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.

LOST MEMORIES

One aspect of LOST was the disconnect between the island time period and the memories lost in the sideways purgatory world.

This was never explained to the viewers.

Now, the federal government is probing a memory restoration program which sort of fits science into the breach of LOST's lost science fiction explanation of memory loss.

Memory loss can be from trauma, old age, chemical imbalances and genetics.

The U.S. government's new Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program has been created for an implantable neural-interface designed to restore lost memories in those suffering traumatic brain injuries.

As stated by DARPA in its recent press release, traumatic brain injuries (TBI) affect roughly 1.7 million civilians each year and an astounding 270,000 military servicemembers since 2000. Further, TBI has shown to impair one's ability to recall memories created before suffering the injury while also limiting the capability to form new ones after. With the RAM program, DARPA intends to expedite the process of developing tech designed to bridge the gaps created in injured brains. In other words, TBI sufferers may not have to worry about lost memories if DARPA has its way.

The RAM program aims to accomplish this memory-saving goal by performing two steps. First, DARPA hopes to create a multi-scale computational model that describes how neurons code memories. Assuming it can gather the necessary data, DARPA's next step is to create a neural-interface armed with the ability to bridge memory flow gaps created in the brain after a traumatic injury. The implant would essentially stimulate the desired target in the brain to help it restore its ability to create new memories.

DARPA says it plans on working with a number of human volunteers for its clinical trials and also intends to run studies of the tech with animals. For the volunteers, it's targeting individuals with traumatic brain injuries who have trouble encoding or recalling memories, as well as those with other neurological conditions scheduled to undergo neurosurgery. Moreover, DARPA already has the insight of a relative Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications panel for supplemental information regarding human and animal trials of this nature.

"As the technology of these fully implantable devices improves, and as we learn more about how to stimulate the brain ever more precisely to achieve the most therapeutic effects, I believe we are going to gain a critical capacity to help our wounded warriors and others who today suffer from intractable neurological problems" DARPA's biological technologies program manager told Popular Science magazine. 

No official timetable was given regarding the release of the RAM program's test results, though DARPA did say it had already begun administering trials since September. If all goes according to plan, the agency intends to expand the context of its research to those outside of the military who also experience brain trauma.

It is uncertain how a neuro-implant can "restore" lost memories if the memory center of the brain is damaged. However, in most defense projects there is something called redundancy. It is the concept that you put in a back-up into the main program or function in case of emergency. Humans also have redundant properties such as two lungs and two kidneys, in case one is compromised. But since memories are so individual and coded in brains by chemical-protein-neuron receptors, it is not like a computer chip can "reload" lost memories into an individual (like the concept in Ghost in the Shell series). 

But LOST's sideways reveal of past memories seems to indicate, at least on the surface, that the main characters' memories were either a) blocked or b) damaged when they eventually died on Earth. They could not move on until they were "awakened" by some strong emotional tie or bond. 

WHOLE WORLD SIMULATION PART TWO

There was a fan theory that LOST was just an elaborate computer game. The main characters were merely avatars in computer worlds (which do not have to conform to science, laws of physics or even continuity). Most fans discounted the game theory notion because the series had live actors so it seemed real.
 
But for a long time, scientists and philosophers have debated our own understanding of the world around us. There has been some traction that everything we know may just be part of a Matrix-style simulation, according to physicists who claim that we could all be part of a giant GAME.

A new theory has suggested that our entire lives and memories may not be real, instead being part of a computer program played by advanced robots, according to Yahoo News article.

The so-called ‘simulation argument’ has been theorized for several years, with noted academics including Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, suggesting that the plot of The Matrix could be closer to real life than we think.

In the sci-fi classic, humans are bred in vats that are fed with simulations that make them believe they are living an ordinary life. Scientists say that we could all be living in the future, and our life in 2015 is nothing more than a series of numbers in a computer program.

It may sound like science fiction but scientists believe they may actually be able to PROVE that what you know isn’t what you know.

Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence (AI) thinks that there may be tell-tale signs if the programmer of our mass simulation “has made some slips."

He said that some laws of physics that “aren’t quite right” could be the start of being able to prove that the universe is a simulation.

Silas Beane, from the University of Bonn, suggested several years ago that if humans were to build a small-sale simulation of the universe we would be able to identify any constraints. These constraints would include a cut-off in the spectrum of high energy particles - exactly the kind of cut off in the energy of cosmic rays. This would be the start of proving that our universe is not what it seems - and that it is part of a giant construct.

This is an interesting notion because of Daniel's express comments when he arrived at the island, that the light "acted differently" and the spectrum was off. This could be the biggest clue that the island itself was not what we viewed it as, but as another construct (with various other theories such as alternative dimension, time loop, mini-worm hole, alien space craft, different planet through a cosmic gateway, etc.)

These theories are not the first time that humans have debated whether we are actually real - French philosopher Rene Descartes theorized that nothing we perceive is true except our consciousness being aware of itself and its doubts - which is how the phrase ‘I think, therefore I am’ came about.

However, some believe that our own thoughts can also be part of a simulation or program that is being controlled by robots or aliens. The concept of "free will" may be artificial intelligence programming that allows people "choices" from various sets of rational, irrational, logical, illogical, emotional, intellectual, etc. 

But what about us as human beings? In the U.S.-U.K series Humans, android AI robots called synths look and act like human beings but they are just complex machines. They are called synths because that is what they are programmed to be; so there is no reason why artificial intelligent machines could be called "humans."

But then what about our own perceptions and senses, like touch, smell, vision? Again, in theory we occupy three dimensional space because that is what our brains process as three dimensional space. WE touch, hold, feel objects because our brain processes the tactile responses from the sensors in our hands and fingertips. At its core, that is merely data being processed by an organic computer module which automatically sends back feedback in the form of conscious recognition of touch, smell or imagines of the world around us.

It does put an introspective question to any human being. What is our true reality?

We may be organic beings, but could some other advanced civilization have created organic computing machines? We could be nanobots in a different universe. There is a basis for that belief because every time a scientist puts a prepared glass plate under a microscope, he will find an invisible world of microbes and viruses which have no perception of our world view. So, logically, in some other world view, we are microbes and viruses to another alien world.

Even our current generation of video games have graphics that begin to rival HD movie films. So the idea that perception is reality is something that everyone thinks about daily at a subconscious level.  It is when it reaches a conscious level discussion that things get strange.

In a logic program, the smoke monster may have been not a security system, but a software program to use to combat computer viruses (in the form of evil, destructive character avatars). 

But if humans are part of a complex computer program or network, does that put doubt into the meaning of our lives? Perhaps. And that may be the main reason why human beings need to pair bond, to form communities, share resources and values and create religious principles to calm and comfort those desiring a better explanation of life and death. All machines have a useful life expectancy. So do human beings. Creating circuit pathways to lead to productive output is the goal of both man and machine.  It may be the reason why some consider humans the greatest machines in history.

WHOLE WORLD SIMULATION PART ONE

The notion that humanity might be living in an artificial reality — a simulated universe — seemed sophomoric, at best science fiction. 

However, many scientists and philosophers realized that the notion that everything humans see and know is a gigantic computer game of sorts, the creation of super-intelligent hackers existing somewhere else, is not a joke. Exploring a "whole-world simulation," Yahoo News reported:

David Brin, sci-fi writer and space scientist, relates the Chinese parable of an emperor dreaming that he was a butterfly dreaming that he was an emperor. In contemporary versions, Brin said, it may be the year 2050 and people are living in a computer simulation of what life was like in the early 21st century — or it may be billions of years from now, and people are in a simulation of what primitive planets and people were once like.

It's like the movie "The Matrix," Bostrom said, except that "instead of having brains in vats that are fed by sensory inputs from a simulator, the brains themselves would also be part of the simulation. It would be one big computer program simulating everything, including human brains down to neurons and synapses."

Bostrum is not saying that humanity is living in such a simulation. Rather, his "Simulation Argument" seeks to show that one of three possible scenarios must be true (assuming there are other intelligent civilizations):

All civilizations become extinct before becoming technologically mature; 

All technologically mature civilizations lose interest in creating simulations; 

Humanity is literally living in a computer simulation.

His point is that all cosmic civilizations either disappear (e.g., destroy themselves) before becoming technologically capable, or all decide not to generate whole-world simulations (e.g., decide such creations are not ethical, or get bored with them). The operative word is "all" — because if even one civilization anywhere in the cosmos could generate such simulations, then simulated worlds would multiply rapidly and almost certainly humanity would be in one.

As technology visionary Ray Kurzweil put it, "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high school student in another universe." 

Kurzweil's worldview is based on the profound implications of what happens over time when computing power grows exponentially. To Kurzweil, a precise simulation is not meaningfully different from real reality. Corroborating the evidence that this universe runs on a computer, he says, is that "physical laws are sets of computational processes" and "information is constantly changing, being manipulated, running on some computational substrate." And that would mean, he concluded, "the universe is a computer." Kurzweil said he considers himself to be a "pattern of information."
"I'm a patternist," he said. "I think patterns, which means that information is the fundamental reality." 

 If people are in a whole-world simulation, how could they know it? Brin suggests a "back door" in the simulation program that would enable the alleged programmers to control people (much like countries accuse each other of installing "back doors" in code to conduct espionage). 

"If we are living in a simulation, then everything is software, including every atom in our bodies," Brin said, "and there may be 'back doors' that the programmers left ajar."

Marvin Minsky, a legendary founder of artificial intelligence, to distinguish among three kinds of simulations: (i) brains in vats, (ii) universal simulation as pure software and (iii) universal simulation as real physical stuff.

"It would be very hard to distinguish among those," Minsky said, "unless the programmer has made some slips — if you notice that some laws of physics aren't quite right, if you find rounding-off errors, you might sense some of the grain of the computer showing through."

If that were the case, he says, it would mean that the universe is easier to understand than scientists had imagined, and that they might even find ways to change it. 

The thought that this level of reality might not be ultimate reality can be unsettling, but not to Minsky: "Wouldn't it be nice to know that we are part of a larger reality?" 

Martin Rees, U.K. Astronomer Royal, is a bold visionary and hard-nosed realist. "Well, it's a bit flaky, but a fascinating idea," he said. "The real question is what are the limits of computing powers."

Astronomers are already doing simulations of parts of universes. "We can't do experiments on stars and galaxies," Rees explained, "but we can have a virtual universe in our computer, and calculate what happens if you crash galaxies together, evolve stars, etc. So, because we can simulate some cosmic features in a gross sense, we have to ask, 'As computers become vastly more powerful, what more could we simulate?'

"It's not crazy to believe that some time in the far future," he said, "there could be computers which could simulate a fairly large fraction of a world."

A prime assumption of all simulation theories is that consciousness — the inner sense of awareness, like the sound of Gershwin or the smell of garlic — can be simulated; in other words, that a replication of the complete physical states of the brain will yield, ipso facto, the complete mental states of the mind. (This direct correspondence usually assumes, unknowingly, the veracity of what's known in philosophy of mind as "identity theory," one among many competing theories seeking to solve the intractable "mind-body problem".) Such a brain-only mechanism to account for consciousness, required for whole-world simulations and promulgated by physicalists.

"That may be the kind of question that would demand a superhuman intelligence to answer," which, Rees said on whether human-level consciousness and self-consciousness can be simulated., "could be forever beyond our capacity." 

Physicist Paul Davies has a different take. He uses simulation theory to tease out possible contradictions in the multiple universe (multiverse) theory, which is his countercultural challenge to today's mainstream cosmology.

"If you take seriously the theory of all possible universes, including all possible variations," Davies said, "at least some of them must have intelligent civilizations with enough computing power to simulate entire fake worlds. Simulated universes are much cheaper to make than the real thing, and so the number of fake universes would proliferate and vastly outnumber the real ones. And assuming we're just typical observers, then we're overwhelmingly likely to find ourselves in a fake universe, not a real one." 

Davies claims that because the theoretical existence of multiple universes is based on the laws of physics in our universe, if this universe is simulated, then its laws of physics are also simulated, which would mean that this universe's physics is a fake. Therefore, Davies reasoned, "We cannot use the argument that the physics in our universe leads to multiple universes, because it also leads to a fake universe with fake physics." That undermines the whole argument that fundamental physics generates multiple universes, because the reasoning collapses in circularity.

Davies concluded, "While multiple universes seem almost inevitable given our understanding of the Big Bang, using them to explain all existence is a dangerous, slippery slope, leading to apparently absurd conclusions."

Five premises to the simulation argument:

(i) Other intelligent civilizations exist; 
(ii) their technologies grow exponentially; 
(iii) they do not all go extinct; 
(iv) there is no universal ban or barrier for running simulations; and 
(v) consciousness can be simulated. 

If these five premises are true, humanity is likely living in a simulation. The logic seems sound, which means that if you don't accept (or don't want to accept) the conclusion, then you must reject at least one of the premises. 

Which to reject? Other intelligent civilizations? Exponential growth of technology?
Not all civilizations going extinct? No simulations ban or barrier? Consciousness simulated?
Whichever you choose, it must apply always, everywhere. For all time. In all universes. No exceptions. 

Would the simulation argument relate to theism, the existence of God? Not necessarily.

Bostrum said, "the simulation hypothesis is not an alternative to theism or atheism. It could be a version of either — it's independent of whether God exists." While the simulation argument is "not an attempt to refute theism," he said, it would "imply a weaker form of a creation hypothesis," because the creator-simulators "would have some of the attributes we traditionally associate with God in the sense that they would have created our world." 

They would be superintelligent, but they "wouldn't need unlimited or infinite minds." They could "intervene in the world, our experiential world, by manipulating the simulation. So they would have some of the capabilities of omnipotence in the sense that they could change anything they wanted about our world."

So even if this universe looks like it was created, neither scientists nor philosophers nor theologians could easily distinguish between the traditional creator God and hyper-advanced creator-simulators.
But that leads to the old regress game and the question of who created the (weaker) creator-simulators.

At some point, the chain of causation must end — although even this, some would dispute.
 But because the simulation argument seems to work, what it seems to do is to uncover deep discrepancies, or fundamental flaws, in how people think about deep reality — about this universe, multiple universes, consciousness, and even inferences for and against theism.

THE FUTURE PAST

"Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours." - - - Steven Hawking.

Hawking is one of the great scientific minds of our generation. But he is one of a growing number of scientists who are cautioning humanity on the technology trend and future dependence on artificial intelligence.  He is also a true believer in the law of unintended consequences.

Currently, industry has focused in on "mechanical" artificial intelligence programs, those computers which run machinery instead of trained human workers. The idea that computer controlled machines can do more delicate or detailed work than the human eye is debatable, but the potential cost saving of robotic assembly has been proven.

There are the Terminator fearists that believe that advanced AI systems will find their own "consciousness" and turn on their human masters. The Borg in Star Trek could be considered a flawed computer code turning humans into machines. It is probably the dependence on technology that is most worrisome to scientists because it signals the dawn of "less human intelligence" in the general public.

Think of it this way: if computers are going to do the work for you, solve your problems from making a pot of coffee in the morning to building an entire smartphone in less than an hour, then humans won't have to think about doing any physical work. Humans mental capacity to apply knowledge into a tangible thing (such as making a smartphone) will atrophy. With everything given to us, there would nothing we would give to society. Such were the grotesque human sloths in the movie WALL*E.

One of the better examples of this kind of cause and bad effect is LOST's smoke monster. Since the island could flash between time periods (we only saw it flash to the past, and then back to the present) it is possible that the smoke monster was some form of future technology that got transported to the island. Since it was advanced technology from the distant future, it would be viewed as a mystery, supernatural or magic (as would you handing your smartphone to an 1880s merchant).

There is an analogy that our current technological dreams can manifest in our future technological nightmares.

How would the world be different if Nazi Germany perfected the nuclear bomb prior to the end of World War II? Would half the world now be speaking German?

How would the world be different if the Roman crusades in the Middle East had armored tank divisions against horse drawn Calvary of the Muslims?

How would the world react if a spacecraft landed in Washington D.C. and astronauts from the Mars colony said they have come home after 100 years in space?

One has to put context in the present. But in order to do so, one relies upon the past for experience but also the expectation of the future. As one could say, "the present is the future past."

One cannot readily untangle the twisted time threads in LOST's story lines. The jumps made little sense. The resulting paradoxes never explained or corrected. One cannot say that elements of an unknown future controlled the events on the island. Or that past civilizations were allowed to fully develop in the island cocoon to greater technological advances they we could imagine.

COMPUTER ERROR

The BBC recently reported that computers have a problem with a number, a large number, specifically the number 2,147,483,647 – which is the maximum positive value of a 32-bit signed register. A computer calculating a value higher than that number crashes. The resulting disaster could shut down a guidance system, a launch sequence or orbital probe or in the case of the European Space Administration, the loss of a rocket.

LOST was keen on hyping the Numbers as a key component to unlocking the series mysteries.

4-8-15-16-23-42.

Hmmmmmm.

If you multiply the Numbers you get 7,418,880, which is within the range of the highest maximum value in computer science.

But as one number it would be 4,815,162,342,  which is OUTSIDE the range of the highest maximum value in computer science.

But if you did not input the Numbers every 108 minutes, the Hatch containment field would fail and the island would experience the purple flash (time-space disruption).

There was never a clear connection between the Numbers and the main characters since the Numbers were used as the countdown timer  "prior" to the assignment by Jacob of the Candidates.

But in a circular view, that is not true. When Desmond used the fail safe key, the island purple flashed sending several of the Candidates back to 1970s. Those Candidates, already being on the island, would have been assigned their Number.

But not all the Candidates were in 1974 Dharma. Jack and Kate were thrown back in time to meet up with  Sawyer, who was a security officer living with Juliet, with his crew of Hurley, Miles and Jin. Daniel Faraday then arrived at the island from the Dharma HQ in Michigan.  Sawyer tried to recruit Jack to operate on young Ben, who had been shot by Sayid. So in the 1970s, before "the Incident" at the Hatch which would later require the countdown timer, Hurley (4), Sawyer (15), Sayid (16), Jack (23) and Jin (42). Locke (8) was the only missing "Number" prior to the Incident.

But Locke himself had bounced around as far back as 1954, and met with Richard Alpert. So his memory could be considered a presence in the 1970s Dharma.

So the Numbers, as a representation of Jacob's Candidates, were used as a "fail safe" device to hold back the electromagnetic energy. As such the Candidates, through their Numbers, were used as part of a "shield" mechanism to hold back the energy. For what purpose? We can only assume that if the energy was not contained, MIB could be "released" or "escape" the island which would lead to the destruction of the universe.

But with the Incident happening essentially AFTER Desmond used the fail safe key which set in motion the Candidates going into the past which would later create the Hatch protocols BEFORE the Incident,  we have a serious time travel paradox.

But if the spiritual spell casting background of ancient Egypt is a guide, the Numbers could cast a spell on the smoke monster to keep it at bay. MIB's adoption of Locke's physical form and memories must have been its attempt to break "the code" or barrier of the island so it could leave.

But then the fatal blow to MIB's plans was caused not by the Numbers or the Candidates represented by them (even though Jack (23) fought MIB in the end), it was Kate (51) who delivered the final death blow by shooting Flocke on the cliff.

So what were the Numbers/Candidates symbolic of? A fatal computer error in the universe? A pathway to parallel time travel universes to avoid a paradox? The gateway code to time-space? Or a spiritual spell to keep demons at bay?

THE FUTURE IS COMING SOON

One small idea in the theme of mental or computer game theories of LOST was that what we were show on the television was "Avatar" like simulations in a virtual reality setting. \

Now science is coming through the sci-fi concepts to add another theory to the show's premise: robotic brain functions.

CNET reports IBM today unveiled what it's calling the world's first neurosynaptic computer chip, a processor that mimics the human brain's computing abilities and power efficiency.

Known as TrueNorth, IBM's chip could cram supercomputer-like powers into a microprocessor the size of a postage stamp. Rather than solving problems through brute-force mathematical calculations, like today's processors, it was designed to understand its environment, handle ambiguity, and take action in real time and in context. Plus, it could be among the most power-efficient chips in the history of computing, enabling new types of mobile apps and computing services, IBM principal investigator and senior manager Dharmendra Modha said in an interview.

Modeled after the human brain, the TrueNorth chip incorporates 5.4 billion transistors, the most IBM has ever put on a chip. It also features 1 million programmable neurons and 256 million programmable synapses. That's far lower than the 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion to 150 trillion human brain synapses but still enough, Modha said, to run devices that could, for example, proactively issue tsunami alerts, do oil-spill monitoring, or enforce shipping lane rules. And all that happens while consuming just 70 milliwatts of power, about the same as a hearing aid.
The TrueNorth chip is the core element of IBM's cognitive computing program, which is known as SyNapse.

IBM thinks other potential applications include powering small search-and-rescue robots; helping vision-impaired people move around safely; and automatically distinguishing between voices in a meeting and creating accurate transcripts for each speaker.

As with the leading question in the Terminator franchise, what happens if computers get the same brain processing skills of human beings - - - do they become self-aware?  And if this realization is true, then do robotic brains begin to use "emotions" to help process information?

Then we get to the dream theories of LOST. Some believe that all the action in the series was inside the dreams of a character (most likely Hurley). But if one goes Ghost in the Shell, one can postulate that if robots had human brain capacity, then they could also dream.  Then, what would robots dream about?  Would they base their programs on human literature, culture, television and movie cliches? If so, they could dream a realistic adventure series like LOST. 

THE SINGULARITY

"Today there's no legislation regarding how much intelligence a machine can have, how interconnected it can be. If that continues, look at the exponential trend. We will reach the singularity in the time frame most experts predict. From that point on you're going to see that the top species will no longer be humans, but machines," states physicist, entrepreneur, and author Louis Del Monte.

 Del Monte believes that by 2045, surrounding artificial intelligence and the singularity, an indeterminate point in the future when machine intelligence will outmatch not only your own intelligence, but the world's combined human intelligence as well.

The sci-fi threat that computers will overtake their human masters is a long running genre. Everyone remembers Terminator. The foundational facts of the rise of computing machines is that computers are doing more complex calculations faster than human beings who program them. Computers are also starting to "think" on their own to create their own "applied" knowledge to situational data inputs. Whether this awareness of applied knowledge or thought will create a consciousness is something that future philosophers and social scientists will have to debate.

On a parallel course, there is movement to integrate computer technology into human beings. Beyond just the current fad of wearable tech, people want to begin to implant microchips into themselves to speed up cognitive reaction. Medical science wants to explore the use of artificial body parts which leads to cyborg technology advances.

The convergence of these prospects can yield a sci-fi explanation for the LOST smoke monster. Computers are just hardware that intercept bits of electronic pulses coded as ones and zeros. The question is whether one can collect and manipulate those computer inputs outside the hardware box we know of today. It could be possible that merely a magnetic field could be the shell for the electric pulses to operate. As physics states, energy is matter and matter is energy; it is possible that an electro-magnetic computer could turn energy into matter and vice versa.

The smoke monsters form has always been a mystery. Theories suggested that it could be a) nano-technology microrobots swarming in a field; b) the representation of a evil soul; c) an alien from another world or dimension; or d) a weapon similar to a mustard gas cloud but with some built-in intelligence.

But what if the smoke monster was the internal components of a computer than released itself from the bonds of hardware and went out into the real world. If it was conscious, it would be like man reaching to the stars to explore space. A computer with the awareness of its trapped situation in micro-circuits in a laboratory may want to become its own explorer of the world outside its room.

And this is the essence of the singularity principle: machine becomes aware of its surroundings to begin to take on human thoughts, emotions and dreams.

Perhaps, the smoke monster was trying to fulfill its long held computer dreams of exploring the world outside its hardware shell. But once outside its normal working parameters, it has a hard time understanding or interacting with the lower beings it encounters (humans).

DREAMS OF BAD ROBOTS

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Fionnula Flanagan played Eloise Hawking in only 7 LOST episodes. As discussed previously, her character seemed to have complete knowledge of everything both on and off the island, including the unique island properties and time travel.

She also guest starred in Star Trek:TNG in the episode called "Inheritance." She played a scientist, Juliana Tainer, on a planet which has its core that is cooling which would cause the death of all the inhabitants. The Enterprise is sent to the planet to find a solution.  Juliana claims to be the former wife of Data's creator, Professor Soong. 

Data can only find one Juliana in his memory, a Juliana O'Donnell. She explains that protests from her mother caused them to elope. She explains that his early memories were wiped and replaced with memories of the colonists and he was about to be reactivated when the Crystalline Entity attacked.

During the episode, Data observes remarkable qualities about Juliana, and asks Dr. Crusher to examine her medical records. That is interrupted when Data is called to the planet to repair the plasma infusers, the solution to the core cooling problem.  Data and Juliana complete their task and return to the transport point, but find the pattern enhancers have fallen down a cliff. They must jump to safety. When Data jumps, he takes Juliana over the cliff with him. Data lands safely, but Juliana is knocked unconscious and her arm becomes detached from her torso. Data observes a network of circuitry and it becomes apparent that Juliana is an android.

Juliana is unaware that she is an android. After the Crystalline Entity's attack, Juliana was injured so Professor Sooong created a new android and used synaptic scanning to place Juliana's memories into it. After the real Juliana died, Soong activated the android and she awoke believing she was human. She later chose to leave Soong and he let her go (after installing the chip), sadly admitting that the real Juliana would have left him too. Soong pleads with Data to let her have her humanity.

Data replaces the chip. When he closes Juliana's head, she awakens. He tells her that she fell from the cliff and broke her arm, but Dr. Crusher has repaired it, and everything is fine. Data kept the secret of Juliana's humanity.

There are similar elements to this story and the LOST saga. The island survivors were attacked by a smoke monster. Many of them were wounded or killed. Their humanity was put into question: how did they view themselves as persons of faith or science.

This raises a new theory and premise to the show. Just in this Star Trek episode, what if the main characters thought they were human but were not. This goes beyond the idea that the 815 passengers became spirits after the plane crash caused them all to die. What if all these "humans with personal issues" were actually defective robots. Instead of Dorothy teleported to a fantasy world of Oz, these androids were sent to the island, a fantasy world that mimicked the humanity that they were supposed to have been programmed with; a Westworld reconditioning camp for computerized beings.

Human beings are in essence highly complex organic computer systems. It is easy to transfer those elements into a science fiction story world. What are the dreams of androids who don't know they are computer units? What are their fears? What happens when their prime programming gets corrupted? Can they be saved? Or do they get tossed away to be recycled?

If the LOST characters were androids being shipped away from their society, it would be a brand new point of view for the series.