NATURAL LAW

What were the basic tenets of the island? Was there a governing system of fundamental rules or beliefs that no one could change?

We are aware that "laws" are created by governments in order to protect basic individual freedoms, like property and person, from harm. But the source of the power to create laws, and the corresponding "order," is not clear cut.

Natural law is among the oldest philosophical traditions. Some of history's greatest geniuses, from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson, devoted their most brilliant arguments to it, often differing about details but agreeing on the broad outlines. Natural law was the basis on which America's founders wrote the Constitution.

Among other things, it holds that politics isn't just a matter of agreement. Instead, principles of justice, or the idea that murder or theft are wrong, run deeper than government's mere say-so. Those things are actually wrong, aside from whether or not they are legal—and that means government itself can act unjustly and even impose rules that don't deserve the name "law."

That's a view many on both left and right share. The greatest spokesman for natural law in the twentieth century was probably Martin Luther King, who denounced segregation not because of its technical complexities, but because it betrayed the natural law principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Today, most American judges—including liberals and conservatives—reject natural law. They embrace a different view, "legal positivism," which holds that individual rights or concepts of justice are really manufactured government fiat. The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was viewed as a strict constitutional constructionist,  rejected natural law arguments. "You protect minorities only because the majority determines that there are certain minority positions that deserve protection," he said, not because everyone has basic rights under natural law.

Still, even those who embrace natural law, including Justice Clarence Thomas, have their differences. For example, while Thomas and his allies see natural law as a basis for attacking legal protections for abortion and euthanasia—because they contradict the sanctity of life—others believe that natural law theory actually supports these rights, because it prioritizes individual autonomy.

That debate arises from a central natural-law question: What is the source of the good? Are things like life or freedom good because they relate to human purposes—such as the pursuit of a fulfilling life—or are they just intrinsically good, without any deeper reason? This debate matters because if life is just inherently good, then even someone suffering a terminal illness who wants to end his own life should be barred from doing so because life is good, period. On the other hand, if life is only good because it serves the goal of happiness, then someone whose life has become a burden of suffering should be free to end it if he chooses.

How we act between ourselves is a complex system. Where does one get their moral bearings? From their parents? From their friends? From their experiences? From their genes which may program one's personality traits? From successes or from failures?  Or is there something inherit in every person's mind that sorts "right" and "wrong" before we act?

If it is truly an individual decision, then the will of the community is irrelevant. The community can only assert its philosophy after the fact towards someone for their actions. There is individual free will but societal consequences.

But the LOST characters on the island rarely, if any time, had their personal wrongs vetted by a community judge or jury. The island was a moral soup of contradictions. Ben was a mass murderer, but he was allowed to live and eventually go to heaven (the sideways world) while petty diamond thieves Nikki and Paulo were buried to rot in island purgatory. If you try to reconcile these two outcomes, one could argue that Ben was luckier than the criminal couple. Or more popular with the writers and viewers. The latter would diminish the LOST mythology as the foundation of the stories, the character morals and actions are not subject to rules but whims. Did natural law influence the decisions and framework for any island visitor? Or was it merely a game of fiat by the supernatural beings that inhabited the island?

WHOLE WORLD SIMULATION PART THREE

MNN.com reports that scientists have been baffled by a new cosmic discovery.

The sheer size of our universe is just about unfathomable, so you can imagine the surprise that researchers must have experienced when they recently discovered a structure within our known universe that measures 5 billion light years across. That's more than one-ninth the size of the entire observable universe, and by far the largest structure ever discovered by Earth scientists.

The mysterious structure is so colossal that it could shatter our current understanding of how the universe operates in size and shape.

“If we are right, this structure contradicts the current models of the universe,” said Lajos Balazs, lead author on the paper. “It was a huge surprise to find something this big – and we still don’t quite understand how it came to exist at all.”

Just what is this massive structure? It's not a single, physical object, but rather a cluster of nine massive galaxies bound together gravitationally, much like how our Milky Way is part of a cluster of galaxies. It was discovered after researchers identified a ring of nine gamma ray bursts (GRBs) that appeared to be at very similar distances from us, each around 7 billion light years away.

GRBs are the brightest electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe, caused by a supernova. Their detection typically indicates the presence of a galaxy, so all of the GRBs in this ring are believed to each come from a different galaxy. But their close proximity to one another suggests that these galaxies must be linked together. There is only a 1 in 20,000 probability of the GRBs being in this distribution by chance.

A mega-cluster of this size shouldn't be possible, at least not if you think in terms of our current theories. Those theories predict that the universe ought to be relatively uniform on the largest scales, meaning that the sizes of structures shouldn't vary by much. In fact, the theoretical limit to structure size has been calculated at around 1.2 billion light years across.

If the Hungarian-American team's calculations are correct, then this giant new structure-- which measures in at over 5 billion light years across — would blow that classic model out of the water. In fact, either the researchers' calculations are wrong on this, or scientists will need to radically revise their theories on the evolution of the cosmos.

 This discovery  reminds us just how small our view of the universe really is and what it contains.

One can apply this new discovery to our recent discussion of our world being a simulation from higher species far, far, far away in space. If we are allowed to break through the fourth wall of our current illusion to find the reality of our existence, then this massive GRB, an electromagnetic event, could be the "projector" of all we know, understand and feel in our lives.

As Daniel observed, the electromagnetics of the island were "off."  He could not explain it, but perhaps this was the focal point for the data stream from outside our world. In essence, the island would be the "router" of the illusion we call reality through our world. The light source is our planetary projector which provides us with all the elements of life.

But why would a higher intelligence beam an illusion to Earth? Perhaps, it is a method of augmented reality - - - overlaying additional information inside the heads of lower species. Whether that augmentation is supposed to help raise the consciousness of mankind or hinder its progress is a debate for another day. But it does fit into the notion that human beings, as biochemical computers, could be constantly fed "firmware" updates from their programmers (creators).

NATURE

“ Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience. ” Leonardo da Vinci.

 The island ecosphere had its unusual properties.

The interaction between living organisms and nonliving properties was at times acute.

The island had tropical flora but temperate fauna.

The island had a rush, rainforest environment but few, if any insects or reptiles.

The island had intense but short rain storms. 

The sunlight was different on the island.

The waters off shore were circular in current, so as to be describe the island as being in a snow globe.

The island was a unique environment. Most of the characters adapted to the natural elements of the island. They found food and fresh water. But there was the sinister rumor that there was some "illness" or "infection" on the island that threatened especially women. 

The only top predator on the island was man. The polar bears that got loose in the wild were brought to the island for experiments. The only other thing that could do damage to man, woman or child was the smoke monster, who may or may not have been a natural thing. More likely, it was the supernatural formation of elements from a different dimension of space and time.

The energy source on the island was also not natural, but unique. Scientists described the island's electromagnetic properties as "unique" to dangerous. The light source was described as "life, death and rebirth," going beyond a mere natural energy source to a Divine supernatural force.

Perhaps if the biosphere of the island was explained more fully by the writers, we could have a better appreciation of the island and the context of how the characters were interacting with its natural and supernatural forces.