CRACKED UP

Cracked had an article trying to answer the great unsolved mysteries of television.

Of course, LOST was one of those TV enigmas.

This is how it summed up the series and its ending:

What The Hell, Lost?

It begins with the basic premise question:  were the characters time-travelers, incompetent aliens, sexy magicians or spirits in the afterlife? Was everyone on the show dead? Was it all the dream of an autistic child?

Their  Explanation:

It's not the afterlife, and the island is magic. As for every other question, some were answered in an epilogue on the Season 6 DVD set, though they too can easily be summed as everything was an experiment by DHARMA.

Some DVD question and answers were referenced as support of their argument:

"What's with that giant bird from Seasons 1 and 2?" DHARMA experimented on animals!

"Why do women have pregnancy problems on the Island?" It's the electromagnetism!

"What was that weird thing in Room 23 that looked like a brainwashing video?" A brainwashing video! DHARMA used it to erase memories!

"Where did the food drops come from?" A warehouse in Guam!

"Why polar bears?" They were good candidates for testing!

>>>> Except, what about the elements not tied to the Dharma folks. Namely, all the island inhabitants, including the immortal guardians Crazy Mom and Jacob?  Does the island magic come from these immortals trapped on the island (for what reason?)? See, the question within the question madness?!

Sure, one can logically state that something out of the ordinary would seem to be "magic" to a primitive culture. For example, an isolated  island tribe with no contact with modern, western civilization could consider a helicopter as "magic" since they have never seen aircraft. But the pilot could "explain" to the tribe the basic principles of flight. In LOST, the explanation of "magic" has no basic principle in which viewers could believe. It is purely used in this context as a broad brush for a fantasy story (which intentionally did not want to explain its elements).

BRAINS IN JARS

The London Daily Mail had a recent article describing what an Australian professor claims that our entire existence could be an elaborate illusion controlled by a genius evil scientist.

The premise is that you are not where you think you are. 

Your brain has been expertly removed from your body and is being kept alive in a vat of nutrients that sits on a laboratory bench.

The nerve endings of your brain are connected to a supercomputer that feeds you all the sensations of everyday life. 

This is why you think you're living a completely normal life.

Do you still exist? Is the world as you know it a figment of your imagination or an illusion constructed by this evil supercomputer network?

Could you prove to someone that you are not actually a brain in a vat?

As the article states, the philosopher Hilary Putnam proposed this famous version of the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment in his 1981 book, Reason, Truth and History, but it is essentially an updated version of the French philosopher René Descartes' notion of the Evil Genius from his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy.

While such thought experiments might seem glib – and perhaps a little unsettling – they serve a useful purpose. They are used by philosophers to investigate what beliefs we can hold to be true and, as a result, what kind of knowledge we can have about ourselves and the world around us.

Descartes thought the best way to do this was to start by doubting everything, and building our knowledge from there. Using this skeptical approach, he claimed that only a core of absolute certainty will serve as a reliable foundation for knowledge. 

He said: If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

It is from Descartes that we get classical skeptical queries favored by philosophers such as: how can we be sure that we are awake right now and not asleep, dreaming?

To take this challenge to our assumed knowledge further, Descartes imagines there exists an omnipotent, malicious demon that deceives us, leading us to believe we are living our lives when, in fact, reality could be very different to how it appears to us.

This premise has been discussed as a possible explanation to the LOST mythology. 

For example, who did Patchy of the Others survive being killed by the sonic fence and the island visitors to somehow come back to kill Charlie with an underwater explosive? To have nine lives, a human has to be unrealistically lucky or be reincarnated many times over. Or in this premise, he never really died because he was never really alive. He was a computer simulation, a reusable prop, to infuse the subject jar brains with conflict, reality, drama and emotional responses.

Another explanation of the evil genius controlling everything was inferred from the huge military industrial complex that was the island. Human experiments were part of the mission of the island scientists. It is not a great leap to see how an unseen overlord could have been directing the action, just like the man behind the curtain in the series nod to the Wizard of Oz. 

And this article does touch upon the embedded theme throughout the series: philosophy. Characters like Locke and Hume were named after famous philosophers. The characters had to make philosophic decisions between right and wrong, free will or capture. LOST could be viewed as an interactive thesis of philosophic questions being run through various programs in a supercomputer.

Because of the various continuity errors and story line red herrings, many LOST fans questioned the truth of the series story lines. There was doubt that the story writers and show runners actually knew what they were doing. Many have been searching for answers to explain or cover-up the show's big flaws. So, in a way, many continue to do a philosophic autopsy on the show to glean new information and explanations to make the show better in their own minds.

The mind is a powerful but not very well understood thing. It is an intangible element incorporated in the tangible brain. Our current science studies state how we "think" the mind works, but no one has shown the ability to download, in real time, the mental images of a human being onto a monitor. It is merely speculation, educated guess, theory. But what if there were a higher being who could actually tap into the conscious and subconscious mind of human beings - - -  for entertainment or research purposes? That would put the human race on par with gold fish in an cosmic aquarium.

TECHNOLOGY ANGLES

In some ways, LOST was highly technical-scientific. But it is also very out-of-date in applying technology.

With all the available technology to super wizard Sayid, the castaways could never get themselves rescued from the island.

The Dharma computer systems were old. The radio tower was an ancient telecom relic. The one highly advanced piece of technology was the Frozen Donkey Wheel, built by Jacob's brother in Roman times 2000 years ago.

As a commentary on modern technology, LOST has a nostalgic nod to it but it did not help the actual characters solve very many problems.  In most cases, technology (and its downfall) was the cause of many of the LOST problems. A modern aircraft falls from the sky. A modern freighter gets blown up at sea. A helicopter runs out of fuel and crashes into the ocean.

The Dharma stations were merely sets in the story lines and not important pieces to the LOST puzzle. They could have been critical clues but became irrelevant and immaterial in the end. The Hatch and the Numbers were supposed to solve key questions on what was the island and who were the Others. Neither were important in the story's conclusion: the hatch was not made by the Others or had any useful purpose in the mission of rescue, and the Numbers were arbitrary candidate designations by a supernatural being called Jacob.

We still don't know whether the smoke monster was an organic life form or some advanced nanobot technology.

The writers led viewers down the paths of scientific reasoning to answer posed mysteries. But science did not play a large role in characters final resting place, in an after life world. Even the mechanics of getting to the after life place was glossed over by the writers - - -  was the island a purgatory underworld step to achieve some form of enlightenment in order to get to the sideways reward or was the island truly a nightmare, real world existence?

The use of technology to tell the LOST story could have been better executed by the writers. Even if the technology answers were made up or irrational or theoretical (like most science fiction genres), viewers would understand that prose and move on concurrently with the character stories. But the inability to answer mysteries posed by scientific clues is like the unwanted party guest who overstays his welcome. It is annoying, tedious and disrupts the final enjoyment of the party.

OUT OF SYNC

In biology class, students were required to dissect a frog. By cutting open the bloated corpse, students were supposed to learn how the internal organs worked inside the frog.

If we take the series as the frog, we can find three distinct organs or story lines:

1. The island crash survivor story arc which was the beginning of Season 1.

2. The Dharma-Others, Ben vs. Widmore story line which took root in the middle of the series.

3. The sideways story arc dominated the final season.

These are three distinct stories which really do not mesh well together.

It may have been better to break a part each of these three main stories into their own self-contained mini-series.

I think the overlap of the stories (in an attempt to amp up the drama and conflict with the 815 survivors) made things too complicated and muddled over time. The initial conflicts seemed to get overwritten then dropped as the series continued toward the Ending.

For example, the Ben vs. Widmore "war" was promoted as an end-all bloodbath with deep seeded roots, but it sputtered and really was never presented as much more as a board room clash over the remains of the Dharma assets and the Others loyalty.  The final conclusion was Ben's petty assassination of Widmore, but that did not change the direction of the show or create any lasting impact on character development.

If you kept all three dramas separated, it may have made a clearer focus on the actual characters (in a character driven show). If the plane crash survivors did not have to deal with outsiders, but merely try to cope with survival and creation of their own new civilization, there could have been as much conflict and action that was not juiced by dangerous outsiders or black smoke magic. If the Dharma-Widmore-Ben-Others conflict was carved out as a separate story (without the time travel 815ers interventions) that may have concluded in a better fashion (possibly, with no one left on the island if Ben and Widmore truly went to war.)  And the sideways story arc needed to really separate itself from the forgotten character back stories to show a real alternative for each character (a real lesson to viewers that choices do matter in one's life.)

Season 1 and 2 could have been 815 crash survivor centric. Season 3 and 4 could have been Dharma-Widmore-Other-Ben flash back island history in conflict/war. Season 5 could have been the sideways alternative. Which would leave Season 6 to weave these resolutions together.

The main 815 characters could have learned the history of Dharma-Others in Season 3 by stumbling across the empty barracks and records/journals of those who fought those battles. It would be a lesson plan on how not to survive on the island by petty jealousy, power plays or betrayals. The sideways alternative could have been positioned as the main characters "dream" scenarios of how their life was, or could have been and what it might be if they were rescued. Since the survivors were not going to be rescued from the island, each character would have a lot of down time to imagine what happened to their lives, their regrets and their lost future. The sideways would not be a place in the after life, but the subconscious desire of each individual.

Then how could these three distinct story modules come together in the final season?

Simple. After years of being on the island, the 815ers are rescued by a passing freighter which was blown off course in a storm. As the 815ers tale of survival is told, it brings back the prior survivors of the Ben and Widmore more to the 815ers on the mainland, to share what happened to them when they got back "home."  The final season would involve how the survivors would cope coming "home" to the mainland - - - how their families had changed, how their jobs were lost, how they "didn't fit in" and then how they missed their fellow castaways.  Culture would build them up as instant celebrities, then bring them down as flawed characters out of touch with current society.

There could a final reunion in an LA marina. The main characters could meet to discuss their problems fitting in to their re-booted lives (which probably in some ways mirrors their lives prior to Flight 815). There also could be former island survivors like Ben who give the forlorn castaways the ultimate choice: to return to the island.

Each character's final decision making process would be the climax of the show. Who would stay and who would give up their re-newed life on the mainland, for the harsh life on the island? Who would step up to be the new (or old) leaders? Who would tearfully break the final bonds of friendship to stay in LA? And that is how the three story lines could sync together.

THE NEW DHARMA

Ben Linus is the ruthless CEO of Dharma. He obtained his power by leading a coup against the former chief executive, Horace, who struggled in finding the magic life force energy, and Juliet's former lover that Ben killed in "a bus accident."

Ben's focus in recruiting Juliet to Dharma was her research in infertility problems. Ben wanted to use her knowledge in order to understand why in a petrie dish filled with the same elements of a human womb, life could not be created and sustained to term. The missing component was the life force found in all living things. Ben wanted to find out how the life force created or sparked new life.

Ben's other problem was the failed fertility experiments where he had dozens of women dying in their third trimester. It was becoming a disposal problem. As a result, Ben would lock down the Dharma facilities and become the tyrant he was on the island. This was his reaction to his rival's alleged advancements in "life source research" coming from spies Ben planted in Widmore's facilities.

Ben would recruit a down and out surgeon who ratted out his own father in a medical malpractice case to be head of his research department. As a result of his own initial cover-up, Jack lost his hospital privileges and started his downward spiral toward drug and alcohol abuse. But Ben took advantage of Jack's personal misfortune and gave him a job, a purpose, and a leadership role in something bigger than what Jack was told. But Ben would also use Jack's own weaknesses to control him. Over time, Jack and Juliet would find a common bond in realizing that they were trapped in a madman's plan. They would begin their own escape plan to leave Dharma (which they realized the only past escape for Dharma people was death.)

Just as Jack and Juliet were about to launch their escape plan, Ben throws them a curve: human test subjects. Juliet had been wrapped up in her own life's work of saving pregnant women. Now she is rocked with guilt if Ben was going to forge ahead with more deadly experiments on innocent women. So she has a conflict with Jack, who needs her help in order to escape. So Jack seeks an alternative avenue, and starts to align himself with new assets: Kate and Sawyer, the new test subjects.

Here is where some of the island romantic friction begins to assert itself between Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Juliet.  As the heat is turned up, Ben suddenly becomes jealous and threatens them all with severe sanctions. Kate and Sawyer are then clued in on what a mad house Dharma was becoming, so they agree to work with Juliet and Jack in order to escape. In exchange, Juliet and Jack hold off on actually experimenting on Kate or Sawyer, faking data or giving fake injections to keep Ben at bay.

As Kate is prone to run away from problems and authority, Sawyer begins to revel in the concept that overthrowing Ben and taking his position is worthy prize for a lowly con man. He begins his own alternative path to wealth and power within Dharma's own ranks, using his charm to entangle other scientists in his revolutionary thinking.

Things get complicated when the Dharma Widmore rivalry gets personal. Instead of raiding talent, the companies begin to actually physically attacking each other's facilities. A bitter turf battle begins, and it pits highly placed researchers like Jack and Juliet as targets  in the cross fire. But just as things get real nasty and dangerous, Jack's group encounters a new, low level janitor and former monk named Locke, who has some crazy ideas of his own. Locke is a plant from the guardians of the life force order. His mission is to gather information, assess the situation, and sabotage Dharma's ultimate research and path to the life force spring which could include eliminating any people in his way.

With another faction inside Dharma, office politics will turn into open warfare over the destiny of the research and the lives of the researchers. Ben will become more paranoid and cruel. He will hire paramilitary assistants to keep his people in line. He will have a siege mentality that Jack and the others will try to exploit to their advantage.

But the best plans derail when Locke, being Locke, stumbles across underground tunnels that lead him to a frozen chamber containing hieroglyphs. Inside, he finds a wooden donkey wheel implanted into the stone wall, with an green light flickering inside. He does not know what it means, but not thinking logically (but believing  he is destined to be a super hero), he turns the wheel. His action leads to a cascade of terrible events as the universe itself become unbalanced.

DHARMA THEORY

The internet is a wonderful attic of miscellaneous information. In one cobweb corner resides other lost fan theories that were compiled over the years. We will review a few of the most interesting ones.

Fan Theory: The Dharma Initiative is using the island as a "sort of human recycling plant," taking "damaged, fallen people" and either rehabilitating them or junking them. And the Smoke Monster is the quality-control mechanism in this factory, testing people to see if they deserve to live or not.

This theory must presuppose that the world will have a bleak future where resources will be very limited and death panels will need to segregate who should live and who should die. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were academic and political discussions about world population growth and increases in starvation in third world countries. "Zero Population Growth" was the buzzword in advanced industrialized countries, whose birth rates today have plummeted to below replacement levels (which has caused the unintended consequence of immigration friction).

This theory also has the feel of a post-World War III reconstruction. In Europe, Nazi Germany had rehabilitation camps where people were sent to be "retrained" into nationalized policy citizens. In elitist and arrogant societies, those in control may perceive the lower classes as mere commodities or property to be discarded if they were "broken" or no longer served their purposes.

There were plenty of evidence to support this theory in the show. Dharma was powerful enough to create an elaborate series of scientific stations which mostly concentrated on the collection of data and manipulation of human beings. Room 23 was clearly a mind control facility. Other stations, like the Swan, were created to trick people into a certain mindless level of behavioral control, like typing in numbers into a computer every 108 minutes.

The one downfall of this theory is apparent. If the situation was dire, this island facility is too small to take care of the masses of broken humanity. Instead, one would have to look at the island as a prototype facility, to test the scientific theories of human recycling. The fact that early Dharma visitors "volunteered" like Ben's father to come to the island reinforces the notion that Dharma was preying on the weak or weak minded. Likewise, kidnapping professionals like Juliet to run experiments would show the ruthless above-the-law arrogance of corrupt political elite.

The other problem with this theory is that by the time 815ers crashed on the island, Dharma had been dethroned from power. The Others or native people were in charge of the island and its facilities (most were closed). The Others had no reason to continue Dharma's work. The 815ers may have had their individual personal issues, but they were not collectively "damaged" beyond repair.

And as an origin story for the smoke monster, it tries to make the advanced technology of Dharma as being the manifestation of the "evil" that Dharma would have represented in its hey day. However, with the ancient hieroglyphs contained in the temple and island monuments, the smoke monster appears to be older than Dharma - - - that the smoke monster was already present on the island when Dharma came to build its facilities. Whether Dharma "captured and trained" the smoke monster to do its bidding would be the subject of debate, because we still don't know whether Smokey was an animal, an alien or evil incarnate.

The "testing" of individuals may have been a way of getting around the purgatory theme that the show's producers denounced early in the first season. The concept of "testing" souls is also part of the Egyptian religious rites. The theory that damaged souls have a chance to "redeem" themselves before dying is a new, secular concept. However, there appears to be more gray area in the LOST story lines than black and white moral lessons.

This Dharma theory would have had a stronger argument if Dharma was still an active player when Flight 815 crashed on the island.

ISLAND GROUPS

When Flight 815 crashes onto the island, there is a diverse population already on the island.

There are the Temple people, led by Dogen. It would seem that these are the traditional Jacob worshippers. They do not leave the temple for fear of being attacked by the smoke monster. For some reason, the temple is sanctuary against the monster (or as long as Jacob is alive). These people may be the oldest large group on the island.

The Others may be an off-shoot of the temple. But they tend to live throughout the jungle, in a nomadic lifestyle. They use tents and make camp for weeks at a time. This is the main core group, which contains a mix of older island populous and new recruits for Ben's army after his purge of the Dharma collective.

There are still a few Dharma people left on the island, such as Mikal, Mrs. Krug and Kelvin, who still manned the Swan station. At one point, the Dharma science group had a truce with the Others over the control of the island. Dharma built several major stations on the island, which means at some point it controlled the island at will. But perhaps, under Horus' leadership, the scientific community dwindled - - - especially just prior to the dangerous Incident experiments to tap the island's energy source. As a result of the numbers loss, the Others began to attack the Dharma holdovers. Dharma collapsed due to Ben's purge.

There were also three stray individuals on the island. Danielle, the last remaining survivor of her shipwreck, had been living off the land for 14 years. Jacob had been the island guardian for centuries, mostly holed up in the foot of the Tawaret statue. Then there was MIB, the smoke monster, who may have been the oldest creature on the island.

By the end of the series, several major population shifts happen on the island.

All the remaining members of the Dharma group were killed off.
The temple people who refused to leave were wiped out by the smoke monster.
Danielle was killed by Widmore's raiders.
Jacob and MIB apparently met their demise.
The remaining Others had left for hiding in the jungle, or in the case of deposed Ben, an assistant to the new island guardian.
And only six 815ers (Hurley, Rose, Bernard, Cindy, Emma and Zach) were left alive on the island. Rose and Bernard were at their own cottage away from everyone. Cindy, Emma and Zach were with the new Others group. Hurley was left in charge of the island itself.

POLAR BEARS

LOST writers put the show into overdrive when it had polar bears running about on a tropical island. It was one of those impossible situations because polar bears would die in tropical climates.

There are many theories about why polar bears were on the island.

The first theory was that Dharma brought polar bears to the island to manipulate their genes so they could adapt to warmer temperatures. Some believe evidence of this is contained on the Blast Door map which stated  "STATED GOAL, REPATRIATION ACCELERATED DE-TERRITORIALIZATION OF URSUS MARITIMUS THROUGH GENE THERAPY AND EXTREME CLIMATE CHANGE." If Dharma was concerned about "the end of the world" through global collapse of the environment, it could have been looking to find a way for animals and humans to adapt to the massive eco-disaster as foretold by the Valenzetti Equation.

However, the gene experimentation on the polar bears seems weak considering that most American zoos have polar bear exhibits in climates well above the natural Arctic habitat.

The second theory was that Dharma was using polar bears to train them to do certain tasks. When Sawyer and Kate were locked up in the cages, Mr. Friendly told them the bears took little time figuring out how to receive fish biscuits from the cage machine.

Dharma was training polar bears to turn the frozen donkey wheel in order to move the island. The evidence of that is the polar bear (with Dharma dog tag) skeleton found in the Tunisia desert, around the same place as Ben wound up after he turned the frozen donkey wheel. We can assume that the early Dharma folks were concerned about the energy fields, as it killed at least one worker in the Orchid station. As a result, the science team conditioned the polar bear, a strong animal, to move the donkey wheel so as not to risk human life. Polar bears were chosen because they could tolerate the cold chamber where the wheel was located (which in itself is contra-indicated because the deeper one goes below the surface of the earth, the hotter it would get). But after some time, the concern over humans using the donkey wheel must have subsided as both Ben and Locke turned it and wound up okay in the desert halfway across the globe.

A third theory is more simple: polar bears were brought to the island to mess with visitor's minds. Dharma was all about mind control (see, Room 23). What is more disorienting to a visitor in a tropical jungle than being confronted by a large polar bear? The expression on Sawyer's face was priceless when he was firing rounds at the charging polar bear. It also brought to the the first major mystery, as spoken by Charlie to the fans, of "where are we?" This mystery of what was the island; where was it located; and what was its purpose is still unresolved.

But some may consider the polar bears as another writer twist of throwing something that should not belong in the normal course of events. It is a prop designed to confuse viewers with the aura of mystery but with no answers forthcoming (i.e. the theory that the writers were just making up things as they went along to keep fan interest whether it made sense or not).

The polar bears could also symbolize the main characters: people who were out of their normal place, being manipulated by forces unknown to them, and losing control over their own lives.

THE EXPERIMENT

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was an old theory about the show that believed that the events were all part of one large experiment. There was a great deal of scientific exploration on the show, from Daniel's maze rat time consciousness experiments, to the various Dharma stations which were tied to various educational disciplines.


The DHARMA Initiative built a series of stations on the Island and at least one off island in Los Angeles. The different stations had different purposes. Some stations were for research into various scientific subjects but other stations provided communications infrastructure. According to the Sri Lanka Video, they were created to help scientists "save the world as we know it" via research in various fields such as zoology and psychology. 

After Ben's Purge, the Others began using some of the stations for their own purposes while others were left abandoned.

Station No. 1 was The Hydra, which studied zoological research.  It included an underwater aquarium section, a number of animal cages above ground, and multiple large above-ground buildings. In the past, it held animals such as sharks, dolphins, and polar bears for experimental purposes. The Others controlled the station and did unspecified work at the location. The station was on a small island off the coast of the the main Island.

Station No. 2 was The Arrow, which was found by the Tail Section survivors. It had a
Quarantine Marker. It's possible function was to develop defensive strategies, and intelligence gathering.  In 2004, the station was largely empty except for several boxes, one containing a glass eye and copies of the Bible. Its name and symbol were noted on the blast door map. As in the Swan station "QUARANTINE" was written on the inside of the door. The station still had power and light, operated by some kind of switchbox. No Arrow-specific Orientation Film was found, but an aborted take was shown being filmed. The tail section survivors lived here before merging with the middle section survivors.

Station No. 3 was The Swan, or "the Hatch" as Locke and Boone called it when they found it. It also had a Quarantine Marker. It appears to have been created to conduct Electromagnetic Research and later to contain it. According to its orientation film, the Swan was originally a laboratory "where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations emanating from this sector of the Island". However, after an "Incident", a protocol had to be followed in which two people would take shifts pressing a button (inputting the Numbers into a Computer) every 108 minutes for 540 days, at the end of which time replacements would arrive to take the place of the previous inhabitants. It was located in the southern region of the Island, about a mile inland of the crash of Flight 815. There was a fail safe switch, when activated by Desmond the station imploded following the massive EM discharge.

Station No. 4 was the The Flame, a communications facility. The Flame was the name of a DHARMA initiative communications station. Its name and symbol were depicted on the blast door map, but the location was describe as "alleged." The station itself existed in three parts. The outside was a paddock for cows; inside was a living area, some storage, and a computer room. Underneath a rug was a door to a lower hatch area. This hatch contained DHARMA paperwork and more storage. The Flame was also rigged with a self-destruct feature consisting of C-4 explosive wired throughout the lower level. Patchy and Klugh were apparently living there when Locke, Kate and Sayid stumbled across it with Rousseau. Sayid looked for information and found a few manuals. Locke found a computer and began to play a game. When Locke entered the code "77" into the Flame's computer, the self-destruct sequence was initiated and the Flame exploded soon after Kate and Locke left.

Station No. 5 was The Pearl. On the  Blast Door Map it was shown as "The ?" in the middle.
It's function was Psychological Research and/or Observation. The Pearl was a DHARMA Initiative station and was first discovered by Nikki and Paulo and later by Locke and Mr. Eko. The task of this station, according to its Orientation video, was to monitor the Swan station and other stations via a Remote Viewing system. The orientation video also stated that the inhabitants of the Swan station were unknowingly part of a psychological experiment and the Pearl's occupants were to record their every behavior. However it is presumed the work the Pearl staff was conducting was in fact the real psychological experiment, since the notebooks they were asked to fill ended up at a dump. ("?") DHARMA Initiative staff members delivered food and supplies to the Pearl from time to time.
There was also a hidden camera present in the Pearl, indicating they and not the Swan residents were the subject of the experiment. The station consisted of a corridor with an octagonal tunnel leading down by ladder to the outside and one large, octagonal room, in which nine television sets were fed live surveillance pictures. There appeared to be damage to this station: missing panels in the roof, loose wires, boulder in room. There were no living quarters for the Pearl's personnel, as they only served in eight-hour shifts. However, there was a still-working toilet in a room placed left in the station.

Station No. 6 was The Orchid. On the  Blast Door Map it may have been the "Crossed-out station."
It was a facility on Space-time manipulation research, disguised as a Botanical station. It had a greenhouse on the surface, which had a secret elevator that led down to a short corridor with several doors along it. At the end of the corridor was a large room which housed the Vault (the time machine). Behind the wall of the vault was a dirt tunnel which led to a frozen cave with a large wheel sticking out of part of the dirt wall.

The Staff was an unmarked station. It was found by Claire, Kate and Rousseau. It looked to be a medical facility. Claire was taken here after being abducted by Ethan. Presumably, the fully operational staff was preparing her for a forced birthing, to deliver Aaron into the clutches of the Others. After her escape (assisted by Alex), the station was abandoned but was still powered with equipment. The station was later revisited by Claire, along with Kate and Rousseau. It was also visited by Juliet and Sun when they went to find out the date of Sun's conception and again at Juliet's request by Jin, Sun, Charlotte, and Daniel to gather medical supplies for Jack's appendectomy.
According to the station's position in the blast door map, it appeared to be located in the western portion of the Island. No Staff-specific Orientation Film was found, and unlike the Swan and the Arrow stations, there was no "Quarantine" warning on any of the doors of the station.

The Looking Glass was an underwater station with a moon pool and signal jamming equipment. It was connected to the mainland via a Cable. Ben Linus told The Others that the station was flooded but this was untrue. Two Others were stationed at the Looking Glass in secret by Ben as guards. At the end of Season 3, the Others had lost control of the station and it was partially flooded. It was here that Charlie made contact with Penny and wrote on his hand in his last moments "Not Penny's Boat" to a frantic Desmond.

The Tempest was a Toxic Gas Research and Production Facility.  Charlotte informed Juliet that she and Daniel went there to disable the station for fear that Ben might try to "use" it again. Charlotte may have been alluding to the fact that Ben had used this station to initiate the Purge that killed all of the DHARMA Initiative members and that he would do the same to everyone currently on the Island. It contained computers with security protocols to stop the release of toxic gas, but it also had a clear fail safe switch near the enterance which the visitors failed to use.

The Lamp Post was a station built in the basement of a Los Angeles church. There was a large pendulum over a world map connected to banks of old mainframe computer systems. The station was used by Eloise Hawking to determine the Island's location at a certain time. It was at this place that Ben brought the O6 people to try to convince them to return to the island.

A common thread in each station was a behavioral test of its workers in critical situations. Each station was monitored by a bank of TV screens by Ben at the Hydra compound. It could mean that Dharma's main function was to conduct research on human behavior, by studying animals in unusual non-natural situations (polar bears in the tropics) to people in boring to stressful situations.

Further evidence of this behavior study would be the modification of people. Room 23 was not a station, but a laboratory designed to inflict noise, sound and images to a strapped in person to alter their mental patterns. Mind control. Punishment. It would seem that after the Purge, the Others continued to use Room 23 (with its cult like passages to Jacob) just as Dharma probably used it on its own people.

As such, one could conclude that one cult merely replaced a previous cult on the island. Dharma was run with the hierarchy of a cult leader directing his followers to serve a greater man (Jacob) under the philosophy of "saving the world." The Others also believed in Jacob. They believed that they were "the good guys" whose work and protection of Jacob and the Island was their paramount mission in life.


Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that's where you will find success. — Thomas J. Watson
 
But even the Others, including Alpert, grew weary of Ben's sidetrack experiments such as fertility issues and more outsiders with weapons coming to the island. The original Others probably were more content with the simple life of worship and peace at the Temple than Ben's Others taking over the Dharma barracks and a new set of marching orders. 

If the island was merely a place of intense experimental research, why did have strange occurrences and intense battles for its control? It may have been one of those situations where one event triggers a series of unforeseen, unintended consequences.

First, the people brought to the island may believe that they were there to serve a higher purpose. However, they may have been merely brainwashed to serve an egotistical master, Jacob, who enjoyed the voluntary imprisonment of his subjects. Second, the people like Juliet thought that the island was a place for true research into serious problems like infertility. The island's unique electromagnetic properties were the catalyst for research in various possible applications, including medical cures.

However, the tapping of the EM pockets could have been a mistake which altered the balance on Earth and/or the universe. The disruption of the EM light force could have opened a portal to a different dimension, parallel universe or a gateway to the after life (as depicted by the large amount of Egyptian death ritual symbols). 

There are viewers who believe that the LOST world seen upon the show is existentially different from our own world, such as that a  scientific experiment which opened or created a real Pandora's Box that would reform time, space, energy and matter by intense human thought waves, or now a more popular theory that the show depicts characters in purgatory or some "in between" place between the real  and the spirit worlds.

Just as people can debate the "place" of the characters, there are many psychological theories to explain the premise of the show. The psychological appeal, usually maintaining that either the events on the Island or those in flashback (or sometimes both), are inherently deceptive. The main motivation of those in power is to manipulate and control other people. They use rewards, cruelty, captivity, "deals," and threat of death to get what they want - - - behavioral change or submission.

What is notable that this concept of mental control can occur in reality or within a person's mind. In either situation, the person experiences the same vivid reality of the events. So the Island and its events on the characters could be a large social experiment to determine how people react to stressful situations or a conditioning experiment to induce dream states or hallucinations in order to correct anti-social or psychotic behavior in mental patients.The characters are exploited by their handlers to find the truth, in their actions or their feelings, in order to "move on" in the real life (to cure a social ill, to rehabilitate a criminal's behavior, to manage anxiety or anger, to bring coma patients back to life).

The idea that the show was merely a large laboratory experiment on human behavior could be justified since many of the characters had the same issues or problems (daddy issues, abandonment issues, criminal behavior issues, etc.) Whether all the missions, conflicts, choices and misery the main characters endured actually made them better people in the end is also debatable. For example, was Locke's murderous death the real answer to all his prior psychological problems? Perhaps Locke's life merely a prop situation for Ben to come to terms with his murderous rage issues (and in that situation, he failed that test.)

One thing is pretty certain: Jacob was the zookeeper of the island. Whether he was immortal or whether he was the one true mental patient with a vivid but cruel imagination is another mystery yet to be solved.

THE LAMP POST

One of the few settings that bridged both the island time line and the sideways realm was the church which Eloise told Jack, Sun and Desmond was The Lamp Post, a former Dharma station that contained a pendulum swinging over a global map as an island tracker.  In the fantasy sideways world, the church was created to bring together the 815 island survivors to begin, continue, or move on in the after life. So the church is a key element in trying to figure out what happened to the characters.

 This is the Lamp Post church that part of the O6 visit in order to find a way to get back to the island.

 

This is the same church but in the sideway world at the end of the series.

First, why was this station called the Lamp Post?

By basic definition, a "lamp" is a noun for a device for giving light, either one consisting of an electric bulb together with its holder and shade or cover, or one burning gas or a liquid fuel and consisting of a wick or mantle and a glass shade, for example,  a table lamp.

It also can mean an electrical device producing ultraviolet, infrared, or other radiation, used for therapeutic purposes.
An alternative definition is that of a literary source of spiritual or intellectual inspiration.


The word comes from the Greek, for "torch."  In American lexicon, "passing the torch" is a phrase that imparts the transfer or transformation of some person, business, event to another person. It is the bridge between the past and the future marked by an event in the present.

The basic definition of the noun "post" is  a long, sturdy piece of timber or metal set upright in the ground and used to support something or as a marker.

Alternative uses of the word post include (as with obj. and complement) to  publish the name of (a member of the armed forces) as missing or dead.


It is derived from the Latin for "beam."

If one puts the root for the Lamp Post it could mean "light beam." It is the same church in The End where the characters leave in the white light. So could the Lamp Post church be both the door and exit to the after life?

On a side note, the word "Post" can have a clue or reference to Wiley Hardeman Post (1898-1935), a U.S. aviator.  He was the first man to fly solo around the world 1933, accomplishing this in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. He was flying near Point Barrow, Alaska, with Will Rogers as his passenger when their plane crashed and they were both killed. Desmond was trying to win a solo race across the Pacific. And Flight 815 was a famous plane crash within the context of the series.

We were told that the church station was created by Dharma (and possibly with the help of Daniel Faraday.)  The station appears to have been built upon the intelligence gathered by the U.S. Army in 1954, since Jack sees a photograph of the island taken by the military in the pendulum room.

The Lamp Post station was run by Eloise Hawking. She is the one character who appears to know "everything" about the strange events and the island properties, but keeps everyone in the dark about its true nature and purpose.

We know that the only people who visited the Lamp Post church were Eloise, Ben, Jack, Sun and Desmond.

How did they “create” a church in the sideways world that only a few of them saw?

It gets back to the Christian conundrum : everyone created the sideways fantasy, but how and when when none of them remembered their past?

Well, only one person knew about the past: Eloise. She was overly protective of it. She warned Desmond not to wake the others. She feared that if Daniel remembered his island past, he would leave her forever.  So Eloise knew about the church, its purpose, and the concept of awakening which she warned Desmond not to do.

Desmond is the only other person at the church who was awakened in time to create
the place. But his real role was gathering all the souls at the concert so they could finally awaken. Once awakened, they were directed to go to the church, but we are not clear by whom. If we believe it was Desmond, then we can also believe that he was still be manipulated by Eloise to round up the people who could take her son away, and get them out of her current "life."

The sideways arc only took approximately 14 days in sideways time. So logically, it was created on the 14th day before Jack died on the island.

Going back to island time, the sideways world had to have been  “created” at the same time as Ajira Airways Flight 316 experiences a flash of light 10 hours after take off (in the middle of the night in on a Friday in late 2007)  during which Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid vanish and the remainder of the passengers and the plane time shift to daytime in December 2007.  Some speculate that is the similar to the time shift phenomena in "The Constant" that Sayid noted after flying from the Island through severe turbulence to the Kahana with Frank Lapidus and Desmond. He noted they arrived in the middle of the day after taking off at dusk but traveling only a mere 40 nautical miles. The pilot, Frank Lapidus, maneuvers the plane around the suddenly looming Island to emergency land on Hydra Island's runway. It is interesting to note that Frank is a key player in both those airborne "flash" experiences. Was Frank a mere drunken background character with severe guilt, or was he more of a guardian angel able to get people "where they needed to be" (a theme of Eloise throughout the series).

The church is a key clue in trying to understand the significance of the sideways conclusion. It must be symbolic of life and death, the core of all human existence. It must be the means to get from life to the after life since that is where the characters end their journeys. The church could be the elusive portal of unique energy properties (now the white light) which could mirror the green Life Force found in the island cave (which represented life, death, and rebirth).

The church is one of the biggest clues to who was really controlling the LOST characters. Eloise was the only character who understood both the island and sideways realms. She was the one who created and maintained the church, in both worlds.

REBOOT EPISODES 93-96

POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.

LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 93-96 (Days ????- - ????)

In 1974, Sawyer perpetuates a lie with some of the other Island survivors in order to protect themselves from mistakes of the past, by joining the Dharma group.

When the O6 arrives,  Sawyer is forced to further perpetuate his lie in order to protect them by making them part of Dharma.

Things begin to unravel when Sayid goes rogue and takes matters into their own hands, risking the lives of everyone on the Island. Dharma thinks he is a Hostile.

Kate goes to extreme measures to save Ben's life after he is shot by Sayid when Jack refuses to help. She asks the Hostiles to help Ben. In a house, Hurley and Miles try to figure out the consequences of Ben's shooting and time travel. Sawyer tries to recruit help from Jack, but he refuses telling Kate that he already saved Ben once, and he did it for her. Jack claims that he's done trying to fix things and now puts his trust in the Island. Kate remarks that she doesn't like the new Jack, but Jack reminds her that she didn't like the old him.

Miles argues with Hurley about time travel.

Kate arrives at the infirmary and donates blood to keep young Ben alive. As Kate and Roger sit at Ben's bedside, he admits that he may not have been "the world's greatest father" since Ben stole his keys because of him.

Inside the house, Hurley is trying to understand the unanswered questions of time travel. Miles explains to him that they are in their present while everyone else are in their past. Hurley wonders why a future Ben couldn't remember that Sayid, the guy who tortured him in the future is the same guy who shot him in his past. Miles has no answer.


Juliet is able to stabilize Ben, but can't heal him. Juliet tells Kate that the Others may be able to save his life by bringing him to the Temple.  She secretly helps Kate load Ben into a van, and Kate drives out to the sonic fence. Sawyer catches up with her and helps her rather than stopping her. He says that he's doing it for Juliet--because Juliet feels it's wrong to let a child die. Sawyer and Kate bring Ben to the Others.

Science:

Wikipedia reports on a man who weighed deceased souls. In 1901, Duncan MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was apparently sensitive to the gram. He took his results (a varying amount of perceived mass loss in most of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the average loss of mass in the six patients within moments after death. Experiments on mice and other animals took place. Most notably the weighing upon death of sheep seemed to create mass for a few minutes which later disappeared. The hypothesis was made that a soul portal formed upon death which then whisked the soul away.

MacDougall also measured fifteen dogs in similar circumstances and reported the results as "uniformly negative," with no perceived change in mass. He took these results as confirmation that the soul had weight, and that dogs did not have souls. MacDougall's complaints about not being able to find dogs dying of the natural causes that would have been ideal led one author to conjecture that he was in fact poisoning dogs to conduct these experiments. In March 1907, accounts of MacDougall's experiments were published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the medical journal American Medicine, while the news was spread to the general public by New York Times.

His results have never been attempted to be reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or considered to have had little if any scientific merit. Nonetheless, MacDougall's finding that presumably the human soul weighed 21 grams has become a meme in the public consciousness, mostly due to its claiming the titular thesis in the 2003 film 21 Grams.

Improbabilities:

The time traveling Ben Linus, on the Hydra Island in 2007, would not have any immediate affects from being shot by Sayid in 1977 as a child, including memories if time travel is a string as Daniel states; that you can go back and forth upon the time string, but what happened happened.

Clues:

The Lost explanations of time travel, and then the subsequent breaches of those time travel rules, indicates a) that the viewer is not really seeing time travel but some form of illlusion or b) massive continuity errors in the filler arcs.

The duality of young Ben “dying” in the island past by Sayid, and the severely injured Ben awaking on the Hydra island “the land of the living” after 316 crashes and meets dead Locke (Flocke) indicates that we do not know who is alive or who dead but in a living clone on the island. The idea that the island is the land “of the living” can be a misnomer of dead souls who retain a physical manifestation passing through hell.

Discussion:

“ A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. ”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We come to another crossroads. The series is throwing out more and more mysteries, but the show will not conclude like a mystery story. The series is throwing out more and more science fiction attributes, but the show will not conclude like a sci-fi classic. The series is also imparting more adventure sequences, but it is masking “shock plot twists” as drama. Season 5 is the point where many late adopters of the show jumped off the raft.

What Happened, Happened is a misnomer. When Sawyer takes on the sheriff role in 1970s Dharma camp, that changes the past. The time flashing 815ers have a direct causal connection to Sayid shooting Ben as a child. As a result of Jack’s insistence not to intervene (to let the island do its own thing), Kate takes it upon herself to save Ben. This should have fractured their shaky relationship forever.
When I first viewed Season 5, the episodes continue to confirm my suspicion that the show is about the after life. That all the characters are not in the real world; they are all dead.  The Egyptian mythology on the afterlife is the basis for the characters journey through the underworld to judgment.

It is not about time travel but re-creation of “place” in order to test the characters (souls) to determine if they are worthy to remain in the afterlife or be destroyed into non-existence.

The concept of “place” over “time” is evident in the clear indication that the Hydra station with polar bear cages in use in 1974-77 with the Sawyer group while Locke and the 316ers are at the abandoned Hydra station in 2005-2008.

Each character is being put into a new situation (place) to determine whether they are able to “Change.”  For example, Sawyer’s soul has been reset to a situation or place where a murderous con man can change into a the peaceful, wise sheriff of Dharmaberry.  For example, Locke was returned to a “real” world setting with a simple mission to bring people back, but he utterly fails in his own right. He now has an opportunity in a new place with the 316ers where he could change from pathetic suicidal loser into the special leader (a “do over” if you don’t think Locke’s body was taken over by MIB).

It would appear that Widmore, Alpert, Abbadon, Hawking, Brother Campbell are all on the same team.  They are all judges from the underworld who are testing the characters to determine whether they are worthy for redemption and rebirth.

While Chang is constructing the Orchid to get to the FDW, Horace is doing 4 a.m. feedings, Sawyer is Andy Griffith, Radzinsky, a security guard, is creating the plans for the Hatch?  Does that make any sense?

In 1977, the Hatch was not built yet. How would the Hostiles allow a major underground construction project (remember the massive concrete vaults) on their territory? They would not. The natives would have had to been eliminated in order to construct the hatch.

Radz and Kelvin survived the Purge in 1992. So the Hatch had to be constructed between 1977-1990. Based on the equipment, more towards the early 1980s.

The hatch’s purpose still remains a mystery.  Why would you need in a computer age, an operator typing in the numbers every 108 minutes? And why construct your alarm display in hieroglyphs? 

In 2001, Desmond replaced Radzinsky at the Hatch. Radz went nuts and allegedly committed suicide. Was he the Faraday of his day?

In 2004, Desmond’s failure to put the numbers in caused 815 to crash.

Now the 815ers of 1977  are in the position of stopping the hatch from being constructed, which would change the future so 815 would not crash.

During the Swan Orientation Film, Dr. Marvin Candle mentioned that there was "an incident" which resulted in the creation of a protocol that required a code to be entered every 108 minutes. The incident involved a leak in the containment associated with an electromagnetic anomaly. The leak caused an unspecified charge to build up within the anomaly. As the charge built up, the magnetic field associated with the anomaly grew. After 108 minutes, the magnetic field was large enough to damage the Swan station. This incident most likely occurred before 1980, the production date of the film. ("What Kate Did")

Dr. Marvin Candle issues a strict warning not to use the computer for communication with the outside world. He goes on to say that failure to comply will compromise the integrity of the project and could result in another incident. Candle also seems to indicate that the incident occurred shortly after the Swan station began operations. ("What Kate Did")

It is unknown exactly what caused the incident to occur or what kind of damage it caused. The protocol was created so that the magnetic anomaly could be discharged every 108 minutes, thus preventing an electromagnetic catastrophe. Failure to comply with this protocol leads to a system failure. There is a failsafe mechanism in place below the floor of the computer room that will destroy the Swan and permanently and safely seal the electromagnetic anomaly. ("Live Together, Die Alone")

1980 Swan orientation references The Incident causing protocol for EM discharge.
Sawyer group Dharma 1974-1977.

The Incident, EM discharge, 1977-1979.  (The Orchid? why build Swan on different spot?)

Swan built between 1977-1980 (Why Radz designing station not needed to exist yet?)

Ben buries Orchid box w/ mirror, crackers 1990
Ben orchestrates the purge in 1992.
Radz and Kelvin in Hatch survive the Purge in 1992.
Radz commits suicide 1999-2001
2004 protocol breach caused 815 to crash
Ben builds runway for plane in 2004.
Desmond impodes Hatch with fail safe key in 2004
O6 leave island in 2004-05.
316 crash lands on runway in 2007
Dharma barracks “different” in 2007.
Picture wall: one more recruits photo (6 months after Jack arrives?)

So going back into time to 1977 should have created more massive event distortions in the Lost universe.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

Time travel. In all of its inconsistencies.

Dead Locke walking among the island living.


Last lines in episodes:

EP 93:
SAWYER: Yeah. I just... I gotta go.
[He does so.]

EP 94:

SAYID: It's nice to meet you, Ben.

EP 95:

SAYID: I am a killer.
[Sayid looks up and shoots young Ben in the chest once. Ben falls to the floor instantly. Sayid lowers the gun and wipes a tear, then he runs into the jungle, leaving Ben for dead.]

EP 96:

LOCKE: Hello, Ben. Welcome back to the land of the living.
[Ben's eyes open wide as he realizes Locke is alive again.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

In ancient Egyptian religion, names held great power or magic. When a new Pharaoh took the throne, he would erase the name of his predecessor in order to eliminate his power. Likewise, people would not speak a god’s name, but use another name as to not invoke the power or wrath of that god. Also, when you wanted the gods to spite an enemy, you would invoke a curse upon him.

Maybe this ancient concepts are at play in the Lostverse. We have always been bothered by why Hugo is called Hurley in the island world. We know that James Ford took the name of his parents’ killer, Sawyer. But Sawyer’s rise to power coincides with Juliet calling him by his given name, “James.” And it is that simple invocation that gives Sawyer a change in personality to become a well respected member of Dharma, its sheriff, and a long lasting relationship with Juliet.

Hurley winds up as the powerful god-like guardian on the island in the end. Is it the recognition and call of his given name in later episodes that defines his final mission?

The concept that the island “is the land of living” as Flocke tells Ben on the 316 island is probably a great misnomer, too. It may be another lie to invoke a sense of common place in the souls now trapped in the misery of forehell. It is also a control mechanism by those who have actual knowledge that they are dead - - - knowledge is power in the Lost world. Hurley has wavered from thinking he was crazy to thinking that all of the 815ers never left the island, that they were all dead. Hurley’s prophecy will turn to ultimate truth in The End. Viewers probably did not give Hurley enough credit as our proxy in the series.

Gnostic idea that there are two worlds, and the inferior visible world is an illusion. The island world seems more “real” but it is an inferior “illusion” of life as compared to the ending sideways world (after life or purgatory holding dimension). We have seen several references to the island world as being an illusion, a reincarnation, and a place of death. It may be the first place of death in a chain of levels of enlightenment until a final death brings together all the elements to complete one true life (i.e. the sideways church reunion.)

REBOOT EPISODES 57-60

POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.

LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 57-60 (Days 73-79)

Desmond’s mental flashes or visions continue; he saves Claire from drowning and foresees Charlie’s death.  We learn about Desmond’s mind travel, and the show introduces the Widmore story arc and Eloise Hawking.

Jack bargains with Ben to keep Juliet alive. Isabel, the “sheriff” interrogates Jack. Kate, Sawyer and Karl return to the Island. The strange tale of Jack in Thailand with the exotic, mystery woman Achara is told.  Jack makes her tattoo him, even though she claims there will be "consequences."  The next day Jack exits his hut, but this time the Thai boy, who usually gives him soda, runs away from him. Chet and a group of Thai men approach Jack, uncover his tattoo, and mercilessly beat him.

Karl reveals that the Others live on the main island and only work on "projects" on the Hydra Island.  As for the children that were kidnapped, they "give them a better life." Kate asks "better than what?" "Better than yours," Karl responds.

Hurley confesses his fears and troubles at Libby’s grave. Hurley finds Charlie and gets him to reveal Desmond’s flashes and Charlie’s eventual demise. Hurley says it might be his fault because of his curse, but Vincent emerges from the jungle with a skeleton arm holding a key. This distraction forces Hurley chases Vincent until the dog drops the arm. Hurley takes the key which has a lucky rabbit's foot key chain attached and follows Vincent to an overturned van once used by Dharma.

At the camp, Charlie demands that Desmond tell him when he will die but Desmond informs him it doesn't work like that.

Sayid is upset with Locke’s plan to follow the “305” inscription on Eko’s prayer stick to navigate to Jack. Locke argues that it is all they have to go on. On the mission, Sayid goes to find fruit and hears a cow bell and finds the cow. Sayid is amazed to hear someone whistle for the animal. Through the bushes he spies a a small building with a communication dish, a horse and the man on the TV monitor - - - Patchy.

After circling the area, Sayid confirms to the group that the building is isolated, and that a satellite dish like that could broadcast for thousands of miles. He asks Rousseau if it is the radio tower that she had talked about, but she says she has never seen this place before. Sayid says he will approach unarmed, with the other three as backup in hiding. Danielle says that she had survived on the Island for so long by avoiding such confrontations.

 Sayid, Locke, Kate and Rousseau are introduced to the Flame station, a communication outpost to the rest of the world. They confront and subdue Mikhail (“Patchy” from the Pearl TV monitor) and Klugh, the woman who made the deal with Michael to get Walt back and leave the Island.

Patchy claims when the Cold War ended, and he later replied to a newspaper advertisement that read, "Would you like to save the world?" He joined the "very secretive, rich, and smart" DHARMA Initiative and came to the island eleven years ago. He was put in this station to communicate with the outside world. He says that everyone else in the DHARMA initiative died in a foolish attack they called “the purge” on a group they called “the Hostiles,” which we believe are the Others.  Mikhail survived by not getting involved and agreeing to a truce where he could stay behind as long as he did not cross a designated line around the valley so he will be safe. He says the Others weren't interested in the satellite dish because it hadn't functioned in years (which is a lie). He doesn't know who the hostiles are, but they were on the Island for a very long time before the Initiative or anyone else came.

Sayid and Kate climb down the Hatch ladder while Locke watches Mikhail's unconscious body upstairs. Locke, however, hears the computer asking for the next chess move and he goes to it, leaving his prisoner unsupervised. He finishes another game of chess and achieves a mate in 2, which the computer erroneously claims is a checkmate. A video of Marvin Candle appears and says, "Manual override achieved. For pallet drop enter 2-4. For station up-link enter 3-2. For mainland communication enter 3-8."Locke enters 3-8. A new clip is called up saying "The satellite dish is inoperable. Communications are down. For sonar access enter 5-6." Locke enters 5-6. A new clip says, "Sonar is inoperable. Has there been an incursion on this station by the Hostiles? If so, enter 7-7." Locke's finger aims hovers over the 7 key when Mikhail puts a knife to his neck from behind, stopping him from typing the second 7.

Klugh appears in the Flame basement. Sayid and Kate see the place is rigged with explosives wired throughout the entire underground room. Sayid sees a shelf lined with binders, one of which is a food drop protocol and another is an operations manual.  Kate investigates a closet area and is attacked from behind by Klugh. . Sayid arrives and tells Klugh to drop her gun. Kate hits her, saying she helped kidnap them and she knows where Jack is. Sayid asks Klugh if there are any Others there, but she acts unafraid, hardly intimidated by the rifle.

They take her upstairs and outside, where Mikhail has Locke at gunpoint. Mikhail offers a hostage exchange but John claims Mikhail wouldn't kill him. Klugh talks and argues with Mikhail in Russian while Kate, Locke and Sayid shout. Finally she orders him to "do it" and Mikhail shoots her in the heart. Mikhail is knocked over and Sayid points his gun at him. Mikhail tells him to finish it, but Sayid doesn't shoot.

Later, in the evening, Sayid takes Mikhail outside and calls Danielle. Mikhail says that he was never a member of DHARMA but that everything else he said was true, and that DHARMA did really attack the Hostiles. Sayid tells Danielle that Locke and Kate are gathering anything useful from the station and that now he has their ticket to the Others' location, where they will find Rousseau’s daughter, Alex, and Jack, and perhaps a way home. Mikhail refuses to lead them, but Sayid says he has a map of the cables, which leads to an area called the Barracks which he believes is where the Others are staying. Mikhail threatens to kill them the next time they let their guard down. Danielle says that since they don't need him, they should kill him.

However, Sayid says Mikhail is his prisoner and he will not kill him. Locke and Kate join them and Locke says he knows why Mikhail didn't want him playing with the computer. Suddenly the station explodes. Sayid demands to know what Locke has done, and Locke tells him that the computer said if there was an incursion to enter 7-7, so he did.  Sayid yells at Locke that he may have destroyed their only chance of communication with the outside world.

Science:

Mainstream science has not put any credence in the human’s mind’s ability to foretell the future.  However, some on the spirituality scale of research believe that premonitions can have a scientific basis.

In a laboratory at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Northern California, psychologist Dean Radin approaches human experience with an open mind and experimental rigor. In a series of experiments that Radin describes as “presentiment,” participants are invited to see and feel into the future.

Sitting in a quiet, electromagnetically shielded room, Radin first measures the participants’ physiology. Using electrodes on their hands to study their autonomic nervous system, the scientist records how the experimental participants respond to emotional and calm pictures that are presented on a computer monitor in a random sequence. After each picture, the computer screen goes blank before the next picture is presented. As predicted, when participants see an emotional picture, their physiology shows more arousal than after the calm pictures. This is standard science. But more interesting to Radin and his colleagues is what happens to the physiology of the participants before they see the pictures. According to Radin, their physiology actually appears to anticipate the emotional stimuli up to five seconds before they see the emotional pictures. These researchers believe those subjective findings are the basis for their thesis on mental visions of the future.

However, critics believe that such conclusions lack objective and reliable controls to have any scientific merit. In an article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Daryl Bem, a social psychologist from Cornell University, reported nine experiments involving more than 1,000 participants. The major goal of Bem’s research was to design precognition experiments to be as simple and transparent as possible, allowing others to easily replicate his results.

In these studies, Bem explores “time-reversing,” in which the cause-and-effect sequence in standard psychological experiments is reversed. In his recent paper, Bem reports evidence for precognition in eight of the nine experiments. In one study, for example, Bem used a conventional psychological paradigm referred to as “priming.” In these studies, participants are shown a picture so briefly that it is not perceived at the conscious level. Later, participants typically favor this picture over other control images because they had subconsciously seen the picture before actually “seeing” it. Then, he changed the usual order of events, and he observed that the participants actually preferred certain pictures before the participants were exposed to the subconscious priming.

Of course, the results of these experiments are not without criticism. Some debunkers question whether a paper on precognition should be published in a major scientific journal at all. Others argue that the results simply can’t be true because they imply that the established model of causality is not accurate or complete.

History is repeat with oracles and seers who claimed to have knowledge of future events. They were prized in some cultures by kings or priests, especially in predictions of matters of upcoming military battles. It may be as simple as a person being adept and extrapolating “new” information from a series of facts and observations to lead to a logical  “conclusion” to a future event.

Improbabilities:

Time travel. Desmond’s physics professor tells Desmond that there is no such thing. That Desmond “dreamed” a future of saving the world. That he is making up grand illusions to avoid the commitment of marriage to Penny. It is all in his head.

Jack spending more than one month in Thailand, “recovering from his divorce.” It makes no sense that an alleged dedicated doctor would give up his practice and fly to Thailand, to be marked by a woman whose name and ability is linked to “life.”

Mysteries:

Why the Others who purged the Dharma science teams are paranoid about maintaining the science stations and certain experimental projects?

Themes:

Life and multiple lives. Karl tells Kate that the kidnapped children have “better lives.” Is this an objective or subjective purgative?  There is a level of reworking or replaying one’s life (memories) in new, but similar situations (like upgrading in various game modes).

Hope. Hurley tries to start the van. He does so because he believes his fellow survivors “need a little hope.”

Clues:

When Jack ends an episode by saying, “That's what they say. It's not what they mean,” it is a reference to Isabel’s translation of his tattoo. But it is a clue  to the audience that the LOST dialogue does not sync with what the characters are plotting; misstatements and misdirection is standard operating procedure.

Achara claims to have the gift of sight to see someone's inner identity. She is able to "see who people are" and "mark them". According to Achara, Jack is "a leader, a great man" but this makes him lonely, frightened, and angry. He forces her to give him a tattoo, despite her protests that he is an outsider and she will get in trouble if she does. Her brother’s gang of Thai locals later batter Jack over the tattoo and demand he leave the country.

Isabel’s translates his Thai tattoo as  "He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us." Jack replies, "That's what they say. That's not what they mean." Although the translation given by Isabel matches the impact of the tattoo during the episode's flashback, Isabel's translation is far too long for any combination of four characters and is inaccurate. The characters actually represent an eagle (hawk), strike beat or attack, long and sky. A correct interpretation according to lostpedia is "Eagles strike the wide sky" or, more simply, "The eagles fly upon the sky." A eagle is a symbol of freedom, and the sky could be representative of heaven.

A young girl unknown to Jack, Emma from the tail section, approaches the cage and has Cindy ask Jack how Ana Lucia is doing, Jack get angry and yells at Cindy to go. She and the Others leave, including a young boy, Zach, who hands his teddy bear to his sister Emma. This teddy bear reference is mirrored by Karl in his memories of staring up to the sky to name “stars” with Alex. Emma and Zach appear to “replace” young Karl and Alex in the Island story engine.

In Hinduism, “Achara” and “Dharma” are synonymous and mean "the regulation of daily life." Indeed Achara is often referred to as the Supreme Dharma.

Discussion:

“ Hope never tells us tomorrow will be better. ”
— Tibullus

LOST entered Season 3 with high hopes. Viewers were looking for answers, but instead we got more questions. The 815ers have all but given up hope of rescue since the Others have begun to terrorize them (for no apparent reason except for the unarticulated reason that “it’s their island.”) If the Others want no one on “their” island, then why don’t they let the 815ers leave?  Unless, of course, the Others can’t make anyone leave the Island.

Hope is “ a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” In some ways, hope is a dream state. It also can mean “a person or thing that may help or save someone.” Ben hoped to find a surgery for his back tumor. Jack was that hope for recovery. Hope is also “grounds for believing something good may happen.” Hope is like faith which is like religion or future circumstances. Hope is also “a feeling of trust.” Characters are now constantly asking each other if “they trust them.”

There was one hope that was never answered on the series. One of the real issues that plagued the series was its treatment of children. During the initial run, commentators and blog posters continually asked “where are the children?” And why there were no children in the barracks (the empty play ground)?  But there was  a small hint in the “Other 48 Days,” that a band of children (recall the teddy bear) roamed the jungle which scared the tail section survivors. It is not that children were not allowed or could not be born on the Island. Jacob and MIB’s mother gave birth to them after the Roman shipwreck; and Crazy Mother raised the boys to adulthood so there appears to be some linear aging on the Island. But at some moment, it stops; Jacob and MIB are immortal. How does that change take place, or is it merely a matter of knowledge that Crazy Mother kept from them? The latter is probably more true than false.

When Karl tells Kate that the children have “a better life” than hers (on the Island), what does that mean?  Walt was scolded by Klugh when he tried to get Michael to help him. Klugh threatened to take Walt “back to the room,” which infers Room 23, the brain wash room where Karl was hooked up to an IV, and watching video flashes to loud audio. Karl is a teen. Is he being treated well by the Others? Alex was kidnapped from Rousseau. Is she being treated well by her adopted father Ben? It is like children are being robbed of their childhood.

What is life? It is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.  But there is another definition: either of the two states of a person's existence separated by death (as in Christianity and some other religious traditions). It can also mean any of a number of successive existences in which a soul is held to be reincarnated (as in Hinduism and some other religious traditions).

The idea of successive existences is strong in the episode repeats: the reality of the flashbacks, Island existence and sideways world are lumped together by Christian as equal parts, but that would be impossible unless there is another life after death. The flashback world is test number one of a soul (possibly a dead child’s who never had a chance to live a full life), to test number two, a soul on the Island trying to find true meaning of life by trials between right and wrong, good and evil, confession and repentance, and finally test three, a soul leaving the church to the next life.

We will also find children as mere set pieces in the sideways world, where Jack allegedly has a “son” but it must be pure fiction since the sideways world is a purgatory wait station. Who or why would have a clone Jack have a child in the afterlife waiting room, only to be disregarded at the church?

Finally, the mountain of lies continues in the stories. Patchy gives nothing but lies to Sayid at the Flame station; he really works for Ben. We will see a flashback where Ben ordered him to get information on the plane’s manifest list. Patchy was part of the Hostiles or recruited by Ben after the purge to protect the Island. He would be a man who we will see literally die several times on the Island, only to come back to life and attack the 815ers. The tables begin to slowly turn when Sayid realizes that he must not rely upon the words he hears, but on what his eyes see in front of him as the Truth.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

Eloise’s ability to “see” future events, especially the death of people like the man in the red shoes.

Desmond’s “mind flashes” to see future events.

Last lines in episodes:

EP 57:

DESMOND: When I saw the lightning hit the roof you were electrocuted. And when you heard Claire was in the water you -- you drowned trying to save her. I dove in myself so you never went in. I've tried, brother. I've tried twice to save you, but the universe has a way of course correcting and -- and I can't stop it forever. I'm sorry. I'm sorry because no matter what I try to do you're going to die, Charlie.

EP 58:

JACK: That's what they say. It's not what they mean.

EP 59:

KATE: Because they had me, and they would have never let me go -- probably would have killed me if I hadn't escaped. And the girl who helped me escape -- she was about 16 years old and her name was Alex. I'm pretty sure that she's your daughter.

EP 60:

SAYID: We should go. If anyone is around this explosion's going to attract their attention.

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

Locke is lured into playing the Chess game at the Flame station. It is part of his personality that “games” are diversions, even as an adult at the box company, to escape his measly life. Instead of doing his job, watching prisoner Patchy, he sits down for a second game of chess with the computer. A computer station that is monitored by a small camera (so he is being watched). When Locke wins the game, a Candle video pops up with codes to enter to communicate (all are disabled). The final one states that if the station is being overrun by Hostiles, “enter 7-7.”  There is no reason on earth why Locke would need or want to enter 7-7. What would happen? The Others would swarm the facility with weapons and kill him? After the conflict standoff with Patchy ends with Klugh being killed, Locke’s “non-foraging” the station led to a third game of chess - - - and entering 7-7, which blows up the station to Sayid’s ire: “one hope of communicating with the outside world” was destroyed by Locke’s incompetence.

Locke’s continued stupidity has to shed some light on the story premise. He went from outback hunter, to default leader, to horrible decision maker. His “ideas” with the Hatch and the Flame station led to their destruction. And with the destruction, potential loss of rescue.

So it leads to the question: why? A) Locke did it on purpose - - - he does not want to leave the Island so he is sabotaging everyone’s chance. Except, he was quite surprised and stunned when the Flame station blew up. B) Locke’s macho facade has eroded over time in the jungle and he is being to crawl back into his introverted shell. As such his character flaws of bad decision making have returned with dire consequences. C) Locke and the castaways are truly lab rats in a large island maze. The vast amount of monitoring stations watching their movements, behavior, conversations, plans are all recorded by someone. The purpose could be to elicit reaction, poke people’s mind’s with a stick, or put them through torturous circumstances (the strongest fears from personal memories) to see how a human can emotionally break down.

Sayid’s flashback story after Desmond’s gives more clues as the premise. Why is Nadia’s gray cat in the restaurant flashback and at the Flame station? That element had to be harvested and re-planted into Sayid’s consciousness as a trigger for an emotional experiment. If he was a torturer in Iraq, what grief could be imposed on him by one of his victim’s? Revenge is a generational way of life in the Middle East. Perhaps, someone seeks to observe all the manifestations of human life. The restaurant torture seems out of place since during the Saddam’s brutal regime, enemies of the state were never let go - - - they were killed. So, this leads to the possibility that Sayid is “haunted” by ghosts of his past.

Desmond’s flashback with Eloise is the strongest point of mental manipulation or alternative lives. In this one, Desmond does not join the military as done previously; he buys the ring which he was not supposed to do; he “remembers” future events such as soccer game results and incidents on the Island. So Desmond’s mind is racing through flashback one, island pre Hatch explosion, island post explosion, and flashback two with different events. But is it Desmond’s mind, or it is his soul?  Many religions believe that a person lives many lives; their soul travels through various stages of human afterlife through forms of reincarnation and judgment tests for past sins. Desmond’s various time lines appear to be fragments of multiple, separate existences - - - which tests his mental facilities, and could drive him crazy. In essence, Desmond is mirroring the film It’s a Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra classic about a man’s wish that he was never born has great consequences to those around him. But Desmond’s story is It’s a Horrible Death, consumed by darkness and personal torment. It could be concluded that the changed flashback is in the future, as Desmond’s third afterlife.

There is also a huge clue in the Eloise character’s appearance and conversation with Desmond. She tells him that things must go as she commands or there will be great consequences. He must not marry Penny, he must get on the boat race in a few years, he must push the Island button for 3 years, because if he does not do those things, she states “every single one of US is dead!”

Us?! It sounds like Eloise are “different beings.” There were a few old theories in the blogsphere during the show that the premise was alien beings were sent to earth to observe and test humanity, and the Island was their master space ship. But “US” could also mean a level of existence in the afterlife - - - where “awakening to one’s own death” destroys the fictional reality of a secondary existence of a sideways realm. Recall, Eloise is hellbent in The End that Desmond NOT awaken her son because she would lose him (possibly to the white light).

But one of the problems with Desmond’s supernatural abilities is that in the end, his visions are false. We do no “see” what he says happened: Charlie drowning saving Claire or the lightning strike killing Charlie in Claire’s tent. He just says that. He may actually “wish” the events as a way of belonging to the beach camp. But the one vision we actually see later in the series, Claire with Aaron being rescued aboard a helicopter, never happens. Were those future flashes “programmed” into Desmond to see how he will react? How long he could continue to try to “save” Charlie? If so, he is the ultimate mental lab rat experiment.

The realization of this fantasy-horror situation may be a key to unlocking one’s own mind for the captivity of “the Island” (whatever it is). Sayid is more aware of the lies and treachery of the Others. He begins to see clues (such as the horse saddle) to determine quickly and correctly that Klugh was hidden in the station. Sayid also knew Patchy was lying to him about his backstory - - - that he was an Other and not Dharma. It may be a turning point in Sayid’s Island existence, because once you see the Island for what it really is - - - then the darkness of the human spirit can engulf you (as it will in the final season).

REBOOT EPISODES 25-28

LOST REBOOT 
Recap: Episodes 25-28 (Days  44-46)

Danielle kidnaps Aaron in hopes of making a trade with the Others who took her child.
When she is found, Charlie accuses her of setting the smoke pillar fire; that the are no Others. Locke blows open the Hatch. Jack reminds him it is a possible shelter for the survivors. The raft party makes contact with a not-so-friendly boat crew.

Jack and Locke argue over whether or not to enter the Hatch, especially when the Hatch door is labeled “quarantine.”  While looking for Vincent, Shannon sees a dripping wet walt Walt mouthing a potential warning.

When Kate does down the Hatch opening and is lost, Locke lowers himself to find out what happened; he is captured by Desmond, the station operator. Jack changes his mind and returns to the Hatch to have a stand-off with Desmond, but when Kate escapes and hits Desmond from behind, his gun discharges and a bullet hits the computer console creating a panic in Desmond. Locke and Jack watch the orientation film about the station. 

Jin, Michael and Sawyer all make it back to shore, but are taken prisoner whom they believe are the Others. They are thrown into a pit prison cell. Ana Lucia joins them, and is surprised with their story of the plane crash; and steals Sawyer’s gun and leaves them in the pit.

Science:

Jack believes that Desmond’s station duties were all just “mind games” because no one on the surface has gotten sick and pushing the button every 108 minutes was just a cruel experiment. Desmond was told he was “saving the world.”

Sensory deprivation was employed in parapsychology experiments during the 70's and 80's, especially with those involving clairvoyance and telepathy. Supposedly, if the subject's brain was not receiving input from the normal five senses, he or she could then tune into the psychic senses. The man in the contraption in the film may be in such a sensory deprivation test. Since the footage appears when the word, "Parapsychology" is spoken, this is quite likely.

A ganzfeld experiment (means “entire field”) is a technique used in the field of parapsychology to test individuals for extrasensory perception (ESP). It uses homogeneous and unpatterned sensory stimulation to produce an effect similar to sensory deprivation. The deprivation of patterned sensory input is said to be conducive to inwardly generated impressions.

Whether the Hatch (Swan station) and  Room 23 video are part of parapsychology experiments from Dharma to being weaponized by the Others is subject to debate.  Room 23 was a locked room in a facility within in the Hydra station where Karl and Walt were held captive by the Others  and Karl was subjected to a brainwashing video. It is believed that Dharma used the video room to brainwash the natives to trigger amnesia after capturing them for information, so as hide a violation of the Truce. Claire’s amnesia may have also been triggered by the video, but that is unknown.

Improbabilities:

Walt being in two places at once (the jungle with Shannon and on the raft with Michael)

Sawyer taking out a bullet in his shoulder while bobbing on raft debris in the middle of the ocean.

Ana Lucia surviving the plane crash. Ana Lucia told her captives that she was in the tail section of the plane. When it broke a part, she was knocked out and landed in the ocean. She was unconscious under the water, then awoke and swam ashore.

Sayid fixing a bullet shattered 20 year old computer in less than 15 minutes. The genius staff at the Apple store could not put in that type of customer service with today’s advanced technology.

Mysteries:

The Orientation Film and Dharma
The HATCH station and Number Input
The Others attacking the Raft and taking Walt
Desmond
Quarantine on Hatch door


Themes:

Deception and Manipulation. The Others are not DHARMA mad scientists controlling the Island, but “Hostiles” who purged the Initiative by a coup led by Benjamin Linus.

Reality and Illusion. If Jacob can only bring people to the Island, the DHARMA compound and plans were created by the dreams of the DeGroots and their followers,
who must have been shipwrecked or tricked on coming to the Island (Jacob as Hanso).

Self fulfilling prophecies. Viewers believed that the  “incident” in the orientation video is a time travel atomic bomb situation which the 815 survivors themselves created where Juliet tries to set off the bomb to stop construction of the Swan station. But the film said that after the station was running (meaning Juliet never detonated the bomb or re-set the time line), the “incident” had to do with something else since the orientation film (spliced) as seen by Locke and Jack was created three years after the atomic bomb scene. The “incident” most likely refers to the “lockdown incident” when the Numbers are not put into the computer, setting off the alarm and defense mechanisms start by sealing off the living quarters and computer room from the rest of the Swan station. After a short period of time, the doors retracted back into the ceiling automatically. This event has become known as the lockdown incident. Locke learns of this during his time in the station. The station's power was then disrupted as the lights flickered. Later, a different set of ultraviolet 'black' lights that ran vertically along the corners of the living area activated, revealing a previously hidden map of the Island on one of the doors. A short time later, the blast doors retracted into the ceiling.
 
The argument between Jack and Locke; science versus faith. Part of the problem of both men is the inability to “let go” and move on with their lives after an important event. Locke could never let go of being conned by his father. Jack could never come to gripes with Sarah’s miracle recovery when in fact he admitted he could not fix her crushed spine. His greatest success (her recovery) turned into his biggest failure (his marriage).
But in reality, Locke is following B.F. Skinner’s platform of consequential based behavior.


Clues:

Vincent as Jacob, watching the survivors from inside the camp, as Shannon sees impossible Walt image in jungle while searching for the dog.

The Numbers mark Jacob’s pieces in the game. Hurley again curses the Numbers as the code is inputed into the computer by Locke. When Locke misses the last number, Hurley says go ahead - - - but Jack corrects him with “42.” As the alarm clock ticks down to one second, Jack pushes “execute” to re-start the cycle.

Walt is playing a video game on the plane, but he acknowledges Hurley as he gets on the plane late. Hurley then opens up his polar bear comic. It seems that Hurley and Walt have a hidden connection during that scene.

Desmond telling Jack twice, “see you in another life,” is a tell that they are not “alive” on the Island, but reincarnated souls being tested in the afterlife.

Jack telling Desmond and Locke it is “all a mind game.” That the Hatch is a bunch of lies to make you do something meaningless. Flashbacks show more characters with mental issues, like Locke in group therapy, susceptible to suggestion or brain washing.

Discussion:

“ Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man. ”
— Lord Shaftesbury

In an effort to find the Big Premise of LOST, much effort was used to dissect the relationships between The Others, the stations, the other survivors of past shipwrecks and the roaming monsters on the island.  As Jack told Locke, “you said all paths led here (to the Hatch).” Both Jack and Locke have short fuses at this point of the series; Jack now assumed the leadership role and fears he will have “a Locke problem” if his judgment is questioned. Locke has blind obsessive faith that the answers to all his questions (or problems) are destined to be found inside the Hatch.

The Orientation Film found in the Hatch was the biggest clue as Season 2 started to unfold. Many viewers believed that it contained all the answers to the big mysteries of the Island. A transcript from lostpedia:


The DHARMA Initiative
3 of 6 
Orientation

Screen transition fade.

The DHARMA Initiative Swan Logo appears. 
Orientation - Station 3 - The Swan
(Screen transition to show a man in a lab coat.

)

Welcome. I am Dr. Marvin Candle, and this is the orientation film for station 3 of the *DHARMA* Initiative.
In a moment you will be given (a?) simple set of instructions for how you and your partner will fulfill the responsibilities associated with the station. But first, a little history:



(Screen transition to show activity on a university campus.)



The DHARMA Initiative was created in 1970, and is the brainchild of Gerald and Karen DeGroot, two doctoral candidates at the University of Michigan. Following in the footsteps of visionaries such as B.F. Skinner,  they imagined a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free-thinkers from around the globe could pursue research in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism and utopian social... * ...(re)clusive Danish industrialist and munitions magnate, Alvar Hanso,  whose financial backing made their dream of a multi-purpose, social-science research facility a reality.



(Screen transition back to man in the lab coat.)



You and your partner are currently located in station three, or The Swan, and will be for the next 540 days. The station 3 was originally constructed as a laboratory, where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations emanating from this sector of the Island. Not long after the experiments began, however, there was... an “incident” ... and since that time, the following protocol has been observed:

(That?) every 108 minutes, the button must be pushed. From the moment the alarm sounds, you will have 4  minutes to enter the code into the microcomputer processor... * ...duction into the program. When the alarm sounds, either you or your partner must input the code. It is highly recommended that you and your partner take alternating shifts. In this manner you will both stay as fresh and alert... * (it is of the ut)most importance, that when the alarm sounds, the code be entered correctly and in a timely fashion.

Now do not attempt to use the computer... * ...for anything...
*


...for anything else other than the entering of the code. This is its only function.
The isolation that attends the duties associated with Station 3 may tempt you to try and utilize the computer for communication with the outside world. This is strictly forbidden. Attempting to use the computer in this manner will compromise the integrity of the project and worse, could lead to another incident. I repeat, do not use the computer for anything other than entering the code.




Congratulations! Until your replacements arrive, the future of the project is in your hands.
On behalf of the DeGroots,  Alvar Hanso, and all of us at the DHARMA Initiative, thank you, namaste, and... good luck.



(Screen transition fade.

)
© The Hanso Foundation  1980 All Rights Reserved

The orientation film reference to B.F. Skinner may also be a foundational premise to the series. Skinner was a psychologist and researcher with some radical ideas on human behavior. Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism,  the philosophy of the science of behavior.

He thought behavior was a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. Such a functional analysis makes it capable of producing technologies of behavior (see Applied Behavior Analysis). He did not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

Skinner’s theory is that what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body.  He felt an organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection.
Skinner believed that behavior is maintained from one condition to another through similar or same consequences across these situations. In short, behaviors are causal factors that are influenced by the consequences. His contribution to the understanding of behavior influenced many other scientists to explain social behavior and contingencies. Example, reinforcement is a central concept and was seen as a central mechanism in the shaping and control of behavior. He thought negative reinforcement as synonymous with punishment was a misconception. He acknowledged that positive reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the application of some event (e.g., praise after some behavior is performed), negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (e.g., opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you).

By taking out mental qualifiers in the study of behaviors through exterior factors, Skinner’s philosophy seems to part of the fabric of the Island creed. Right or wrong are mental judgments which the Island does not seem to care about; it is the consequences of events that reinforce behavior of the characters to create more consequences (the “mouse trap” game analogy).

A main character turning point in the layered story arcs of the series occurs in  this flashback exchange with Jack and Desmond running sections at a stadium.  Desmond appears to be an agent of change in Jack’s life, setting the ground work for Sarah’s miracle and foreshadowing the Island “being chased by the devil,” racing through the jungle to “fix things,” and keeping promises of saving people without miracles. Desmond claims he was “almost” a doctor, but in reality was never a doctor, or even close. Transcript from lostpedia:

(Flashback - Jack running the steps at a stadium. Another person comes into view running faster than Jack. Jack tries to keep pace but hurts his ankle.)
JACK: Ow, damn it.
DESMOND: You alright, brother?
JACK: I'm fine. I'm fine.
DESMOND: Take it easy. Keep the weight off. Here, let me have a look. Does this hurt? [Jack shakes his head.] You haven't sprained it then. I don't fancy your chances of catching up with me tonight, though.
JACK: I wasn't trying to catch up.
DESMOND: Aye, of course you weren't.
JACK: What do you know about sprains, anyway?
DESMOND: I was almost a doctor once.
JACK: Small world.
DESMOND: You a doctor then? [Jack nods. Desmond offers Jack his water bottle.] So what's your excuse?
JACK: Excuse?
DESMOND: For running like the devil's chasing you. My excuse - I'm training.
JACK: Training for what?
DESMOND: For a race around the world. Impressive, I know. So your excuse better be good, brother.
JACK: Just trying to work a few things out.
DESMOND: Ah, a girl, right?
JACK: A patient.
DESMOND: Ah, but a girl patient. What's her name?
JACK: Her name's Sarah.
DESMOND: What'd you do to her then?
JACK: Do to her?
DESMOND: You must have done something worthy of this self-flagellation.
JACK: I told her -- I made a promise I couldn't keep -- I told her I'd fix her and I couldn't. I failed.
DESMOND: Well, right. Just one thing -- what if you did fix her?
JACK: I didn't.
DESMOND: But what if you did?
JACK: You don't know what you're talking about, man.
DESMOND: I don't? Why not?
JACK: Because with her situation that would be a miracle, brother.
DESMOND: Oh, and you don't believe in miracles? [Jack chuckles and shakes his head.] Right. Well then, I'm going to give you some advice anyway. You have to lift it up. (He may be saying "lift her up".)
JACK: Lift it up?
DESMOND: Your ankle. You've got to keep it elevated. It's been nice chatting.
JACK: Jack.
DESMOND: Jack, I'm Desmond. Good luck, brother. See you in another life, yeah?

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

The Smoke Monster dragging Locke through the jungle and almost down a hole. The mechanical clanking sounds and loud percussion thuds in the brush all create fear in Jack, Kate and Hurley. But Locke wants to be let go and dragged under (which is very strange - - - either he knows what the smoke monster is and can’t kill him, or he is insane). Locke has blind faith in the Island without any fear of the consequences. Jack knows he is wrong in that belief because he has seen the monster and its evil intentions.

Last lines in episodes:

EP 25:
MICHAEL: Waaaaaaaaaaalt! Waaaahahahaaalt! No! Walt!

EP 26:
JACK: [recognizing that it's Desmond] You.

EP 27:
JIN:[obviously scared] Others. Others. [Jin sees the Others.] Others.

[Sawyer and Michael turn to look and we see a group coming of people coming toward them carrying crude club/mace type weapons.]

EP 28:
LOCKE: I'll take the first shift.
[The timer shows 107:00.]


New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

Mind games and altered reality are clear themes and clues in these episodes. In the jungle, Locke explains to Jack that a series of events have led them to the big event (blowing up the Hatch cover). He is really describing a series of stages in the game of Mouse Trap. Locke also says that Boone was a sacrifice the Island required to get them to his point. Throughout human history, mankind has given their gods sacrifices in exchange for rewards or blessings. Jacob, as the alleged ultimate power on the island, is not immune to the vanity of immortality or power, or to manipulate people to do his bidding.

When Hurley gets on Flight 815, the exchange with Walt is a brick in the theory that the entire premise of the series is a video mind game with Walt and Hurley’s overactive but child-like behavior controlling the collective dreams of the passengers. The Lost is a Video Game theory did not have many followers when the series first ran. But as an explanation after the series ended, it is entitled to a second look. The elements contained in the minds of Walt (father issues, video games, ESP powers) and Hurley (cursed Numbers, comic fantasies with science fiction and polar bear dangers) are the foundation for an interactive mental adventure. With the strong EM, when passengers fall asleep on the long flight their minds are transplanted into the Walt-Hurley story engine - - - and when they “die” on the island, it means that they have woken up on the plane (disconnecting from their dream state). In a child’s fantasy, anything can happen including Locke being able to walk again.

The idea that Jacob and MIB hiding in the skins of the characters continues to create new spins on character motivations and actions.

Jacob said he had “non-involved” in the process of determining whether humans are good or evil on their own, but the idea of Jacob hiding as Vincent the dog to observe the human souls from within their camp is growing stronger.  When Shannon goes looking for “lost” Vincent, a soaking wet Walt (ghost?) appears before her and can’t speak a warning to her.  One could argue that Vincent is a transforming smoke monster, changing from observational dog form into a Walt to give information to Shannon about the danger of the Others (who had captured Walt and destroyed the raft and rescue).

Jacob and MIB are immortals living on the Island. Jacob is the alleged protector. But as Rousseau states, the smoke monster is the security system that protects the Island. Smoke monster is Jacob? Or in these episodes, the idea of trying to kill Locke because of his faith that his answers are within the Hatch the way for MIB to keep the 815 survivors in danger and set up the conflict with the Others?

And Rousseau’s obsession with Aaron is like Crazy Mother’s obsession with Jacob and MIB, stealing them from their natural mother when her ship was wrecked on the Island (which mirrors Rousseau’s tale to Sayid). This is a concept during the first run of potential “transference” of old characters being transformed or projected upon new characters. 

We can see the rotation of characters taking over other character’s roles. Rousseau has taken over the Crazy Mother role in stealing a child, Aaron.  The Others took dominance and replaced the Dharma scientists as the Island’s overlords.  Locke takes over Desmond’s role in the station. Ana Lucia takes over a Jack leadership role with the Tail section survivors, which has a mirror image of characters with the beach camp. Eko is like Locke, a man of faith. Libby is the mental institution patient and comforter like Hurley is with the front section.

Transference theory also ties into the aspect of the interconnected mental game of the island storyline. If one is trapped or lost in a complex, multiplayer game, one’s dreams (which can be used to mold your fantasy character) can “level” up your skill sets, ambitions, and testosterone risk tolerance that you cannot have in real life. Locke’s meager physical existence is transformed in the Island game field into an Outback hunter, a jungle king with unbelievable survival skills. Desmond, a Republican guard soldier, is suddenly an electronics genius on par with the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, who made a radio out of coconuts. The big premise of the series goes from science fiction to a fantasy world to explain the inconsistent elements of the story lines.

And those inconsistent story lines may be the collective memories of all Jacob’s visitors. All of the technological ruins on the Island have had to come from the conversion of memories of humans brought to the Island, and re-created by Jacob and his followers. For the temple, the weapons, the DHARMA stations, all are basic raw materials to decide whether humanity can take something good and turn it into evil applications.

And is it possible that Rousseau survived 16 years from being “infected” or taken down by the smoke monster? Probably not.  The term “infection” could have a non-medical meaning, too - - - like one’s memories downloaded into the Island event engine. Rousseau’s motivations could have concentrated into a narrow band of commands or functions: as she said to the survivors: you can run, you can hide or you can die.

We will learn that Hatch door will confirm what Rousseau said about the smoke monster being a security system. In lockdown mode, the Hatch door drops and a map is shown which contains the reference to Cerberus, the three headed monster dog of Hell. The three “heads” or three smoke monsters of the Island could be Jacob, MIB and Crazy Mother, all in their own way guarding the Island from outsiders. MIB wants to leave the island but cannot; Crazy Mother had a habit of killing everyone who came to the Island; and Jacob is the guardian who brings people to the Island to play a game of human soul searching with MIB to kill the boredom of immortality. Who are the teams in this cosmic hide and seek game of war? Could Mother be the Others? MIB, who was fascinated by the Roman technology of the FDW be Dharma? New people and technology theories brought to the Island to test Jacob’s notion that human beings can avoid corruption?

Our previous new theory that Locke did not survive the crash, but was taken over by MIB as his way of observing the survivors and manipulating their actions, could be put into doubt by the Hatch obsession. Locke’s obsession to open the Hatch to find its answers seems very human curiosity gone mad. But if Jacob and MIB are playing an elaborate game, MIB may want to get inside to see what Jacob has set for him. But MIB would have already known about Dharma, the Hatch, the construction, the Incident(s), Desmond and the Others. But on the other hand, Locke’s expressions during his conflicts with Jack are more cold and calculating than Locke’s flashback emotional inability to stand his ground.  If MIB was part of Locke, he may have disembodied himself from Locke’s mind and/or body (as shown by Locke’s paralysis returning at the Beechcraft with Boone). Or MIB may spiritually influence survivors throughout their time on the Island by telepathic manipulation through emotional outbursts (which lets down a person’s subconscious guard). We will learn that MIB does not need a physical body to create a Locke form when he marches Ben and the Others to the base of the statue to confront Jacob.



The Hatch was supposed to be the key to unraveling the Island mysteries. Or viewers assumed as Season 2 began in earnest. But for some, the Hatch and the Dharma back story were merely "filler" and not important to the resolution of the 815 survivors stories. Partial information are like "white lies," which are falsehoods covered by some truth. We are led to believe the Others are mad Dharma scientists experimenting on any person who makes it to their Island. But by the time 815 crashes, Dharma is long gone, purged from existence by Benjamin Linus and the older, "native" Hostiles for whom their back story is never fully explained but it assumed that some of them may have worked for Dharma or Hanso in order to control the Island power and fund its operations against a former leader now enemy, Widmore. The Hatch introduces us to Desmond, and the strange electromagnetic properties of the Island which is supposed to explain the Island magic. But it will not. What we take from the Hatch story arc is that it is most likely what Jack observed, a "mind game" on the station operators, which may be a metaphor for the viewers.  As Locke's father told Locke, do you believe you were the first person conned by someone?  The Hatch was a diversion that did not lead directly to the Season 6 reveal of the Jacob-MIB dynamic.