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The writings on the stone cork date back more than 7,000 years to the first written symbols of mankind. It would seem that the light cave, in its shrouded mystery, may have been around since the beginning of the planet. If it was truly the "source" of life, death and rebirth, that would make sense.

However, it had to exist before man became the intelligent ruler of the planet. It had to be a self-sufficient engine for the life cycle of Earth. As such, it would have never needed a human being to manage it or protect it.

A manager, guardian or worker would only be required if the light cave was an alien machine brought to the planet to "seed" it with life.  All machines have moving parts that need some form of maintenance or replacement. Was the electromagnetic energy of the light cave the battery that made the inner planetary core molten, create the rotation of the planet, form the atmospheric shield, and develop the currents which created weather systems to feed the growth medium (water) to all parts of the globe?

The Earth is a unique planet in our own solar system. It is the only planet that sustains life as we know it. Scientists have been scanning the heavens looking for another planet with life. They have yet to find one. Taking the science fiction premise of the light cave, no planet can have complex life without a light cave machine at its core.

If the island was the heart of the planet.  if its energy pulses the life blood of the world, then what happened to it? Jack left Hurley "in charge" of the island after Jack went to battle MIB. In one of the many fumbled series questions, a post-conclusion reference that Hurley and Ben "closed down" the island makes little sense in the framework of its alleged paramount importance in Season 6. The vast extent of Hurley's mechanical knowledge was helping his dad rebuild a Camaro. No one can compare the island dynamics to that of an old Camaro.

So what if Hurley and Ben shut down the Dharma barracks, made everyone leave the island safely, and hid it from people like Eloise forever? The island as a foundation element of the story had to have survived otherwise the dire warnings would have come true: the world would end as we would know it.

But the main characters worlds did end in the sideways church. They were all dead. They could never go back to their past. Their memories had been compromised and nearly erased by the transformation into their sideways forms. Could it have been the island shutting down that caused these memory lapses? Maybe, but Eloise remained fully knowledgeable of all the past and future ramifications of Desmond's actions to awaken the island survivors. So we must assume that the island itself is a survivor in its plain of existence.

So the island continues on but without Hurley, Ben or any known guardian. If Jacob's campfire words were true, his island after life existence ended after a short time period just like Crazy Mother never returned after MIB killed her. So there was a way for each immortal guardian to escape their duty to the island.

So if the island had no guardian, but remained a viable planetary engine for life, then we must assume that the island itself was an intelligent being capable of self preservation.  That would make sense because the island manipulated and recreated various matter into wondrous forms like temples and ghosts from memories of visitors.

Many people were waiting for the End to show who truly was the Man Behind the Island Curtain.  Just like when Dorothy pulls back the curtain and discovers that the Wizard of Oz is “just a man” which character was stripped of his spell of mystery and island power?  Which "wizard " turned out to be a mortal fake? The only truly all knowing and all powerful person on the island was Jacob.

We saw him stabbed and burned to ash. We saw that his ghost (as a child and as a man) lived on in the jungle. We never saw him again after he said his final farewell. He may have just led us to believe his illusion roller coaster of immortality and mortality. Confusion and vagueness was his calling card.

So we can conclude that after the 815 survivors completed their time on the island, the island either lived on on its own, or that the mysterious Jacob reformed himself to bring the next batch human beings to his island.