LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 85-88 (Days 99 - - ????)
Now we begin the jumbled confusion of Lost’s time travel circus:
After the Season 4 finale, the Oceanic Six and those left on the Island are separated by both time and space. The three years apart were covered in various ways.
On-island time shifts from 1974-1977. Chronology of island events as experienced by time-jumping islanders, up to the sudden arrival of the Oceanic 6 in 1977. Depicted during the first part of Season 5.
Off island time shifts from 2005-2007. Chronology of events taking place off the island after the rescue of the Oceanic 6. Depicted variously in flash forwards, real-time events, and flashbacks.
The key events in this four episode arc:
Widmore’s soldiers continue to reign havoc on the island, until they are ambushed by the Others with the help of Sayid and Kate, who get a free copter ride off the island as a result. But in haste to get back to the freighter, Sawyer jumps out to save his friends. However, when Ben kills Keamy in the Orchid station for killing Alex, it activates a “dead man” detonation device on the freighter, which eventually blows up killing Michael and Jin. The copter tries to get back to the island, but Ben moves the frozen donkey wheel, making the island “disappear.” The copter crashes, Desmond is dead in the water until revived by Jack. Then Penny’s boat arrives to rescue the Oceanic 6. But as a result of the sky flashing and island moving; the island is “skipping” in time and Locke meets Alpert on two different years, one in which he knows what is happening and another when he does not. Off the island, Ben is trying to get all the 815 survivors, including dead Locke’s body, back to the island. He asks Eloise what would happen if he cannot get everyone back. She replies, “God help us all.”
Science:
Exotic materials were referenced as being part of the Orchid station chamber.
Exotic Materials can include plastics, superalloys, semiconductors, superconductors and ceramics.
Casimir Effect
The existence of a force between two polarizable atoms and between such an atom and a conducting plate in 1947, and, after a conversation with Niels Bohr who suggested it had something to do with zero-point energy, Casimir alone formulated the theory predicting a force between neutral conducting plates in 1948; the former is called the Casimir-Polder force while the latter is the Casimir effect in the narrow sense. When this field is instead studied using the QED Vacuum of quantum electrodynamics, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force —either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates. Although the Casimir effect can be expressed in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, it is best described and more easily calculated in terms of the zero point energy of a quantized field in the intervening space between the objects.
Science theory, fiction application:
Exotic matter with negative energy density may be required to stabilize a wormhole. In quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel.
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topographical feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows one to picture a wormhole "bridge". This is merely a visualization displayed to convey an essentially unvisualisable structure existing in 4 or more dimensions. The parts of the wormhole could be higher-dimensional analogues for the parts of the curved 2D surface; for example, instead of mouths which are circular holes in a 2D plane, a real wormhole's mouths could be spheres in 3D space. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime.
Improbabilities:
The trigger mechanism on Keamy that detonates the ship explosives.
The idea of “cooling” the fuse/trigger aboard the ship. In the set up of the device, it is stated that if the battery is disconnected (no charge sent to the device) it would trigger a detonation, meaning that there is a redundant power source for the firing signal and the electric spark to detonate the C4. Cooling the battery makes no sense to stop the bomb from going off.
No one would have survived the C4 explosion. 500 grams of C4 can destroy a car; 500 pounds would have total destructive effect on the ship. When the chemical reaction begins, the C-4 decomposes to release a variety of gases (notably, nitrogen and carbon oxides). The gases initially expand at about 26,400 feet per second (8,050 meters per second), applying a huge amount of force to everything in the surrounding area. At this expansion rate, it is totally impossible to outrun the explosion like they do in dozens of action movies. To the observer, the explosion is nearly instantaneous -- one second, everything's normal, and the next it's totally destroyed.
Clues:
Hurley continues to interact with dead people in a physical manner. When Sayid breaks him out of the hospital, he leaves his chess game by saying “checkmate, Mr. Eko.” When Sayid is darted and Hurley is pulled over by the police, the cop who raps on his window is Anna Lucia, who yells at him to get his act together.
On numerous occasions, people ask Hurley if he is “crazy” because he is acting crazy.
Desmond wakes up three years after rescue from a dream of Daniel telling him to go to Oxford, but Desmond suddenly realizes “it was not a dream; it was a memory.”
Keamy tells Ben that Widmore will find him. Ben replies, "Not if I find him first." Despite Locke's best efforts to save him, Keamy dies. Locke tells Ben that he just killed everyone on the freighter, to which Ben coldly responds, "So?"
Discussion:
“ Life is a long lesson in humility. ”
— James M. Barrie
This is the most science-centric loop in the Lost series. In order to digest these meaty concepts without indigestion, let us slowly examine what was said and what is inconsistent with the show’s stated mythology.
In the video, Halliwax explains that The Orchid was designed to investigate 'unique properties' of the Island, it is these properties create a kind of Casimir Effect. He points to a white triangular door, calling it the vault. Halliwax explains that the vault was constructed adjacent to what they believe to be a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter. Halliwax then warns the viewer never to place any metal objects inside the vault. Halliwax then places a white rabbit inside the vault, closing the doors and stating that they will send it 100 milliseconds into the future.
From a science fiction standpoint, the theory of using negatively charged exotic matter to create a Casimir type effect means that the Frozen Donkey Wheel is in essence, a worm hole stabilizer. The video states that no non-organic materials, such as metal, should be placed in the vault. The vault was used to send bunnies milliseconds into the future. However, it was extremely dangerous for the time traveling bunny to interact with its real time self in the station.
When Ben blows a hole in the vault, all we see is a rocky tunnel down to the chamber. This begs the question: where are the exotic materials, the plates to which the island’s unique energy interacts to create a change in spacetime? Is the negative exotic material organics, such as humans? In the multiverse sideways realm, are positive exotic materials human souls?
The island’s EM energy creates the waves to make the Casimir effect to stabilize the wormhole between universes. the church’s “white light” energy waves must make a positive Casimir effect to stabilize the worm hole at the other end of the tunnel. The negative (evil) character traits and actions on the island are clearly balanced by the positive (good) character traits in the sideways world.
In physics, a Einstein-Rosen Bridge (or wormhole) is a hypothetical feature of spacetime theory that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through space and time. A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime. By crossing the event horizon of a Schwarzschild wormhole which bridges two different universes. the observer seeing light that has fallen into the black hole interior region from the other universe; however, this other universe is unreachable in the case of a Schwarzschild wormhole, as the bridge always collapses before the observer has time to cross it, and everything that has fallen through the event horizon of either universe is inevitably crushed in the singularity. A Schwarzschild wormhole is a bridge between areas of space that can be modeled as vacuum solutions to the Einstein Field Equations. Kip Thorne proposed that using "exotic matter" to hold open the throat of a Schwarzschild wormhole, one can create a transferable wormhole. This is called a Morris-Thorne Wormhole. By accelerating one end of a wormhole, it would allow the person entering it to travel to an exact location years in the past or future.
The Orchid must use a particle accelerator to open a wormhole that is used for time/space travel. This is the "frozen wheel" - particle accelerators need to be cooled to operate (they use superconducting magnets). As Ben turns the spokes of the embedded wheel, inside the rock the light changes and energy increases to a yellowish color to a flash of bright white light. (The white light that is the same as the final moment of The End, when Christian opens the church doors to “move on.”) The movement of the FDW creates the same failsafe Hatch denotation of Desmond’s; the island goes through a purple-white flash. But in this situation, there is a clear mechanical musical tone to the energy escaping the underground chamber.
Ben tells him that there is a price to pay to move the Island. The person that moves it must leave it and never return there. Locke is reluctant to let Ben leave but Ben offers a handshake, apologizing for all the misery he has inflicted on Locke. (This is the same statement told to Locke by Jacob after Locke falls 8 stories. Why does Ben say once someone “leaves” the island, they never can come back? That is not true as the O6, Locke and Ben return to the island later in the series. And it appears Ben has turned the wheel before, since he is familiar with Tunisia landing pad. At this point in the series, it is obvious that Ben has lied so much he is incapable of telling real truths. The Others and Ben have come to and from the island on the submarine in the past. When one turns the wheel, there is no literal or spiritual reason that they are forbidden from returning, they simply cannot, since they are sent to an unknown destination somewhere else on the planet, while the island is moved to another unknown point. The impact of this is that the person who turns the wheel can never know where the island is, since they move it but do not know where it moves in relation to them. There is nothing stopping Ben from getting to the island if he can manage to find it—the catch is that he cannot find it.
Meanwhile, Locke left the Orchid and heads to Richard and the Others, following Ben's instructions. At his arrival, all of the Others look surprised and Richard tells him "welcome home." The humility of Ben’s demise as the island leader must have made Locke feel like he was on top of the world.
The freighter explosion sequence which kills everyone on board (for now) was interrupted by another strange twist. After Michael yells at Jin to leave, he hears whispers After the whispers, Christian Shepard appears in the room containing the explosives, telling Michael, "You can go now...". The boat explodes, killing Michael and everyone else on board. From the helicopter, Sun cries out in desperation over the apparent loss of her husband.
Why does ghost Christian have to be on the boat? It is Christian that “allows” the explosion?
When did Christian get so much “power” over life and death of the characters? It makes the whole bomb explosion sequence surreal - - - that the dead are controlling the lives of the apparent living. It also puts into question “who” is really in charge - - - we are led to believe that the man behind the curtain is the mysterious Jacob, but in The End it is Christian who is the master of ceremonies at Eloise’s church.
The question is the Church - - - it is dark and foreboding with a basement pendulum to find the island with Eloise; but it is also light and cheerful in the End. But are there two churches? One with evil world and other with good world? Or is there just one “church” in the sideways world - - - that is the equivalent of the island in the real world. It is the nexus plates between both worlds. So when the O6 left the island, did they really “go back home” or did they go into an alternative reality (with all the medical legal errors and improbabilities)? The sideways purgatory limbo world had characters “living” alternative lives - - - basically good, calm and productive. It is when they “remember” the island time is when they realize the sideways world is fake (in the sense of being a repressed illusion). But that creates another issue: is the island an equal illusion?
When the island “disappeared” when Ben moved the FDW, there should have been a massive oceanic event. Displacement of the island would have created huge void; ocean rift like a sinkhole of 2.65 miles in depth. Such as displacement of land mass would have created a downward force vector, not little indentation on surface of water. A massive displacement of earth (volume) of a Pacific island, which are volcanic, arising from thousands of feet below to the ocean bed, would have created a massive suction as surrounding water would flood the void; a massive whirlpool event. But this was not depicted from the view of the helicopter. So from the visual evidence presented, several conclusions can be drawn: a) that the island is not real in the sense that it contains real volume of earth substances like soil and rock; b) that the island’s disappearance is an illusion (like a magician making an elephant disappear with mirrors) since the ocean’s surface did not dramatically shift with water displacement; c) the island did not disappear, but dove underwater like a submarine (USO); d) the island, as a construct, is not real in our normal view of reality (may be mental, or representative).
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The Frozen Donkey will which “moves” an island in time and in space.
Christian appears before Michael in the freighter. Christian then allows the C4 to explode, granting Michael's wish to die.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 85:
SUN: [Shrieking] Jin!
EP 86:
BEN: Jack... I said, all of you. We're gonna have to bring him, too.
[Jack, standing feet from Ben and facing him in the tiny mortuary, turns back and looks at the body in the coffin. Ben regards the body for a moment too. The well-dressed, peaceful-looking body in the coffin, the body of Jeremy Bentham, is the body of John Locke.]
EP 87:
DESMOND: Oxford.
EP 88:
MS. HAWKING: Then God help us all.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
If you can’t get lost souls back in their place on the Island, “God help us all?”
Is Christian the shepard who is supposed to herd these lost souls to
bridge mind and body back in one place so they can move on in the after life?
The Dharma science statements infer that the island is a bridge or “portal” between two universes. The island’s unique energy properties stabilizes a wormhole that connects space time and these two separate universes. The question is whether it is a bridge between earth and the afterlife, or more probable - - - between hell and heaven.
When Desmond “died” in the water after the helicopter crash, the island was in a state of time flux; and his mind may have crossed through the portal to the other universe, to a duplicate, parallel self. Now, complicating this assumption is that the other universe is the sideways world - - - one we will be told is where everyone is dead.
Under science fiction multiverse theory, for every action or decision in this world, it creates a parallel universe based upon alternative event choices. As a result, zillions of universes could be operating with the same “characters” but in different situations.
The frozen donkey wheel is the chamber where both Ben and Locke met their destiny moments of sacrificing part of themselves for the sake of a bigger purpose, protecting the Island by moving it in time and space. In a cold chamber is a wooden gear wheel is surrounded by Egyptian glyphs, translated to mean:
OPEN SIDE (EARTH) GATES TO ETERNITIES.
This has to be the best evidence of what the Island is: a nexus point between worlds. Since the Island has been built up by deference to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the phrase can easily be broken down to state that is device allows one to open an earth portal (a gate) to the afterlife. The pyramids and Sphinx were designed as part of Temples to make sure that rulers and leaders would be able to make their dangerous journey through the afterlife to paradise. The Temples were aligned with cosmic and heavenly objects and stars to make sure that the journey would match the myth of Ra's nightly cycle through the underworld.
In ancient Egyptian culture, departed souls would reach a pagan paradise where they would toil in the fields of the gods, while others would go into the underworld to have their heart weighed in the final judgment on whether they would pass onto eternal paradise. The Island could the the intersection of different, supernatural realms of good and evil. This could explain why our perception natural laws and physics seem not to apply to aspects of Island as a reason why there is no scientific or scientific theory explanation for the supernatural elements in the show. The Island is a different realm, a bridge between Earth (and its laws of physics) and a spirit world (where anything goes). Or better yet, the island is the Temple of the Dead who seek a bridge to the living after life (the sideways world).
If you fix the heart, you fix the mind. In island world, especially off-island, it is dark. Evil is center in the characters hearts. Quick to anger; quick to murder. But if one fixes the troubles in their heart, it heals their mental issues.
When we try to find a constant in the series, what are the most repeated lines by the characters?
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I am not crazy!”
“Trust me.”
What are the characters attributes in The End? Did any of them really change personality, beliefs? Did any really find redemption, forgiveness of past sins, or have any punishment for their evil ways? No, not really. The sideways church was not the judgment of the on-island events. In fact, there is no moral to the story of The End.
As such, can the series be better viewed as the bridge between lost souls on a journey of personal grief in the afterlife to find some relief with new souls in the next step towards heaven? One is a place of hell and the other a place of happiness.
