow sun, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, he couldn't resist playing god to the amazingly primitive ape-descended life forms he found there.



Demiurge genetically enhanced the humans, leapfrogging millenia of their evolution. He also enslaved his "children," augmenting the Island's natural potential as a kind of psychic transceiver to merge their minds with his own. The result was a highly advanced global civilization centered on the Island, which became the source of myths and legends concerning Atlantis and Mu. Though humanity's service and worship proved satisfying for a time, Demiurge eventually grew homesick. He tried to rebuild his wormhole transport, which harnessed the negative energy of a small black hole generator, but the device malfunctioned catastrophically during one disastrous test run.



The analogy here is to Paris Crater, a massive implosion caused by ill-fated French time travel experiments using black-hole technology in Dan Simmons' books Ilium and Olympos. Demiurge's catastrophe literally wrinkled the fabric of spacetime around the Island, partially removing it from reality. The shock of this calamity triggered massive earthquakes and tsunamis worldwide, as reflected in Sumerian and Jewish myths of the deluge and flood. A massive volcanic eruption rocked the Island, creating Le Crater and burying most of Demiurge's Island civilization under layers of ash and lava like Vesuvius did Herculaneum and Pompeii.



Only a handful of Demiurge's "children" survived the global fallout. The Hansos and DeGroots were both directly descended from the few survivors of this ancient cataclysm. Reproduction with ordinary humans diluted Demiurge's genetic enhancements over time, but vestiges remained in the form of heightened mental talents, including occasional psychic powers. Indeed, many outstanding thinkers throughout history (e.g., John Locke, Jean Jaques Rousseau, Mikhail Bakunin, etc.) were indirect descendants of the cataclysm's survivors. Only a few powerful families, however, knew about the Island, which they kept a closely guarded secret.

Fast forward several centuries to 1962, when Enzo Valenzetti issued his grim mathematical prediction of humanity's extinction. Alarmed by Valenzetti's chillingly plausible results, a Hanso named Alvar approached the DeGroots about teaming up to save the cheerl...er, world. Together, they created the Dharma Initiative, which was devoted to influencing Valenzetti Equation's core factors in hopes of averting humanity's fate. Dharma was located on the Island mainly because its isolation in spacetime allowed scientists to experiment with changing the core factors for a small population sequestered locally without affecting -- or being affected by -- the rest of the planet.



The Dharma scientists were also intrigued by at least two other features of the Island. For one thing, it seemed to be a strong source of "geologically unique" electromagnetism. If this exotic energy could be tapped, it might render fossil fuel and nuclear power obsolete. Minds, moreover, seemed to merge together on the Island, like radio transceivers tuning to the same frequency. If this effect could be controlled, Dharma might be able to broadcast good vibrations globally, pacifying people and ending the cold war. Both phenomena, of course, were actually caused by Demiurge's advanced technology, which remained partially intact under ash and volcanic rock.

The aforementioned black hole generator was responsible for the Island's "unique electromagnetic fluctuations." The device generated a micro black hole that released Hawking radiation as it evaporated, creating a "kind of Casimir effect." Quantum theory tells us that the vacuum is actually teeming with "virtual particle antiparticle pairs" that wink into existence then annihilate each other. The Casimir effect occurs when parallel metal plates are sufficiently close that the density of virtual particle antiparticle pairs is lower between the plates than around them. The resulting Casimir force pulls the plates together, as depicted in this diagram by Stephen Hawking:



Like the space between parallel metal plates, the event horizon of an evaporating black hole is also a region of negative energy density. As virtual particle antiparticle pairs pop into being, the enormous gravitational forces pull them apart, imparting tremendous energy to particle and antiparticle alike. One gets sucked into the black hole, gaining negative mass that causes the black hole to shrink. The other becomes a real particle that escapes as Hawking radiation. Still with me? Good, because here's where this all pays off. The negative energy generated by the Casimir effect and evaporating black holes makes them capable, in theory, of wormhole stabilization!



The Dharma scientists had presumably realized as much by the time they made the Orchid Orientation. I believe the film depicts an attempt to send Bunny 15 forward through a wormhole into the near future. What the scientists mistakenly did instead was pull a second Bunny 15 backward into the past. The chaos caused by the twin bunnies ("Don't let them touch!") reminds me of the movie Timecop, in which time travelers are admonished never to make physical contact with past versions of themselves. My guess is that the Incident involved Dharma participants opening a wormhole and pulling their twins from elsewhere in time with literally explosive results.



Limbs were lost and histories rewritten, as suggested by the apparent transformations of Mark Wickmund, first into Edgar Halowax, then the one-armed Marvin Candle. Such a scenario could also explain the Others' creation -- they're time twins who survived the Incident -- which is why one of the voices on the Orchid Orientation sounds suspiciously like Richard Alpert. Jacob's ghostly state could be due to the historical rewrites, like how Marty McFly fades partially away near the end of Back to the Future as a result of changes to the past. Or maybe Jacob was blasted out of time by physical contact with his twin (e.g., Alvar or even Magnus Hanso).

When the dust settled, and Dharma realized what had happened, the Initiative's plans evolved. The Orchid Station was reconfigured and renamed the Swan, which may itself be a black hole reference. The constellation Cygnus (i.e., Latin for "Swan") contains an x-ray source that's widely believed to be a leading black hole candidate. Cygnus was also the name of a (lost) spaceship discovered just outside the event horizon of a black hole in Disney's science fiction classic The Black Hole. I believe these are clues that, behind the Swan's concrete barrier, stabilized by an electromagnet, was a micro black hole courtesy of Demiurge's technology.



Sayid compared the Swan barrier to the concrete dome over Chernobyl. That's because the Hawking radiation released by black hole evaporation is thought to be very high energy, capable of frying those directly exposed. Swan's electromagnet prevented the black hole from evaporating completely -- a black hole can, in theory, "be stabilized by endowing it with a sufficiently large magnetic charge." The electromagnet may also have fed vibrational energy into the black hole, generating gravity waves like the alien communicator in Larry Niven's short story The Hole Man. The system was reset every 108 minutes to keep the black hole from growing too big.



So why even bother with the button protocol -- why not just automate the system? I believe that, by the time of the Incident, Dharma had concluded their best chance of changing the Valenzetti's core factors was to change history itself. The goal of the Initiative became cultivating people worthy and capable of this delicate task. The various stations served principally as a psychological experiment, but they were also a kind of test, set up to get someone, some day, to stop pushing the Swan button. Whoever had the guts and selflessness to turn the Fail-Safe key would then be blasted back in time to save the world. But no even one took (let alone passed) this test, until Mr. Desmond David Hume.



When Locke prevented Des from entering the code, the black hole in Swan began to grow. The electromagnet increased power to compensate, which is why metallic objects flew toward the wall. Had Desmond not turned the key, the black hole quickly would have overcome its confines, sinking into the Earth and eventually consuming the planet. By activating the Fail-Safe, Des shut down the electromagnet before the black hole reached critical mass, causing it to evaporate in a blast of negative energy and Hawking radiation. That radiation is what turned the sky purple and caused the EMP that crippled the Flame. The negative energy opened a wormhole into Desmond's past.



When the wormhole opened, Desmond used another of Demiurge's technologies, the psychic transceiver, to broadcast his consciousness back in time. Like the father and son who talk via shortwave radio through a wormhole in the film Frequency, Desmond made contact with himself in the past because both share the same mental frequency. It's no coincidence that only Desmond's consciousness made the trip -- Dharma may even have designed things that way to prevent physical contact with past selves. The key, regardless, is the Island's capacity to serve as a psychic transceiver. That's why radio transmission and reception have been recurring metaphors from the beginning of the show.



Arthur C. Clarke once noted that any sufficiently advanced technology will look to us like magic, a comment that's become the informal credo of "hard" science fiction. Clarke helped Stanley Kubrick write 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is the rare hard science fiction film and a personal favorite. Aliens intervene in human evolution and leave behind technology in the form of mysterious monoliths -- the original black rocks. Dig below the Island's literal and figurative surface and I suspect you'll find the magic is similarly explained by Demiurge's alien technology. Which, in turn, makes me wonder if that's the real reason the people who sent Not Penny's Boat are looking for the Island...

One Timeline or Two?

Okay, fellow Lost theorists, I'm stuck in a speculative loop and am turning to the collective consciousness for help. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the flash forward in S3E22 depicted an alternate timeline where Christian is now alive. Is that timeline "alternate" in the sense that somewhere else in the spacetime continuum there's a separate reality where Christian is still dead? Or is it simply "alternate" insofar as a single common timeline has been altered (e.g., by Desmond's trip into the past) resulting in a very different future? In this post, I'd like to expand a bit on both of these scenarios and get your feedback concerning each.

MIRROR, MIRROR
Let's begin with the former possibility that there are two (or more) mirror timelines. That's the premise of my theory When Alternate Realities Collide, in which I suggest that the Island is basically a conduit between two realities, light and dark. Under this theory, the first Incident could have involved scientists making mental contact with their "twins" in the mirror reality. The analogy here is to Desmond, who may have crossed minds with his twin in an alternate time-line during S3E8, much like the son in the film Frequency makes radio contact with his father in an alternate timeline. In the case of the Incident, the Swan scientists made psychic contact with their mirror reality twins, drawing them to the Island.



One of the first may have been Dr. Mark Wickmund's counterpart, Marvin Candle, who landed on the Island and lost his arm in a confrontation with the Cerberus security system. After some confusion, the scientists realized that the two timelines were beginning to merge via the Island conduit. In an effort to preserve both realities, Dharma became an experiment in whether people drawn literally from different worlds could co-exist harmoniously. The Linuses were among the first of these test subjects, though it's possible that some of the people who arrived with them had twins who were already present. This could explain why, as a poster named Dark UFO notes, some of the same people seen exiting from the submarine are glimpsed shortly thereafter in the Barracks Orientation Video.



To prevent further incidents, the Island was quarantined out of phase with both realities. Swan Station was redesigned to plug the leak from the electromagnetic anomaly, thus preventing the Island from reaching the critical energy level of "42." To deter one timeline from exploiting the anomaly to alter or destroy its counterpart, Swan was staffed by representatives of each reality. The containment device itself was sealed behind a thick concrete barrier to discourage tampering. The Numbers protocol was the ultimate insurance policy, offering both sides powerful incentive to continue staffing the Swan. Every 108 minutes, someone had to manually enter the code or the resulting implosion would destroy both worlds simultaneously. Think of the Doomsday Device in Dr. Strangelove...



A SOUND OF THUNDER
So what about the possibility of a single timeline? Under this theory, the first Incident may have hurtled the Swan scientists temporarily back through time like Desmond following activation of the Fail Safe. Though the scientists made only slight changes, their cumulative effect on the timeline was still profound. The analogy here is to the Ray Bradbury short story A Sound of Thunder, wherein the destruction of a single prehistoric butterfly alters the future dramatically for the worse. The story is meant to represent the so-called Butterfly Effect -- i.e., the notion that some systems are so sensitive that even minor variations in initial conditions can yield major differences in outcomes over the long term. As a poster named Lostmommy notes, the butterflies displayed on Ben's desk during S3E13 may well be a reference to the Butterfly Effect.



My guess is that the Island is somehow insulated from such alterations to the timeline. As with Desmond and the survivors of Oceanic 815, the Swan scientists may not have realized that the the outside world had changed until visitors showed up on the Island. My guess is that a delegation from the Hanso Group landed led by none other than Dr. Marvin Candle, who was previously known as Mark Wickmund before the Incident changed history. Tragically, the Cerberus security system failed to recognize Dr. Candle and attacked his delegation. This could explain why, as a poster named Mike NY notes, the Blast Door Map refers to "5 fatalities" near the Swan. Once everyone realized what had happened, the nature and purpose of Dharma shifted.

To prevent further alterations to the timeline (e.g., for personal reasons) Swan became a containment device that limited the Island's effect on past, present, and future. Dharma devoted itself to creating the kind of human being who could manipulate history responsibly. The hope was that some day, someone worthy would turn the Fail-Safe key, sacrificing himself to save everyone -- i.e., the Dr. Manhattan Project. I like this particular angle because it resonates with the themes of heroism that the writers have taken pains to emphasize of late. It also explains the elements of a psychological experiment that permeate so many of the Stations. It's entirely possible the whole purpose of the Pearl and Swan was to trigger another Incident, giving a true hero the power to save the world.



So that's my dilemma, fellow Lost theorists, and I'm eager to eat, er, pick your brains. If the choice is between mirror Spock or A Sound of Thunder, which do you favor, one timeline or two?

Dr. Chang, I Presume...

Another year, another Comic-Con. And with it, comes an intriguing new Dharma video starring Francois Chau. This time, he identifies himself as theoretical astrophysicist Pierre Chang and reveals that his other names (i.e., Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund, and Edgar Halliwax) are lies. Dr. Chang claims to be broadcasting through a "pinhole" 30 years into the future. He displays knowledge of current events and claims to know from a "reliable" source that he'll be dead from the Purge by the time we receive the broadcast.



Obviously, this is meant mainly as a teaser for the new alternative reality game, the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project. But I believe there are also some important clues contained in Dr. Chang's video transmission. Here's what I've noticed so far:

Pierre Chang: My guess is his new name is a sly reference to the actor who plays him. Pierre=Francois, and Chang=Chau.

Theoretical Astrophysics: Dr. Chang identifies himself as a professor of theoretical astrophysics from the University of Michigan -- the same institution as the DeGroots. Chang's area of study reminds me of another famous astrophysicist, J. Richard Gott of Princeton. I've written before about Dr. Gott's potential relevance to the show, particularly his interest in doomsday equations and time travel. Could Gott be the inspiration for Chang?

Kerr Metric: Dr. Chang came to the Island to study the Kerr Metric, which is also mentioned on Daniel Faraday's chalkboard and in his journal. The Kerr Metric is a solution to General Relativity that describes the geometry of spacetime around a massive rotating body. In the case of a rotating black hole, the Kerr Metric predicts a region of spacetime where time travel into the past is theoretically possible.

At a minimum, the writers are using "Kerr Metric" to signal time travel, much like they used "Casimir effect" as shorthand for "wormhole." But consider the whackadoo possibility that the Island's bubble in spacetime is located within the "safe" region of a massive rotating black hole and accessible by a wormhole. As with the best Lost explanations, this one toes the line between science fact and fiction. Physicist Igor Novikov hypothesizes that information and energy might be extracted from the interior of a Kerr black hole via wormholes.

30 Years: Dr. Chang mentions that he's transmitting through a "pinhole" (presumably, in spacetime) 30 years into the future. I believe this time interval is a reference to the film Frequency, which I've mentioned before in various posts. In the movie, solar activity opens a wormhole that swallows a communications satellite, allowing a son to make radio contact with his deceased father 30 years in the past. Aside from the shared time interval, there are other Lost parallels, including a character named Jack Sheppard. Elizabeth Mitchell, who portrays Juliet on Lost, also stars in the film.

The question is whether Chang's link is similarly two way -- can he receive messages in addition to sending them? His foreknowledge of the presidency of George W. Bush, the existence of the internet, and the death of the Dharma scientists in the Purge all seems to indicate the answer is yes. But there's also the question of Chang's "reliable" source...

Reliable Source: My instinct is Chang's source isn't just a voice at the other end of a radio link. I believe it's someone physically in his presence. Initially, I thought it might be Ben, who gained foreknowledge of events through some combination of the Island/Jacob. But a number of posters have raised an even more intriguing possibility. Listen again to the voice off-camera who converses with Chang. Doesn't it sound like Daniel Faraday's? Maybe he eventually travels back in time from 2008 to 1978...

Mysterious Object: The inference of physical time travel is bolstered by a mysterious object on the shelf behind Dr. Chang. The camera lingers on this item quite conspicuously, leading me to believe it's significant. At first, I thought it might be a notebook -- either Daniel's or maybe even the Black Rock Ledger. Here again, however, other posters have persuaded me to think again. What if Dr. Chang has firsthand knowledge of the internet? Maybe the mysterious object over his left shoulder is, in fact, a laptop computer...

Cause and Effect (Revised)

The first iteration of this theory (available here) got bogged down by some controversial science. So, I thought it might be worthwhile to revise and refocus the discussion on some of the other topics I'd hoped to discuss.

Okay, science and philosophy fans, this one's for you. For some time, we've puzzled over the appearance of various Island elements (e.g., the Numbers, Kate's horse, the Dharma octagon, etc.) in the flashbacks of our Losties. One plausible explanation is that they're the victims of an elaborate conspiracy that brought them to the Island. I agree there's a conspiracy afoot but don't believe it explains the foregoing things. My paradoxical speculation is that the survivors of Oceanic 815 brought themselves to the Island, which is why it looms so large in their respective pasts. To understand how, let's begin with Desmond's namesake, Mr. David Hume.



Hume was an empiricist and believed that we can only know what experience tells us. One of his great philosophical contributions was the notion that causation is really nothing more than our observation of the conjunction of two events. We see A followed by B enough times and infer that there must be a necessary connection between them -- i.e., A causes B. Hume argued that this inference was faulty no matter how often A is followed by B. Constant conjunction is not synonymous with necessary connection. Hume's claim is pretty wild when you think about it. He basically argued that there's no reason beyond our own experience to think the sun will rise tomorrow.



Fast forward several centuries to Albert Einstein, whose general theory of relativity threw a further wrench in the causation works. Einstein established that mass literally warps the geometry of spacetime, giving rise to gravity. It turns out that some valid mathematical solutions of general relativity involve "closed timelike curves," allowing for at least the theoretical possibility of travel into the past. To see why, imagine yourself at the intersection of two vast cones of light. The cone behind you represents all of the past events that could have had some causal effect upon you. Ahead of you is a cone of all possible events that you could affect in the future.



Ordinarily, these past and future light cones point away from each other in spacetime, thus preserving the illusion of history. In theory, however, some strange warp or wrinkle in spacetime could cause your future cone to tip such that it loops around and intersects with the past, creating the aforementioned closed timelike curve. Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott (who also claims to have calculated the time left before humanity's extinction) analogizes such loops in spacetime to Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe or an MC Escher painting. The result is that one can -- again, in theory -- have a causal effect on events in the past.



When Desmond activated the Fail-Safe he created such a closed timelike curve by briefly projecting his consciousness through time. His past and future perspectives merged momentarily, leaving him with a kind of temporal "double vision" that permits him paradoxically to remember the future. Desmond's brief flashes of future events are the product of his mind making sense of these dual perspectives a bit like how your brain processes two different images to create a 3D stereogram. The result is an enhanced perception of time that Crimson Rabbit analogizes to Dr. Manhattan's 4D perspective in Watchmen and that Zombie Soiree terms the "4D Eye."



What's more, I think everyone on the Island during activation of the Fail-Safe was affected to varying degrees by their proximity to that event. Eko and Locke were closest to ground zero and probably experienced similarly strong reverse causality. Unlike Desmond, of course, Eko and Locke didn't travel consciously through time. As Doctor Hanso notes, however, Locke experienced prophetic dream visions immediately following activation of the Fail-Safe and may have affected the past to make Anthony Cooper come out of the Box. I also wonder if the drug plane's presence can similarly be explained as Eko somehow influencing past events to effectuate the present.

All of which brings me back to my core premise that the survivors of Oceanic 815 brought themselves to the Island. Unlike Desmond, Eko, and Locke, these folks were further away from ground zero, lessening the affect of the Fail Safe upon them. None of our other Losties traveled consciously through time, and my guess is their impact on history was more limited. The principal manifestation is a subconscious attraction to each other and certain Island symbols. That's why their flashbacks contain so many improbable inter-personal connections and coincidences involving the Numbers -- future events are paradoxically causing subconscious effects in the past.



The analogy is to one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: TNG, also titled "Cause and Effect." The Enterprise gets caught in a temporal causality loop where events repeat themselves, culminating each time in a catastrophic collision that resets the loop and erases any conscious memory of what's happened. Crew members realize something is wrong when they have apparent flashes of the future (e.g., what cards will be dealt in a poker game) and hear whispers that turn out to be echoes of past iterations. In an effort to break free, they send a subconscious clue to themselves in the past using Mr. Data whose positronic brain can detect "dekyon" transmissions. Data isn't consciously aware of the message -- it's more like post-hypnotic suggestion. For example, as the dealer in the aforementioned card game, he stacks the deck without even realizing it, dealing all 3s instead of the cards the characters expect. Ultimately, this provides the clue that allows them to break out of the loop.

I'm not convinced our Losties are/were caught in such a temporal causality loop, though Danielle's automated distress would work well as a metaphor for that effect. I do, however, think that time on Lost is circular -- i.e., past, present, and future exist simultaneously ala Aboriginal Dreamtime. As a result, it's possible for characters to contact (and perhaps even meet) versions of themselves from other points along the timeline. The Fail-Safe basically blasted our characters thoughts and experiences into the past like the Dekyon transmission in Cause and Effect. As a result, they were left with a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion that draws them unconsciously to each other, various Island symbols, and ultimately the Island itself. That's why these elements recur with such frequency in their flashbacks.



At this point, you may be wondering whether the very paradoxical character of such a reverse-causation scenario renders it impossible by definition. Thanks to Hume, however, we can't rule out causal paradox on metaphysical grounds. Accordingly, most scientists believe that the physical universe operates somehow to prevent or otherwise correct for paradoxes in the timeline. One famous speculation in this regard is Stephen Hawking's Chronology Protection Conjecture, which holds that the laws of physics prevent backwards time travel at all but microscopic scales, thereby foreclosing any possibility of temporal paradox.

Hawking uses the metaphor of a Chronology Protection Agency, "which prevents the appearance of closed timelike curves and so makes the universe safe for historians." An alternative approach is the Novikov Self Consistency Principle, which permits backwards time travel at the macroscopic level, but posits that the universe self-corrects against any alterations to the past that would yield causal paradoxes. A third solution relies upon the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, positing that any changes to the past occur in alternate or parallel histories, thus resolving any apparent paradoxes.

Then there's the view on Lost, articulated by a character aptly named Ms. Hawking, who preaches a variation of the Self-Consistency Principle like a Chronology Protection Agent come to life. According to her, "the universe, unfortunately, has a way of course correcting." I take this to mean that Des is now part of a closed timelike curve caused by his activation of the Fail Safe. If he chooses not to go to the Island, press the button, and turn the key, the result will be major causal paradox, triggering a catastrophic course correction in which "every single one of us is dead." At least, that's what Ms. Hawking wants Desmond to think -- I'm not convinced she's being entirely truthful.



That's where the conspiracy I mentioned previously comes into play. I think the fallout from activation the Fail-Safe mirrors that from the Incident years before. Like Desmond, the Swan scientists traveled consciously through time. Unlike activation of the Fail-Safe, however, the Incident radically altered history -- apparently for the worse. Casual Mark Wickmund in a turtleneck became authoritarian Marvin Candle in a lab coat. These changes sent ripples throughout the timeline, resulting in a whole new future. Chronology Protection Agents like Ms. Hawking, who may well hail from this new future, are fighting to preserve it from disruption by the Fail-Safe.



It may even be that the Fail-Safe was supposed to be a kind of course correction for the Incident. Perhaps the Chronology Protection Agents intervened, preventing major alterations by somehow cheating fate. I wonder, for example, if the second wreck of Oceanic 815 was staged as part of the effort to incorporate the crash into history while minimizing any ripple effects on the future. Even so, the Fail-Safe remains a dangerous point of instability in the timeline that can't be erased without having further deep chronological impacts. Thus, the Agents now have strong incentive to ensure that nothing upsets this particular aspect of history, as well.

That's why, while I maintain our Losties brought themselves to the Island, I think the Chronology Protection Agents were probably watching most of the way, poised to intervene if anyone pulled a Desmond. In fact, I believe we've met at least two other Agents besides Ms. Hawking. One was Brother Campbell, who had a picture of Ms. Hawking on his desk. And the other? That would be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt who accosted Jin in the airport restroom just as the latter was considering running off with Sun instead of boarding Oceanic 815. Dude spoke creepily perfect Korean and claimed to work for Mr. Paik, but my guess is that Hawaiian-shirt guy was a Chronology Protection Agent.