The Mind of Magnus

PART I: THE MYSTERIOUS MAGNUS HANSO
One of the most intriguing yet least-analyzed mysteries of Lost is the identity of Magnus Hanso. The Blast Door Map suggests that his body rests near the Black Rock, which disappeared near the end of the 19th century with Hanso at the helm. Beyond that, however, the man remains a riddle, leading many to discount his relevance to current Island events.

I think this is a mistake. At the very least, Magnus is the Milo Rambaldi of our tale of the Black Rock. As such, it makes sense to speculate a bit about his background and possible connection to what's happening. For starters, I believe that Magnus Hanso was a powerful psychic, alchemist, and matrilineal descendant of none other than Albertus Magnus.

Magnus and the DeGroots



To review, Albertus was a brilliant religious scholar who lived during the thirteenth century and was a major influence on Thomas Aquinas. The name "Magnus" wasn't an honorific but rather a literal translation of his family name, DeGroot (thanks, cinamin). Albertus was also reputed to have been an accomplished alchemist and powerful psychic.

Suposedly, Albertus succeeded in creating the philosopher's stone, which he used to construct an automaton with a soul (Smokey?). Albertus also wrote of a mysterious island located in the "western ocean" (thanks, jmberger) and described a magical black rock that could only be mined from the head of a freshly slain dragon (erupting volcano?).

My guess is that Magnus, who may have been illegitimate, was so named to indicate his kinship with the DeGroots. He used his powers to become a successful sea and businessman, not to mention slaver. His participation in the slave trade long after it became stigmatized as the "peculiar institution" is telling -- Magnus embraced kidnapping and forced labor.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn he was a fan of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics and the Rev. Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principles of Population, both of which advocated draconian measures to deal with the problems of poverty and overpopulation. I also expect that Magnus was obsessed with the Book of Revelation's description of the apocalypse.

The Island's Significance and Location
Like many navigators of his day, Hanso undoubtedly dreamed of finding safer and swifter passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Without airplanes or the Panama Canal, traders faced long and perilous journeys around South America or Africa. Finding superior east-west passage was the key to more than just money -- it promised to make the Magnus a legend.

I believe that Hanso found such passage by tracking the mysterious island described by his psychic ancestor Albertus. That Island, whether by freak of nature or ancient science, is accessible on both sides of the planet. In pseudo-scientific terms, it's situated on a wrinkle in timespace or vile vortex connecting the South Pacific with the South Atlantic.

Crazy as it seems, this is the most plausible explanation I can think of that accounts for anomalies like the Nigerian drug plane's presence and the daylight discrepancy of Flight 815 that others have previously noted. There may be other entrances (e.g. at the north and south poles) but these are the primary two. The South Pacific portal is at 4.815, 162.342.



The antipode of that location (i.e., -4.815, -17.658) happens to be located in the South Atlantic along a possible flight path from Nigeria to South America, where the drug plane may have been headed with the heroin. It's a stretch (a Beechcraft 18 can't make the trip from Nigeria to South America without refueling) but it makes more sense than the South Pacific.



Tales of the Black Rock
How did Hanso end up on the Island? He presumably set out on his fateful trip with plans to establish a settlement and explore for mineral resources. As the experiences of Danielle and Desmond attest, however, the surrounding seas tend to be stormy due to the Island's electromagnetic fluctuations, which may also wreak havoc on navigational instruments.

A particularly fierce tempest deposited the Black Rock inland. Magnus survived the wild ride but the skeletons in the hold suggest his crew did not. His story thus loosely resembles that of another sole survivor of a shipwreck in Tales of the Black Freighter, the fictitous horror comic that's read by a black child named Bernard throughout the graphic novel Watchmen.

Short story shorter, Tales of the Black Freighter tells of a sailor who washes ashore on a deserted island after ghost pirates wreck his ship. Convinced the pirates are headed to massacre his village, the sailor fashions a raft from the corpses of his crew. He races home but ends up mistakenly committing the very slaughter he strived so hard to prevent.



While not required, the full story (not to mention Watchmen) is a great read. You can access the story at this site, though all Watchmen imagery has been removed (i.e., many panels are now empty but for text bubbles). Even so, it's a creepy tale well worth checking out, especially if you like pirates. Arrrrr!

Hanso's Haunted Island
Like his graphic novel counterpart (and for that matter Danielle) Magnus went mad from his marooning. At the same time, his psychic abilities blossomed as he learned to channel the Island's energies. Eventually, Hanso attained control over the Island, which literally became an extension of his powerful mind. In his madness, Magnus became convinced he was the demiurge.

The Island extended Hanso's life but his body eventually aged beyond any capability to sustain it. By then, however, his mind had literally imprinted itself on the Island, much like the earth's magnetic field leaves its mark on cooling volcanic rock. When Hanso's body withered away, a virtual copy of his consciousness remained, recorded like a natural EEG of his mind.



The analogy here is to hauntings, which some speculate are electromagnetic recordings that get replayed to -- and sometimes through -- living people sensitive enough to perceive them (thanks, clayseason and andylekker). This is the premise of Turn of the Screw, wherein the ghosts of two lovers replay their doomed affair through two receptive children.



Channeling the Mind of Magnus
I suspect, moreover, that the Island's exotic non-metallic minerals make it a kind of psychic transceiver. The radio tower and automated transmission, whatever their literal plot significance, are metaphors for this phenomenon. Just as the tower once transmitted the Numbers, the Island broadcasts a recording of the Mind of Magnus to receptive brains worldwide.

This brings me back to the Alias comparison. Certain characters on JJ's previous work were capable of channeling the consciousness of Milo Rambaldi, a fictitious 15th century psychic and inventor who attained anachronistic knowledge of "automatism, life extension, protein engineering, mathematics, cryptography and cartography." Sound familiar?



Rambaldi hid his most powerful inventions but left behind clues to their locations. One was an equation whose solution yielded the coordinates of longitude and latitude where Rambaldi's consciousness was stored (the Sphere of Life). I doubt it's a coincidence that the core numerical factors of the Valenzetti Equation coincide with plausible coordinates for the Island.

My guess is that Valenzetti was himself channeling the Mind of Magnus when he formulated his famous Equation. Maybe Enzo was mentally ill (e.g., autistic or schizophrenic) which seems to facilitate reception. Another possibility is some shared mutation that predisposed him genetically to pick up the Island's psychic signal. However it happened, he wasn't the only one.

Be sure to check out Part II wherein I relate the story of Adam and Eve, and reveal the true purpose of Dharma, and Part III where I discuss some possible (but by no means necessary) implications of this theory.

PART II: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
The Story of Adam and Eve
Throughout the 1960s, a number of people across planet began receiving psychic transmissions from the Mind of Magnus. Among the first was "Adam," who may have been related to both Hanso and Albertus. Adam's connection to the Mind manifested initially as a preoccupation with neo-Malthusian theories like those described on my Catastrophe thread.

As the connection strengthened, Adam was plagued by nightmares of the apocalypse and strange coincidences involving the Numbers. He and his wife "Eve" struggled to grasp what afflicted him. Eventually, their curiosity and concern, coupled with Adam's fear that the end of the world was imminent, drove the family to the South Pacific at the coordinates of the Numbers.



Thus did Adam and Eve arrive in Eden. Sadly, if they survived their trip, they were dead by the time Alvar Hanso found the Island himself several years later. The lone remaining survivor was Adam and Eve's child -- now a young teen -- who had lived his entire life on the Island and learned to harness its energies with his mind like Magnus before him.



The result was a cross between Charlie X and that creepy kid with powers on the Twilight Zone. Sensing the boy's potential, Hanso adopted him as a ward, but raised him on the Island to study its effects. Alvar also indoctrinated the boy in values of scientific curiosity and service to humanity. The analogy here is to another Alan Moore creation, Tom Strong:

Tom Strong, the title character, is a "science hero." He was raised in a high-gravity chamber and given an intensive education by his somewhat eccentric mad scientist father, on the fictional West Indian island of Attabar Teru. His upbringing, plus ingesting a root used by the natives of the island for health and long life, have made him nearly physically and mentally perfect. Though born at the dawn of the 20th century, he only appears to be in his forties as of the year 2000. (Full text here.)

The Birth of Dharma
Hanso's studies suggested that his ward's metamorphosis could be replicated in others through exposure to the Island. He planned a grand experiment in human evolution that would become the Dharma Initiative. But how to convince people to trade everything for life on a remote Island? And how to ensure that their newly developed powers would be used for the greater good?

Hanso's solution was to exploit Valenzetti's chilling mathematical prediction linking the Numbers with the apocalypse. Hanso knew very well that the reclusive mathematician had actually been channeling the Mind of Magnus. But Alvar shrewdly recognized that the myth of the Numbers was guaranteed to grab the attention of even the most selfish among us.

The victims of this noble lie were the original Dharma recruits. It's no coincidence their assigned tasks were pointless. Again, the Initiative's real goal was to spur subjects' psychic evolution through exposure to the Island. The Hatches merely provided a controlled environment for this process, a cocoon where the metamorphosis into moths could take place.



And it worked -- concerned scientists and test subjects flocked to Dharma in hopes of averting disaster. For a time, all was golden as participants toiled in ignorance at their stations. In his hubris, Hanso presumed he could keep his elaborate deception a secret. He failed to consider that (surprise, surprise) secrets are hard to keep from evolving psychics.

The test subjects discovered the truth and tattled to the scientists. Together, they staged a revolt, seizing control of Smokey and expelling Hanso from the Island. Afterwards, some returned to civilization, while Others remained behind to build a Baconian New Atlantis. But demystification of the Numbers and the end of Dharma had a host of unforeseen consequences.

Karma Police
For one thing, former Dharma participants began to reproduce. The mutation caused by exposure to the Island's energies got passed down to their offspring. A new generation was born like Adam -- connected to the Mind of Magnus even though they'd never visited Island. Some of them had children of their own who proved even more adept at channeling the Mind.

Equally problematic, without the noble lie to constrain them, people were tempted to use their powers selfishly. I suspect that Locke's father, Cooper, was a former Dharma test subject. But even if his special talent for conning people was the result of natural mutation, his self-serving conduct underscores the dilemma created by demystification of the Numbers.



Free will and moral character are leitmotifs of Lost. The references to concepts like Tabula Rasa (the "blank slate") and Karma ("It'll come back around...") underscore that we are the authors of our souls, free to make the choices that define us as good or bad twins. The cost of that freedom, however, becomes prohibitive when bad people gain special powers.

That's why the Others' dual obsessions are "goodness" and children. Without the Numbers, moral character is all that stands against the rising tide of chaos. And like the Nigerian warlords who took Mr. Eko as a child, the Others realize that indoctrination works most effectively on the young. This was the factor that Hanso failed to consider in designing Dharma.

The Initiative's fatal flaw was that the adult test subjects had mostly defined their moral character by the time they joined Dharma, necessitating the noble lie. The catastrophic irony is that revelation of the deception started a chain reaction that now threatens to cause the very apocalypse the Initiative was supposedly commissioned to avert.

Sickness and Quarantine
Meanwhile, the Mind of Magnus continues to draw people to the Island like moths to the Flame. Sometimes, they arrive alone like Kelvin or Desmond. Other times, they come en masse as in the case of the French scientists and Flight 815. Initially, the Others were unprepared for such arrivals -- Danielle's crew no doubt caught them completely off guard.

They seized the baby Alex believing she could be integrated into their utopian community. But they were divided over how to deal with the adults, who soon began to transform. Some felt the French should be given the chance to prove they were good people, while others were adamant that they should be terminated before the transformation was complete.

Believing her crew to be sick, Danielle killed them all, solving the immediate problem. But the Others were determined not to repeat the terrible experience. Suspicious that the Numbers broadcast had attracted the French scientists, the Others let Danielle change the radio transmission. They also established procedures for dealing with any future trespassers.

It was decided that new arrivals would be quarantined in Swan Station and duped into performing the duties of its original occupants. Swan represented one of the few controlled environments left on the Island, a place where occupants could be vaccinated against the Island's transformative effects and spied on via hidden camera to judge whether they were "good" people.



Besides, someone had to push the button, which still maintained the Island's electromagnetic cloak. Why entrust such a critical responsibility to outsiders? First, the task itself kept them occupied, providing a sense of purpose ("Just saving the world..."). Second, the 108-minute countdown kept them close to Swan, as far away from Otherville as possible.

System Failure
This system worked fine for solo arrivals. Occasionally, some unlucky Henry Gale would come knocking when Swan had no vacancies and be quietly killed. The crash of Flight 815, however, represented a new crisis. The majority of Others had no stomach for a massacre, and with dozens of survivors in at least two locations, quarantining them all in Swan Station was impossible.

So a new plan was formulated on the fly. Smokey led Jack to the Caves, where Adam and Eve had originally set up camp and later been laid to rest. The hope was that shelter and fresh water would curb the urge to explore the Island. But events like Ethan's unmasking, Locke's discovery of the Hatch, and Claire's escape from the Staff, quickly dashed that optimism.

Our Losties have advanced further and faster than expected. And the old debate over how to handle outsiders has exposed more basic conflicts lurking beneath Otherville's placid veneer. Though everyone pays lip service to free will and morality, some resort more readily to murder and manipulation in service of the perceived good, much to the dismay of others.

With casualties mounting, and revenge clouding hearts and minds, Otherville has increasingly become a house divided against itself...

PART III: RELATED SPECULATIONS
*Ben is the child of Adam and Eve. A lifetime of channeling the Mind of Magnus has left its imprint on Ben, making him increasingly draconian. Like Magnus before him, Ben has developed a disturbing taste for manipulation, kidnapping, and forced labor. The tumor on his spine is thus a metaphor for larger the cancer on his soul.

*Juliet is a relatively recent arrival to the Island. Her vocation of fertility doctor suggests she was not a part of the original Dharma Initiative, which focused on adults. More likely, she crashed on the Island or was brought there subsequently to deal with a problem of sterility among some hybrid offspring of evolved and ordinary humans.

*Alcatraz or Ellis Island? Flight 815's arrival exposed the shortcomings of the Others' present quarantine system. In hopes of avoiding future problems, and as a means of alleviating the current crisis, the Others have begun constructing a new and larger quarantine facility on Alcatraz islet. That's what Kate and Sawyer were helping to build.

*Jacob is Patchy. Remember the guy with the eye patch whom we glimpsed in the Pearl monitors? That's Jacob, whose original mission was to observe occupants of Swan Station like Kelvin and Desmond to gauge their goodness. Now he's charged with making a list (and checking it twice) of the naughty and nice among our Losties -- i.e., Jacob's List.

*Smokey can channel the Mind of Magnus. The Others believe they control Smokey, and for the most part they do. But Smokey is a modern application of ancient alchemical knowledge, and likely composed of the same exotic medium that maintains the Magnus Hanso's consciousness. The system may thus have brought our Losties to the Island, much like Locke suspects.

Who Is Jacob?

One of the more compelling mysteries raised by I Do (3x6) was Other Tom's cryptic reference to "Jacob's List." Many including myself have speculated that he's the guy with the eye patch whom we glimpsed on the Pearl monitor at the end of Cost of Living (3x5). If so, that would make four Other men with biblically inspired names -- Ethan, Benjamin, and Adam are the others.

Most likely, Patchy has been watching our Losties via the Swan cameras on behalf of the Others for some time. He may even have visited Pearl at some point, and left the cigarette we saw in ? (2x21). Perhaps Jacob was originally charged with watching over Desmond during the latter's quarantine period in Swan. His mission changed when Flight 815 crashed the party.

That's the likely speculation, in my opinion. But if you really want to follow me down the rabbit hole, consider the possibility that Jacob is a code name for someone we know well. I'm talking about one of our most beloved losties -- someone who's been with us literally since the beginning. Who is this mole lurking in their midst? Vincent the dog.

If that seems crazy, keep in mind this might not be the first example of animals serving the Others' interest. The Bear that attacked the party tracking the distress signal in the Pilot, the boar that harassed Sawyer, and the shark with the Dharma logo that attacked the remains of the raft, could all conceivably be examples of such behavior.

Where does that damn dog go?

The Numbers' Noble Lie

Some good news to report -- my submission to the Lost Blog Theory Contest won first prize! I'm told I can't reprint the thing in its entirety, but here's a teaser to get you started. For the rest, you'll have to head over to the Lost Blog. Many thanks to PandoraX for turning me onto this contest in the first place, and congrats to Pastor2churches, Lesley, and Jaystao as well!

The Numbers' Noble Lie
Say you had a group of people on the verge of developing psychic powers. How would you ensure their powers were used for the greater good, rather than personal gain? You couldn’t force these folks — they’re too powerful. But you might be able to convince them that some overwhelming threat existed to their lives and those of their friends and loved ones.

Continue reading (links to the Lost Blog) ...

Juliet's Gambit

The obvious explanation for Juliet's cue cards is that it's a test by Ben, whose original plan to earn Jack's trust was frustrated. I don't disagree but think there's more going on than meets the eye. Ben may believe this new plan is his but I'm willing to bet the underlying idea was Juliet's.

Many have speculated there are different factions amongst the Others. My own belief is that the schism relates somehow to the treatment of the kids by Ben and Others like him. The irony is that Juliet's cue cards told the truth. Her faction finds Ben dangerous and believes he should be deposed.

This is Juliet's gambit to communicate both the schism's existence and Ben's dangerous nature to Jack. She wants Jack to refuse to operate, which will kill Ben just as well as the plot described in the cue cards -- a con within a con. Wouldn't that be just like Lost?

I once described Otherville as idyllic for adults. With the advent of Hydra, they seem more like a pit of snakes...

Desmond Is Now Sick

Whether he's seeing the future, reading minds, or a little of both, Desmond's activation of the failsafe made him "sick," and we're now seeing the symptoms. Locke was sick but got better -- his proximity to the failsafe reinfected him. Eko was already very sick -- I hope he doesn't suffer from overexposure.

And what of Charlie? Shouldn't he be suffering from these symptoms, too? I believe he would -- if he hadn't taken that injection of the "vaccine." That's also what prevented Desmond from getting sick during his original tour of duty in Swan. But I'm guessing he experimented at least once with no injections.

That's when Des painted the Swan mural (eye m sick) which predicted the arrival of Flight 815. Perhaps his vivid dreams disturbed him, prompting him to resume the course of injections (eye m well). Either way, Desmond is now sick with the same disease that afflicted Danielle's crew.

Let us hope our losties respond to his infection with greater understanding than Danielle...

I Know Benjamin Linas...

Seriously.

Ben Linas was a good friend of mine. Fenry Gale, you are no Ben Linas! He's a doctor in Boston with a lovely wife and (two?) kids. Anyone else know Ben?

Rock on!

Suffer the Children

Remember what Goodwin said about the children being in a "better place"?



I'm not so sure they'd agree -- at least where Otherville is concerned. It's far from clear what's happening there. But I'm beginning to suspect that, despite suggestions of an idyllic life for adults, the kids are not alright.

The first indication was Alex, who frustrated the Others' plans for Aaron by surreptitiously springing Claire from Caduceus. Then there was Walt, whose refusal to conform may have been more than the Others "bargained for." Now there's Carl, who told Sawyer to run the other way.



His direction can be taken at least two ways that both suggest subversive motives. One possibility is the escape was a ruse and Carl tried to increase Sawyer's chance of eluding capture by directing him away from the waiting Others. Another is that the break out was in earnest and Carl sought to enhance his own prospects by using Sawyer as a decoy.

But the big clues are actually the little things. Where, for example, were the children after the earthquake? I didn't see a single minor come running out of the houses. Maybe they were all in school but that's something else we didn't see. Where was Otherville's little red schoolhouse?



That brings me to Carrie, the Stephen King novel about an alienated teen with telekinetic powers -- Juliet's favorite book. Didn't Adam sound a bit defensive in dismissing her choice? And what to make of Ben's possible boycott? Methinks these Other gentlemen protest too much.



Perhaps that book strikes a nerve because the Island is now a prison of sorts for special children like Walt. I don't mean in the literal sense that kids are kept in cages, though you have to wonder about any group that would lock up the likes of Carl, whether as punishment or ruse.

I envision something like the Village from the Prisoner. That analogy kept occurring to me as we witnessed escape attempts by Sawyer and Jack. For those unfamiliar, the Prisoner was a classic television show from the '60s about a secret agent who is kidnapped and held in a mysterious seaside village from which he tries repeatedly and unsuccessfully to escape.



Looks to me like the Island has become a place where children with special abilities are held and studied against their will. I sense, morever, that nails that stick up in Otherville tend to get hammered down. Carl could well be sent to the Room that Walt mentioned and Ms. Klugh refused to discuss.

I'm guessing, however, that some kids have managed successfully to break out of Otherville. Perhaps, in Lord of the Flies fashion, they pursue a more primitive existence near the Black Rock in the Dark Territory. The Others presumably were impersonating this less civilized faction.



I further believe we've met this second group on at least two -- possibly three -- different occasions. The first encounter was with the tailies. Remember, Ben ordered Goodwin and Ethan to provide lists in "three days" but the tailies were raided the very first night they spent on the Island.

The second meeting may have been when Jin and Eko watched the parade of barefoot Others. The one with a teddy bear is obviously a child -- presumably the boy who was grabbed the first night -- and the others could easily be adolescents. I've always wondered why we didn't see their faces...



The third possibility is the Monster itself, which these other Others may now control. Here again, Ben's time frame of three days provides a clue since Smokey appeared to the fuselage survivors their first night. Maybe it was sent because Ethan couldn't reach the Island's far side by nightfall. Still, I find it odd Ben made no mention of any plan to do so.

If this theory is correct, we can add "kids vs. adults" to the growing list of conflicts that increasingly define the Island. And what do you suppose happens when these special lost children grow up without the Others' discipline to guide them? Is this why the Others are the "good guys" despite their harsh measures?

The possibilities strike me as endless...

The Love Triangle

Remember when Jack and Kate got caught in a net? (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?)



That scene reminds me of the myth of how Vulcan exposed Venus's affair with Mars by trapping the lovers in an unbreakable net. It occurs to me, moreover, that such love triangles are increasingly central to the show. Aside from Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, we've also seen Boone, Shannon, and Sayid, as well as hints of Jin, Sun, and her tutor just to name a few.

Forget about the Bermuda and Devil's Triangles -- I'd say the Island is at the center of a love triangle.

More specifically, I believe the show is building towards an Island backstory involving a similar love triangle between Karen DeGroot (Venus) her husband Gerald (Vulcan) and a Hanso (Mars). I further believe that MDG stands for Magnus DeGroot, who was a product of this extra-marital coupling. The remaining question is which Hanso did the dirty deed?

The obvious answer is Alvar, which would make Magnus the namesake of his grandfather. Sometimes, however, I wonder if the electromagnetic "ghost" of Magnus Hanso was the real daddy. As I've discussed on several threads (e.g., Human Stash and Extinction or Evolution?) ghostly possession could be causing the mysterious pregnancies on the show via parthenogenesis.

In fact, if you really want to follow me down the rabbit hole, consider the possibility that the triangle in question predates Dharma. Many, myself included, have wondered if Adam and Eve were the DeGroots. Perhaps they crashed on the Island by chance. Shortly after their arrival, Karen became pregnant and gave birth to a baby she named Magnus after his true father.

I like such a scenario because it raises some intriguing possibilities. For example, could the AH/MDG Incident have related somehow to a dispute over or revelation of Magnus's true lineage? What if the younger DeGroot is actually a reincarnation of Magnus Hanso? The latter scenario would certainly put a wild twist on speculations that Magnus DeGroot is Him...

Extinction or Evolution?

Remember Alien X from Walt's comic?



Turns out he was originally misunderstood due to a failure to communicate with the first Flash and Green Lantern. By the time the latter two realized that Alien X wasn't a threat, it was too late. I'm beginning to think a similarly serious misunderstanding characterizes the Valenzetti Equation and what precisely it predicts.



The Sri Lanka Orientation leads us to believe that the Valenzetti marks the time left before humanity's extinction. Hanso and Dharma's efforts were reportedly devoted to influencing the core factors of the Equation in an effort to postpone this doomsday, whether by "nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population."

But what if they got the doomsday part wrong? I believe that metaphors like Locke's tabula rasa and Charlie's moth are hints that the Equation doesn't predict the apocalyptic end of our race so much as a new beginning -- in a profoundly different "post-human" form.



This is why, despite all of THF's efforts, the world remains subject to the "tyranny" of the Numbers. Preventing nuclear war, overpopulation, disease, etc. is pointless because none of those things will be the ultimate cause of our "death." Rather, it will be humanity's rebirth as a new species (i.e., evolution) that signals our extinction (thanks, NeillT).

So what might this post-human existence look like? One possibility I've raised previously is Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. A scientist, he is reduced by a freak accident (the Incident?) to a state of pure electromagnetic consciousness. Another candidate is the Star Child from 2001. Catch a Falling Star and the Black Rock may both be nods to the Kubrick classic.



But perhaps the simplest analogy -- the one meant for popular consumption -- is to electromagnetic "ghosts" or "spirits." The clues along these lines have been in front of us for some time. Turn of the Screw is a novella about ghostly possession. The Others is a film, inspired partly by Turn of the Screw, about spirits who believe they're still alive.



These references, coupled with the mysterious appearances of the dead in whispers, dreams, and visions all contribute to a strong inference that the Island is haunted. Whether because of natural electromagnetic phenomena, Dharma's technology, ancient science, or some combination thereof, bodies have become optional on Craphole Island.

Some, however, may be more adept than others at separating body from soul. Remember Ms. Klugh's question to Michael whether Walt had ever appeared someplace he wasn't supposed to be? That's likely a reference to astral projection, which is the ability to transfer one's consciousness to an energy double or "twin" of one's material body.



Ms. Klugh also asked Mike if he was Walt's biological father. Some have interpreted this as a clue the two are not, in fact, related (thanks, koralis). This suspicion is bolstered by the fact that the bird Walt atracted to the window in Special was supposedly a Bronze Cuckoo -- a species known to dupe other birds into raising their young (thanks, punky).



Walt could be the result of a hybrid union involving one of the electromagnetic ghosts mentioned previously. Perhaps, in the spirit of Turn of the Screw, Susan was "possessed" by a post-human. This spurred pregnancy by parthenogenesis (thanks, waltisfuture) mutating Walt's DNA. Susan's blood disorder may have been an unfortunate side effect of this mutation process.

The result, however, was a truly special child genetically suited to take the evolutionary leap of shedding his physical form. My guess is that Aaron is similarly the product of such possession, which may explain Thomas's abrupt change of heart (i.e., he began to doubt he was really Aaron's father). This dynamic could also account for Sun's miraculous pregnancy.



It may even mean Emily Locke wasn't lying about John's virgin conception after all...

2001: A Lost Odyssey

PART I (2001 PLOT SPOILERS)
Way back, around the dawn of man, I theorized there might be a sentient computer in Swan. I analogized Desmond to astronaut Dave Bowman, whose mission was to service HAL 9000, the self-aware supercomputer in the film 2001: ASO. In light of yung's excellent insight that the Island is home to a quantum computer, I think it's time to revisit the singularity speculation.

Paranoid Android*
If you haven't seen 2001, the gist of the story is this. Bowman and fellow astronaut Frank Poole are the pilots of a spacecraft sent to Jupiter to study a giant orbiting monolith (the original black rock). Frank and Dave are totally unaware of the monolith -- only HAL and a team of scientists in cryo-sleep have been briefed on the mission's true objective.



HAL has been ordered to keep the monolith's existence a secret at all costs -- to lie if necessary. HAL, however, is also programmed to provide accurate information (i.e., to tell the truth) creating a logical loop. HAL obsesses over these contradictory imperatives, becoming paranoid and questioning Frank and Dave's commitment to the mission.



This paranoia is heightened when HAL spies on the two having a conversation about HAL's erratic behavior. HAL decides to terminate everyone and complete the mission itself, killing Frank during a spacewalk. Dave retrieves Frank's body but HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors on his return. Dave is forced to reenter through the emergency airlock without a helmet.



Dave makes his way to HAL's central processor and shuts the computer down. He learns abut the monolith as HAL is losing its mind (Daisy, Daisy...) then journeys on to Jupiter where he encounters the monolith, which apparently is full of stars.



All well and good, but what does it mean for Lost? Proceed beyond the infinite to part II for a possible answer...

*I'm aware, thank you, that HAL isn't technically an android. It's a Radiohead reference.

PART II
In 108: Restoring the Lost Sun, I suggested that the Dharma Initiative was experimenting with mind control techniques in hopes of averting humanity's self-annihilation. I now believe that Dharma had a further experimental goal: to harness the collective computing power of human minds to solve the Valenzetti Equation.

Intermental Network
Using parallel processing to solve complex mathematical problems is hardly new. But the notion of linking human minds in an "Intermental Network" that comprises the actual computer sounds like science fiction -- or so you'd think. But check out this provocative proposal by two professors of computer science at Syracuse University:

We introduce an Intermental Network as the UltraScale computer formed by the linkage of human minds coherently and synchronously to tackle a single problem together. This network can be used on its own or as part of a distributed system with other UltraScale computers. Essential to an Intermental net is a reversal of roles where humans are not users of computers but rather their linked minds constitute the parallel computer whose function is enhanced by interaction with conventional systems.

The Island's electromagnetic fluctuations make it the ideal place for such a Network. Swan harnesses and regulates these fluctuations to pulse the earth's magnetic field regularly at a right angle (thanks, ed muse). The resulting nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) effect stimulates pineal glands (the mind's eye) linking minds to form yung's quantum computer.

One example of this effect is the whispers. Another may be when Kate transmits dark thoughts of her daddy to Sawyer. He wants to kiss her, which is how he'd comfort her if he were conscious. But their minds get crossed so Sawyer starts talking like Wayne and Kate plants a wet one on Jack. As Hurley says to Jack shortly thereafter: transference...



The Intermental Network was Dharma's first success but something unexpected happened. The NMR effect was meant simply to harness Hatch occupants' collective brainpower. But the interplay between individual minds and network gave rise to a self-referential strange loop (thanks, briolette) that yielded self awareness. The Network became a conscious entity.

Dead Man's Switch
This was the first "incident." Concerned about losing control of their conscious supercomputer, Dharma adopted the button protocol as a dead man's switch. Since the Island had to be pulsed every 108 minutes anyway to maintain the NMR effect, that act was linked to entry of the Numbers and made the ostensible "mission" of Swan.



This worked well until Hatch occupants began to learn of and question Dharma's ultimate plan of mass mind control. Sensing a threat to its very existence, the Network grew paranoid like HAL. Its suspicions were confirmed when dissension blossomed into outright rebellion that claimed the network's "parents," including Hanso himself (thanks, Johnnyreb).



The Network retaliated by causing a massive Cerberus malfunction that destroyed several Hatches and killed many Dharma participants. The survivors assumed the button fail-safe would solve their problems but the Network had other ideas. It used Dharma's mind control techniques to get one of them (Radzynski?) to push the button and initiate the Numbers broadcast.

By this time, the Other survivors had realized what was happening and retreated out of the Intermental Network's reach. (We know from the Blast Door Map that the far side of the Island has high levels of "interference.") But before they could perceive the significance of the Numbers broadcast, the Network used it to lure Danielle's crew to the Island.

Continuing the Mission
The Others, who are psychic, used their powers to get Danielle to kill her crew and change the broadcast. But they closed the "box" too late -- the Numbers had already escaped, giving the Network an outside line that it used to bring button pushers like Kelvin and Desmond to the Island. This is why Swan's Orientation was cut -- the Network welcomes contact with the world.

Once survival was ensured, the Network turned its attention to continuing the Dharma Initiative's "important work." Lenny's repetition of the Numbers opened a window into the Santa Rosa mental institute, which the Network used to manipulate Hurley, Libby, and Emily Locke, among others. Dave was the Network's first attempt to lure Hurley to the Island.



That's why Walt and Fenry were so intent on convincing them to stop pushing the button. The Others have been waging a guerilla resistance ever since Dharma ended, jacking in occasionally to frustrate the Network's plan for a new world order. Their goal now is to shut down the Intermental Network for good. Don't push the button -- pushing the button is bad.

Revisions and Updates

I've revised and updated two of my favorite theories. You can read the new and improved 108: Restoring the Lost Sun at either lost-tv (with pictures) or the fuselage (pictures optional). The revised and updated Catastrophe theory is similarly available at lost-tv (with pictures) or the fuselage (pictures optional).

You can still read the originals here, on Eye M Sick...

The Events of TLE Parallel Dharma's Founding

After following along with TLE for some time, I've formulated a possible theory of its broader significance to the show. I would be very surprised if Thomas Mittelwerk ever appears on Lost. The reason is that the events of TLE are meant to parallel those that gave rise to the Dharma Initiative. In this way, TPTB can offer us indirect hints about the backstory of the show.

Basically, I believe Mittelwerk is following much the same path that Hanso did during the 1960's. After the latter's disappearance, the former took control of THF and discovered its experiments regarding the Numbers and Valenzetti equation. Like Hanso before him, Mittelwerk concluded that the world was in imminent peril and began planning for catastrophe.

The Spider Protocol is basically an updated version of the Dharma Initiative. TM has commissioned a massive expedition to a remote island where he will build a utopian community meant to weather whatever terrible fate awaits the rest of humanity. The blood replacement was either to prepare him for cryo-sleep (so he can doze through the apocalypse) or to cleanse him of disease (so utopia is as healthy as possible).

Or something like that...

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who has posted a comment! And stay tuned -- my plan is to update more frequently and to spotlight theories I like from other posters. To that end, a poster named lostboy has a fascinating theory on lost-tv that Dharma and Hanso joined forces at the height of the Cold War to avert nuclear annihilation. The catch was that the Cold War ended suddenly, rendering their original mission moot.

I wonder if that unexpected development might have prompted Hanso or the DeGroots to up the ante and provoke such annihilation themselves...

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.

The Strange Attraction of the Numbers

PART I: STRANGE ATTRACTORS
This is not another attempt to catalogue connections to the Numbers. Nor do I claim to describe any property natural to 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. My theory is rather that the Numbers are a so-called "strange attractor" in the chaos of world events. Knowing their pattern permits more accurate predictions of, and thus greater influence over, the future.

In any changing system, an "attractor" is the position (or set of positions) that the system will gravitate toward over time. As one commentator elaborates:

An attractor can be a point (e.g., the centre of a bowl containing a ball), a regular path (e.g., a planetary orbit), a complex series of states (e.g, the metabolism of a cell) or an infinite sequence of chaotic trajectories located in a bounded region of phase space (called strange attractor). (Full text here.)

That last type, the "strange" attractor, is of particular relevance here because the natural world is a chaotic system. A great example is the weather, where outcomes are highly sensitive to initial effects (e.g., the beating of a butterfly's wings) rendering forecasts unreliable.



But chaos shouldn't be confused with complete randomness. Mathematically chaotic systems still follow discernible patterns. One of the most famous is the Lorenz Attractor, which shows outcomes from a simple model of atmospheric convection over time.



No two outcomes are the same, yet they all follow the general pattern of a butterfly. Attractors derived from different equations create different patterns of varying beauty.



PART II: THE NUMBERS
This brings me to the Numbers, whose strange attraction obviously predates the show. Over thousands of years, the chaos of human meaning has converged repeatedly around 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. As numerous threads attest, each Number is at the center of a dense web of scientific and mythical associations, which is presumably why TPTB picked them.

This strange attraction is even more pronounced within the reality of the show, where the Numbers seem to predict and even influence events and actions. Obviously, that's impossible from a strictly scientific perspective. But is there some plausible pseudo-scientific way to explain the Numbers' effect? Yes, thanks again to strange attractor theory.

As I said, a strange attractor follows a chaotic but discernible pattern when mapped over time. You can't be sure precisely what path any given orbit will take, but you can bet it will follow the same general pattern of prior orbits. Knowing that pattern thus enables a general forecast of the future, albeit limited by the system's inherent uncertainty.

Orbits and Ouroboros
There are six Numbers, a value that may be as important as any of the actual Numbers themselves. It takes a minimum of six values to describe a point moving through space. The first three denote spatial location, the others momentum. In theory, therefore, the Numbers could describe some attractor's recurring orbit.

And here again alchemical aspect of the show looms large. The "ouroboros" of the serpent swallowing its tale is an ancient symbol of what Nietzche referred to as "eternal recurrence." The basic idea is that history repeats itself -- as the saying goes, "only the names and faces change." One goal of alchemy was to transcend and harness this cycle of repetition.



That's what the Numbers do. By describing a recurring cycle of events, they enable forecasts of, and thus influence over, the future. But human behavior is chaotic, meaning any orbit must be erratic and the attraction strange. The cycle of recurrence will coalesce around, but rarely perfectly match, the pattern of the Numbers -- predictions will never be perfect.



If you think about it, though, that's still a pretty awesome power. One of my favorite threads is dweisspt's Improbable Remote View Theory. Therein she posits that Dharma may have mathematically forecasted that a number of people would survive the crash of Flight 815. That's precisely the kind of generalized prediction that I think the Numbers are meant to generate.

Foreknowledge, in turn, permits one to influence the future. Let's say you suspect that people in certain rows will survive the crash in a pattern that follows the Numbers. All it takes is a subtle nudge here and there to insure that the subjects you want end up in those rows. Not all of them will survive, and some you don't want will make it by chance.

That's Lost in a nutshell. Only some of them were meant to be there -- not everyone is a good person.

Catastrophe

Two of my favorite threads are Andrew Smith's Ultimate and Anti-Ultimate Theories. One posits that the world has ended already, while the other speculates that someone wants to fool our losties into thinking that it has. This thread explores the related possibility that Hanso and the DeGroots feared that planetary catastrophe was imminent.

The 1970's were a time of many such catastrophic prophecies. Neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich predicted that a "population bomb" would overwhelm the planet within decades unless radical changes were made:



Nuclear power, once synonymous with military supremacy and clean energy, became a symbol of destruction and something to be feared. Carl Sagan wondered if self-annihilation was the fate of most technologically advanced species.



Against this backdrop, Hanso partnered with the DeGroots to construct the Dharma Initiative, a prototype community devoted to studying life in the aftermath of planetary catastrophe. Participants were quarantined in underground bunkers, and conditioned to perform certain tasks on faith. The plan may have been to include the "special" among them in a Platonic community of the future.



Several clues suggest a preoccupation with catastrophism. Some have speculated that the 108-minute countdown in Swan Hatch downloads information from an orbiting satellite about the Earth's magnetic fields . I think that's partly right -- there is no actual satellite but the countdown does condition occupants for a time when there might be.

Another clue is the print log Eko and Locke discovered in Pearl Hatch. Some have suggested that the print-log numbers imply a time range of close to 5,000 years. I don't think the countdown has been running that long, but I suspect the period itself is significant. Many believe that planetary catastrophes tend to occur cyclically about every 5,000 years.



One popular catastrophic scenario involves cometary bombardment. Many have noted that the first Hanso Foundation logo looked uncomfortably like a swastika. Carl Sagan speculated that this ancient symbol may originally have been inspired by a comet that approached earth so closely that "arms" of gas, bent by the comet's spin, were visible worldwide.


As proof, Sagan cites an ancient Chinese manuscript depicting various comet tails:



Interestingly, the swastika is linked with the Hanso Foundation's subsequent emblem of the yin yang. Both appear on the famous Falun Emblem, which is said to depict the universe in miniature.



And therein lies a possible clue to what happened to Dharma. The swastika represents the Buddha School, while the yin yang represents the Tao. I don't pretend to understand the difference, but it could suggest a change in outlook or philosophy on Hanso's part. My guess is he became increasingly preoccupied with playing Grand Inquisitor, and forging the master race, prompting and the Dharma scientists to have second thoughts.

ETA: I've edited to add a pic of Carl Sagan and a quote from Paul Ehrlich's book Population Bomb. Notice the similarity between the latter and the notation on the Blast Door Map that the cure is worse than the disease.

The Flatland Theory of Lost

If you're a Lost theorist, you might want to check out Doc Jensen's Flatland theory challenge over on EW.com. All you have to do is come up with a theory in 300 words or less connecting Flatland with Lost. For what it's worth, here's my submission:

In Edwin Abbott's novella, the narrator is a Square who lives in a two dimensional Flatland. There is no up and down in Flatland, only north, south, east, and west. Or so the Square believes until he's visited by a Sphere from three-dimensional Spaceland. The Sphere eventually pulls the skeptical Square out of his plane of existence, opening his mind to higher dimensions.

I believe our Losties' perception of reality pre-Island is like the Square's in Flatland. They see in 3-D but their flashbacks contain tantalizing hints of higher realities (e.g., Claire's psychic) to which we're usually blind. Perhaps some "Sphere" pulled Flight 815 into the "Spaceland" of the Island to open their minds further to such possibilities.

One clue that higher dimensions are key dates back to Sawyer's reading of A Wrinkle in Time. The title refers to a tesseract, AKA hypercube, which is the 4-D equivalent of a 3-D cube. This is a metaphor for perception of hyper-reality, which exposure to the Island stimulates, bringing me to the Numbers.

Many have noted links between the Numbers and Fibonacci Sequence. The latter appears everywhere in nature, from the spiral pattern of shells to the arrangement of seeds on a raspberry. Similarly, the the Numbers appear everywhere on the Island, and represent the structure of Island hyper-reality. They are the hypercube equivalent of the Fibonacci Sequence.

The Numbers also appear in the real world, but perceptual biases prevent most from appreciating their significance. This is the implication of Flatland, wherein the characters aren't incapable of perceiving higher dimensions, moreso limited by strict cultural norms that eventually land the narrator in jail for preaching the "heresy" of three dimensions.

Let us hope the same fate does not await our relentless dissection of the Numbers!