VOLCANO

The ending of Lost was almost much bigger than what audiences saw. Nothing was that different. The characters and island were always going to be what they ended up being. But, one big addition would have changed things significantly: a volcano.

Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse told the story to Entertainment Weekly. The summary is that Lindelof and Cuse wanted some kind of visual identifier to bring together the idea that this island was like a cork on a bottle of evil. The symbol was going to be a volcano, and it would have been set up in the third to last episode. In that episode, where we learned the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black, Jacob was going to throw the Man in Black into the volcano, turning him into the smoke monster that debuted in season one.

Then, in the series finale, Locke and Jack were going to fight on the volcano as it got ready to erupt—kind of a natural-disaster ticking clock, with tremors, lava, and, eventually, good triumphing over evil. Lost even set up the idea of the volcano being on the island some time prior, in a third season episode that featured a Dharma classroom. And yet, it ended up getting scrapped.

The reason is simple: money. Producers and executives realized that all the volcano effects and potential location filming were going to be way too expensive for them to handle, especially when another final season set, the temple, ended up being more pricey than expected. So, in the end, the very literal interpretation of the island as evil was cut out and things were left a little more ambiguous. Same ending, Jack vs. Locke fighting on a rocky area, but just no volcano.

Money woes and writing by the seat of their pants.

Jeff Jensen, the waterboy for the series theorists, writes:

Carlton Cuse, Lost’s longtime co-showrunner, got the idea for the volcano in the early years of the show after visiting Hawaii’s Big Island with his family, taking a volcano tour and marveling at the landscape. He thought it would be cool if The Island had a volcano of its own. “We were always looking to cannibalize anything on Hawaii to aid in the visual storytelling of the show,” says Cuse. “We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking for things that would give it more personality.” He didn’t have an idea of how the volcano could be used, “but it was something we banked and thought we could use downstream.”

The volcano stayed in the back pocket until the producers started developing Lost’s concluding seasons. The premise that developed over time was that the volcano was a mysterious place that forged the ticking, shape-shifting monster, the billowing black mass known as Smokey. By season 6, the writers had settled on the concept that the island was like a cork that bottled up all sorts of bad stuff, some volatile stew of spiritual dark matter stuff that would rob life of meaning and goodness if unleashed. “The question was always, how do you basically visualize and dramatize the idea that the island itself is all that separates the world from hellfire and damnation?” says Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. “And the answer was the volcano.”

Lindelof and Cuse initially envisioned a finale in which Jack (Matthew Fox) and Smokey incarnate (Terry O’Quinn) would brawl over the fate of the island at Lost’s proverbial Mount Doom. “The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series,” explains Lindelof, “but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!”

And so it went that Cuse and Lindelof decided to end Lost by reigniting an actual volcano and spraying their cast with actual skin-searing magma. Just kidding. But they were determined to fake it the best they could. “It would be visually stunning and really exciting for the audience,” says Lindelof. “After six years and around 121 hours of the show, we had shot literally every part of Oahu that we could for island scenes and flashbacks. So the idea that, for the finale, we could go to this new locale that’s going to look new and different and unique, primal and ancient and end-of-the-world-ish, that would be great.”

The volcano wouldn’t have come out of the blue. The producers planned to take us there in Lost’s third-to-last episode, “Across The Sea,” a major mythological outing that revealed the origin story of The Island’s long-lived protector, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), and his unnamed brother, The Man in Black (Titus Welliver), and dramatized the latter’s transformation into Smokey. You would have seen Jacob drag his mother-killing sibling up the slopes of the volcano and toss him into its smoldering, monster-making crater.

And this is where the people who wrote the checks for Lost put a stopper in Operation: Magma Spew. At some point in all the plotting, planning, and prepping for season 6, ABC calculated that it couldn’t afford the transportation cost. Not helping the cause: The set for the temple, a refuge for Jacob’s chosen ones and a key location in the first half of season 6, turned out to be very expensive. Says Lindelof: “ABC was like, ‘Guys, we love you, and we’re letting you end the show; we can’t let you bankrupt the network in the process.’” And that’s how Smokey’s crucible — Lost’s version of Buffy’s Hellmouth — was re-imagined as a cave of light and the fight between Jack and the monster was filmed on the cliffs of Oahu.

Cuse says The Volcano That Never Really Was speaks to how practical factors, models of production, and s— happens variables affect the execution and finale form of big saga serials. Lost was marked by several such stories. Perhaps the most well-known involved Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, whose Mr. Eko was a season 2 breakout. The producers loved writing for Mr. Eko (his showcase episode in season 2, “The 23rd Psalm,” written by Cuse and Lindelof, is one of Lost’s best) and envisioned a prolonged conflict with John Locke (O’Quinn) that would have made the middle seasons of the series quite different. When the actor abruptly ankled Lost the second season, the producers had to create a new story for Locke and other characters impacted by his sudden departure. (Akinnuoye-Agbaje stuck around for a few episodes to shoot Mr. Eko’s death-by-Smokey exit episode.)

Still, Cuse and Lindelof do think scratching the volcano was for the best. Lindelof says the producers came to believe during the writing of season 6 that it would be better if some ideas about The Island remained metaphorical or mysterious, things to be interpreted, not explained.

>>>> I have to disagree with the notion that Budget Killed the Volcano. You can use stock film footage of an eruption with close up footage of characters panicked reactions; and waves of ash clouds as they flee from the jungle.

The "monster making" volcano would explain how one is made but not WHAT it is. We got some circumstantial evidence of monster creation in Light Cave when Jack "rebooted" the island cork. But that was placed in the context of rebalancing good and evil not creating a monster. (Even though some say that the body of Jacob's brother was washed into the cave, knocking over the cork and thus creating the Man in Black.)

But if the volcano was supposed to be the climatic star of the Series 6 final episodes, why did the production crew spend so much time and money on the Egyptian symbols and the temple if the temple concepts were immaterial to the resolution of the story?

This story shows that the show runners and writers were struggling to find a way to end the series. There were too many ideas but not enough continuity to resolve the series story lines. Instead, it was decided not to answer the questions but create a final "character study" of the cast as they passed into the afterlife.

DIFFERENT INTELLIGENCES

The Guardian (UK) had a recent article which explained that there are actually three different kinds of intelligence.

It was under the pretense that even smart people with high IQs make dumb and stupid mistakes all the time. The reason for it that intelligence and common sense do not parallel each other.

Having a high IQ score does not mean that someone is intelligent. IQ tests only capture analytical intelligence; this is the ability to notice patterns and solve analytical problems. Most standard IQ tests miss out two other aspects of human intelligence:creative and practical intelligence. 

 Creative intelligence is our ability to deal with novel situations. Practical intelligence is our ability to get things done. For the first 20 years of life, people are rewarded for their analytical intelligence. Then we wonder why the “best and brightest” are uncreative and practically useless.

Most intelligent people make mental short cuts all the time. One of the most powerful is self-serving bias: we tend to think we are better than others. Most people think they are "above average drivers."  If you ask a class of students whether they are above the class average in intelligence, the vast majority of hands shoot up. Even when you ask people who are objectively among the worst in a certain skill, they still tend to say they are "above average."  Not everyone can be above average – but we can all have the illusion that we are. 

We desperately cling to this illusion even when there is devastating evidence to the contrary. We collect all the information we can find to prove ourselves right and ignore any information that proves us wrong. We feel good, but we overlook crucial facts. As a result the smartest people ignore the intelligence of others so they make themselves feel smarter.

Being "smart"  can come at a cost. Asking tricky questions, doing the research and carefully thinking things through takes time. It’s also unpleasant. Most of us would rather do anything than think. A recent study found that when left alone in a room, people preferred to give themselves electric shocks than quietly sit and think.  This may be why work place procrastination is on the rise. 

Being smart can also upset people. Asking tough questions can quickly make you unpopular. People may perceive you as snobbish, arrogant or rude.

Intelligent people quickly learn these lessons. Instead of using their intelligence, they just stay quiet and follow the crowd – even if it is off the side of a cliff. In the short term this pays off. Things get done, everyone’s lives are easier and people are happy. But in the long term it can create poor decisions and lay the foundations for disaster.

This line of thinking helps explain the vexing problem on LOST when we used to yell at the screen why characters did not ask simple questions to other characters to gather basic information in order to adopt a meaningful response or plan of action. When characters came back from a mission or a dangerous encounter, rarely did the beach campers ask what was going on. They preferred to remain as quiet as sheep. And when they learned about the Hatch and its safety against the Others, no one questioned why the top leaders kept the place to themselves.

They did not challenge authority because it could make them look stupid in front of the group. But the majority of the group was in the same holding pattern - - - stay quiet and follow the crowd mentality. But this also was a bad plan because those characters who spoke up to be leaders, such as Locke or Jack, did not have enough practical intelligence to make the correct choices. They thought their analytical intelligence was superior to the other castaways. Again, it was confusing one skill set from another - - - more practical one needed to assess survival options to craft solution to major problems.

THREE QUESTIONS TO A SOLUTION

A BBC.com article posed the solution to any problem. The author postulates that it takes a person only three answers to find a solution for a personal or professional problem. 

If you think of any problem you are dealing with right now — a difficult colleague, changes to your business wrought by the digital revolution, or even, say, the struggle to get into better physical shape —and honestly ask yourself these three questions:

Are you really willing to change what you’ve been doing?
Can you think of a better strategy or idea than the status quo?
Can you execute on your chosen solution? 

Nothing gets done until you say “YES” to "are you willing to change what you've been doing." Otherwise, you are just spinning your wheels in self-pity.

Everyone struggles to adapt to changing conditions;  most are held back almost entirely by their own unwillingness to change. It’s not that people cannot change, it’s that they’re unwilling to do so.

How about your own life? That colleague who is congenitally uncooperative? He’ll keep doing it until he has a reason not to. Are you prepared to take him on? If he works for you, are you prepared to reassign him, or fire him if necessary? It might take a lot of work, but if you’re not willing to do it, then stop complaining.

By this point, you should be able to connect the dots on the third example: improving your physical health.  Despite all the excuses we come up with — too busy, we don’t really have a problem, I’ll get to it later — the reason we choose not to go to the gym or select a healthier diet is because we don’t really want to.

All of us — individuals and companies alike — could be well on our way to better personal and corporate health if we were willing to recognise that things could be better and have the guts to do something about it. There is no replacement for the courage to say yes.

Can you think of a better strategy or idea than the status quo?

Even if you are willing to change, you’ve got to come up with a solution to your problem. In some cases, it’s quite easy. Becoming healthier by improving your diet and doing more exercise is not exactly a secret or a revolutionary solution.

Other times, however, it is more difficult. The writing was on the wall for some time for mom-and-pop video  and Blockbuster stores when digital streaming became a better solution for more people than heading to your local DVD store.  Blockbuster did have choices — buy Netflix when they were still quite small and run them as an independent entity, create their own “Netflix” business, retrench into a small niche player doing what you’ve always done for the tiny market that might still prefer to browse the shelves, or selling out to another company better — or dumber — than they were. Blockbuster made an attempt, too late, to create its own version of Netflix, but ultimately collapsed under the weight of change.

On a personal choice, if one wants to lead a healthier lifestyle, then one has to map out goals and how to achieve it. If you want to lose 30 pounds, then write out a plan: join Weight Watchers, get a calorie intake calculator, plan out weekly meals in advance, impose limits on snacks or sweets, start an exercise routine, and/or join a gym.

The point is, when you are open-minded, curious, and creative, you’ll have options to tackle your problems.

Finally, the Big Question: can you execute on your chosen solution?

You may understand your problem. You may have a brilliant solution. But if don't get off the couch and take action, nothing will happen.  No matter how great your strategic idea, if you can’t execute on it you’re doomed. All of this is hard work, something that runs counter to your current habits and behavior.

Even going to the gym and eating better doesn’t happen by itself. Maybe you need a personal trainer to keep you motivated (and raise the embarrassment factor if you quit or the financial strain if you have to pay for a missed training session). If you don’t have the personal discipline to stay away from those wonderful high calorie desserts, there’s an entire industry that has sprung up to help you execute on your eat-healthy strategy: diet clubs, diet programs, diet apps galore.

Every step of the way is challenging, from having the courage to change, to creatively developing a new way of doing things, to actually making it happen. But these three questions will always be at the heart of any solution. Problem solving need not be so confusing, complex and overwhelming.

The author concludes, "When you really think about it, you’ve got everything you need to solve your problem."


It really is sound advice.

WHO DESERVES A HAPPY ENDING?

There are some stories that deserve a happy ending. But there are some stories where characters do not require one.

I was troubled by this season of Doctor Who. The showrunner was keen on giving two companion characters major send-offs. It was one of those "they deserved their moment in the limelight." But it does dilute the main character's role as a super-intelligent, time traveling alien who always viewed himself as above the more primitive human race.

Part of the problem was that after the Doctor's current companion, Clara, died because she tried to be as clever as the Doctor himself. That was a pretty solid finish for a character that really did not take a back seat in her last season. She did not play the secondary damsel in distress role; she was a co-worker in solving problems. But the show brought her back in a weird Time Lord trope of pulling her back a second before her death so she could further humanize the Doctor. I don't think that worked at all especially since Clara is no longer dead, and running around with another immortal in their very own time machine.

Then for the annual Christmas special, the Indiana Jonesian character, River Song, had her grand send-off. Again, this plot seemed too forced and out of character. The Doctor has always been cast as a loner who always needed an innocent human companion to balance his potentially unchecked desire to create chaos and destruction. To have one last caper is one thing; but to push the tangential story line that the Doctor and River Song were timelessly in love (even through a re-generation) further weakened the Doctor's character.

 Did Clara and River Song require a happy ending? No. It would have been more powerful if they had bad or heroic endings since that would have been key points in the Doctor's future decision making process (wrestling with guilt, shame, loss).

This same type of forced happy ending put a sour taste in many fans. The final season was a mess of character show reel type plots. One example was the back story episode for Alpert. The only thing that episode did was add evidence that the island was not purgatory, but Hell.

LOST could have ended well at the end of Season 5. Yes, there would have been many loose ends not tied up - - - but that was said when the series finally concluded in the sideways church and then some more plot issues. Was the sideways post-death limbo just a device to force a happy ending for Jack? It would appear so, but it was not executed well because once Jack awakened, he did not seem very happy. More confused than happy.

Other characters, such as Ben, got a happier conclusion than they really deserved. Ben was an alleged mass murdering, abusive psychopath who really did not pay any penalty for his sins. Was that all immaterial when Ben got to choose to stay in the sideways existence to find his missing family life with Rousseau and Alex?

Kate was very happy to see Jack once she awakened from her island slumber. But that happiness was contrary to the reality of their past relationship. In the O6 world, Kate's relationship with Jack soured quickly. On the island, Kate chose Sawyer over Jack. When Jack was in the depths of alcohol/drug depression, Kate turned his back on him. And when Jack was injured on the island, Kate did not stay by his side but instead left the island with Sawyer. It made no sense for Kate to come back in the after life to be Jack's main love interest, his soul mate.

But then again, in the final scene two characters in the church apparently had no happy ending: Locke and Boone. They had no one special with them to share the next level of existence. Both died in the island time frame in brutal and senseless deaths. And in the subsequent story lines, they were not truly mourned by their friends. Was it enough just to have these two loners be a part of a larger group?

Fans probably like the idea of happy endings because they had invested so much time and thought into their favorite characters. But sometimes forced happy endings are the worst thing a show can do.

THE FUTURE WITHIN YOU

How many times in your adult life have you cursed younger you? “Dammit, why didn’t you start working out earlier?” Or, "What was I thinking before I started (this course of behavior)?" 

Many bad habits occur because you and your future self aren’t very close. If you want to improve those habits, get closer with that future you.

As news site Vox explains, ongoing research into how the human brain perceives long-term habits found that the more you view your future self as you, the more likely you are to engage in better habits. However, many of us actually view our future selves as strangers. Literally. If you have poor long-term habits, your brain exhibits the same activity when thinking about your future self as it does when it thinks about a completely different person:

Researchers have confirmed this with brain imaging. When people are in an fMRI scanner, their rostral anterior cingulate cortex brain region — which usually shows a high level of activity when people think about themselves — quiets down when people are told to think about themselves in 10 years. In fact, our brain activity when thinking about our future selves looks surprisingly similar to what happens when participants are asked to think about other people altogether.

So, what’s the solution? Start by thinking about your self in the long-term, regardless of your habits. You don’t have to start with a savings plan or a workout regimen. Just start thinking about how you connect to your own future.

Anne Wilson, a psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, suggests using a time line.  By drawing out current events in your life and connecting them to events in the near future (like deadlines, or events), she found that students were more likely to feel connected to their future selves, and thus make better decisions. However you choose to make the connection, though, the more you can think of your future self as the same person you are, the easier it will be to internally justify being helpful to them.

DIRE WARNING

Literature and popular culture have always been a source of future developments, especially in the concepts of technology. Science fiction writers in 1800s dreamed about space exploration, which would occur at its zenith with the moon landing in 1969.

Technology is supposed to be good for mankind.  It makes life easier. Work more productive. More time for man to think about important things.

But even the most tuned technologists have a grave warning about the future of technology.

Steve Wozniak,  Apple co-founder and programming whiz, recently predicted that artificial intelligence's detrimental impact on the future of humanity to warnings from the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking.

"Computers are going to take over from humans, no question," he told an Australian financial publication.  Recent technological advancements have convinced him that writer Raymond Kurzweil – who believes machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence within the next few decades – is onto something.

"Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people," he said. "If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they'll think faster than us and they'll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently."

"Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don't know about that …" Wozniak said.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has been the most vocal about his concerns about AI, calling it the "biggest existential threat" to mankind. He is an investor in DeepMind and Vicarious, two AI ventures, but “it’s not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return," he said.  "I like to just keep an eye on what’s going on…nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Musk said. “But you have to be careful.”

Gates said,  "I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned," he wrote. Similarly, physicist Stephen Hawking has warned  that AI could eventually "take off on its own." It's a scenario that doesn't bode well for our future as a species: "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded," he said.

In LOST, the island housed once was "cutting edge" technology and research facilities. It was Dharma that was looking for answers to the darkest questions and mysteries in science, including end-of-the-world scenarios. 

There has been a debate on whether Dharma killed itself off, or whether it was the technology that it created that led to the mass destruction and purge.

The smoke monster may not have been invented by Dharma, but could have Dharma "programmed" this smoke monster in an attempt to give it human thoughts and memories in order to control it?  It would seem to be a reasonable scientific inquiry. But with many science experiments, unintended consequences could happen - - - such as the smoke monster learning to mimic human behavior, including violence, anger and murder. It could have used memories as a template to shape shift into human form to feed off the emotions of other life forms. For the island was kept on edge by fear, one of the strongest human emotions. Perhaps that was the source of the smoke monster's energy.

Further, Dharma could have created the smoke monster(s) and during the Incident accidently sent them back into time to the ancient Egyptian period. For some, Jacob and MIB as smoke monsters, as well as Crazy Mother, would show an advanced being trying to shed its confusing and conflicting knowledge base of humans. And the smoke monsters did not time shift back to present Dharma - - - but lingered on the island to re-live their immortal life spans, bitter about this external prison. The game itself with human pawns could have been the reaction of smoke monsters against Dharma's research  into the power of the island light.

So, Dharma failed to heed their own warning signs in creating technology which challenged time and space itself. Remember, Daniel had worked with Dharma in Michigan after his Oxford tenure. It is the time skips that give us a clue that Daniel may have set in motion all of the destructive patterns through the power to manipulate time. His return to the island was also to make amends for the horror he had created (akin to discovering the atom bomb) which was wrecking havoc on his psyche. History is littered with scientists who regretted their inventions and discoveries that were corrupted into acts of evil.

THEOREM OF PROBABILITY

Bayes' Theorem is a mathematical formula to find probabilities of certain outcomes.

In the Bayesian (or epistemological) interpretation, probability measures a degree of belief. Bayes's theorem then links the degree of belief in a proposition before and after accounting for evidence. For example, suppose it is believed with 50% certainty that a coin is twice as likely to land heads than tails. If the coin is flipped a number of times and the outcomes observed, that degree of belief may rise, fall or remain the same depending on the results.

For proposition A and evidence B,
P(A), the prior, is the initial degree of belief in A.
P(A|B), the posterior, is the degree of belief having accounted for B.
the quotient P(B|A)/P(B) represents the support B provides for A.


In a diagram form, the theorem looks like this:

If knowledge of one independent value is sufficient to deduce several outcomes.

It is in human nature to try to predict the future or future outcomes. There is a great reward in knowing what is going to happen. One could bet on the outcome (such as a horse race or stock price) to become quite wealthy. Or one could weigh the values to determine a course of action to avoid a hazardous risk.

The latter is the basis of insurance, the calculation of certain past events and conditions is used to create the value of an insurance pool to pay claims.

There is also the ego intelligence that tries to force future outcomes by manipulating the present values. In the stock world, it is insider trading to floating rumors to affect stock prices.

When we apply probability theorem to LOST, we cannot diagram a clear valuation to the end.

Initially, we have the following starting point:

Plane crash - - -  probable outcomes: death, injury, survival.

If death, then the future factors (plot points) would be purgatory (limbo), hell (punishment), heaven (paradise/reward).

If injury, then future factors would be pain, human interaction (care), cure or death.

If survival, then future factors would be food (starvation), shelter (danger), rescue (home).

To attempt to diagram the plot probabilities of LOST, one has to start with the crash as the key starting point:

 The plane crash yields five probable outcomes for a character:

If survives the plane crash, the possibilities are living in danger on the island or going home.

If one does not survive the plane crash, the possibilities are heaven, redemption or nothingness.

Nothingness is the black void of ceasing to exist at any level. It is the worst fate for a human spirit.

So which theorem path did the LOST story take?

STILL LOST AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

After ten years, LOST's management team continues to avoid answering the tough questions about their own series. At the Paley Center Television convention, several members of the LOST cast and the show runners appeared on a panel discussion. According to Yahoo.tv, there were several statements made by the creative team (and my commentary):

Were they dead the entire time?

"No. They were not dead the entire time," Carlton Cuse said. 

He said that theory may have been exacerbated by the closing shot of the show. (A screen shot is at the bottom of this blog's home page). An ABC executive had suggested they include a buffer between the last scene and the commercial break, so the producers found some footage of the plane fuselage sitting on the beach. That footage incited the theories that everyone aboard had actually perished.

The characters definitely survived the plane crash and really were on a very real island. Damon Lindelof added of the incorrect purgatory theory: "For us, one of the ongoing conversations with the audience and there was a very early perception, was that the island was purgatory and we were always out there saying, 'It's not purgatory, this is real, we're not going to Sixth Sense you.'"

But that scene of everyone in the church? Yeah, they’re all dead there.

And there lies the problem with the creators-writers position. There is no bridge between their constant denials about there being no purgatory, and the fact that the show's climax is set in the after life. And TPTB do not explain how the characters got to the sideways world, living a separate but parallel lives from their mortal island lives. And to blame ABC for the final debris field scene is also absurd since it was the show's producers who had final cut on the finale.

How the characters evolved:

Lindelof admitted that when they cast the show, there was no script. Kim read for the part of Kate. "There was no Sun in the 'Lost' script — because there was no 'Lost' script," he said. "Jorge read for Sawyer, because Hurley didn't exist."

And how did they decide Locke had been in a wheelchair? Lindelof revealed that while shooting the pilot, Terry O'Quinn would go down the beach and listen to his iPod during breaks. Co-creator J.J. Abrams pointed at O'Quinn and told Lindelof, "That guy's got a secret." What secret? "You figure it out."

The bravado needs to stop; the series did have a script by Jeffery Lieber that was greenlit by ABC to start production. No television network starts a production without one. When JJ Abrams got on board, the script was reworked but the essence of the pilot remained, as an arbitration panel found for Lieber in a subsequent creator dispute.

But what this one story does tell us is a bit of confirmation that the writers were creating characters, scenes, information by the seat of their pants. It seems to tout their self-stated genius, but it also questions on whether there was a clear plan for the show from the very beginning.

 Killing off characters:
As many "Lost" fans know by now, the initial plan had been to kill off Jack in the pilot episode. Luckily, ABC executives questioned that move, and the show's producers changed their minds. Instead, the first major character they killed off was Boone, played by Ian Somerhalder, who took the decision so well that Lindelof joked, "We gotta kill more of these guys!"

In the original Writer's Guide, Boone was going to have a bigger role in the series. But that did not happen. As previous posts showed, the writer's guide was quickly dismissed by the show runners, which again is evidence that there was no clear plan for the show.

The outrigger scene:
Lindelof and Cuse admitted that there is an answer to who shot at Sawyer on the outrigger. But the writers ultimately decided that it was "cooler" to keep it a mystery.
"The scene exists. It actually is on paper," Lindelof said. Years from now, they'll auction it off for charity.

This is another "cheat" on the fans/viewers. It is not "cooler" to fool fans into wondering, speculating or arguing over points of the show, when the writers and producers intentionally keep that information from the fans/viewers. The idea of writing a mystery story and NOT solving the mysteries is illogical. Some believe that the producers really did not have a reasonable explanation for this time traveling paradox, so keeping it a secret was better than getting flamed on community fan boards.


 Easter eggs that were never laid:
An audience member asked about the Easter eggs that "Lost" became famous for, and Lindelof said the one he was proudest of was an egg that was never meant to be an egg.

He recounted that someone sent him a screencap from the pilot of Walt standing in front of the fuselage. There was a burn mark on the fuselage that looked like the Dharma Initiative logo — but this was before the writers had even conceived the Dharma Initiative. "Whoa, this is an Easter egg that we did not hide," Lindelof said, jokingly adding, "And I lost all faith in religion."

Again, this a tactic admission that the story producers had no real clue where their episodes would take them. Not knowing about the Dharma Initiative means that half the series was mere inconsequential filler. Such admissions further dilute the integrity of the show's original story line and further calls into the question the plot of the ending.

Hating Nikki and Paulo:

As they've said before, the writers introduced Nikki and Paulo as a reaction to fan discussion about the background characters. But even before the backlash to those characters began, the writers themselves started hating Nikki and Paulo. So they decided to acknowledge their "horrible mistake" in the episode "Expose."

This is another odd turnabout by the producers to deflect criticisms against them. "The fans asked for it," should not be an overriding concern to a creative team that knows what it is doing.

 

How the ending came to be:

As Cuse said, "The show was about people who were lost in their lives." And as he and Lindelof discussed the ending of the series, they agreed it should be spiritual.

Lindelof added that they decided to "solve a mystery we never asked: What's the meaning of life, and what happens when you die?"

Except, they never answered that grand question!  The murderers, con men, cheaters, liars and psychopaths all wound up in a happy fantasy after life (sideways world) with absolutely no punishment for their mortal crimes, sins, transgressions, etc. There was no redemption. In fact, the ending is less spiritual in the context of who these people really were - - - how they lived their lives should have put them through a gauntlet of pain and suffering (i.e. the purgatory angle). But there was no bona fide moral to the LOST story. If anything, it stated it does not matter what bad things you did in life, you will get to heaven with your friends and co-conspirators. And, the final unanswered question remains unanswered: what happened to the characters when the doors opened and the church was engulfed in white light?

The more TPTB speak of LOST, the less cohesive their vision for the series comes to the forefront. The less answers, even now 10 years removed, will be forthcoming.  It gets a twinge of a con-man's victim after a while; "what happened to me?"

COGNITIVE FLAWS

The problems with the LOST characters may have been caused by their inherit flaws.

One basic human characteristic is tribalism. Humans have a kind of ingrained fear or distrust of the "out-group." It's a previously adaptive trait that binds small groups of individuals together and prevents them from wandering off or joining other groups. But it also leads to ethnocentrism and divisions between groups. For example, medica studies show that the use of oxytocin may increase feelings of trust between individuals, it also increases fear of others.  This characteristic was obviously important back when we lived in family clans or tribal arrangements, but today it leads to all sorts of social problems, including racism, prejudice, and our inability to empathize with people we don't immediately know.

The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence.  But that speed of thought has annoying glitches that cause us to make questionable decisions or make wrong conclusions. These mistakes are a consequence of our limited intelligence and predisposed tendencies. Examples include the confirmation bias (we love to agree with people who agree with us), the gambler's fallacy (the tremendous weight we tend to put on previous events that aren't causal factors), our tendency to neglect or misjudge probability, and the status-quo bias (we often make choices that guarantee that things remain the same). Some of these are adaptive traits, but others are simply cognitive deficiencies.

Confirmation bias is an easy one to understand. We love to agree with people who agree with us. It's why we only visit websites that express our political opinions, and why we mostly hang around people who hold similar views and tastes. We tend to be put off by individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views — what the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner called "cognitive dissonance."  It's this preferential mode of behavior that leads to the confirmation bias — the often unconscious act of referencing only those perspectives that fuel our pre-existing views, while at the same time ignoring or dismissing opinions — no matter how valid — that threaten our world view. And paradoxically, the internet has only made this tendency even worse. As a result, people are less and less inclined to listen to other people's views or even to think about reaching compromises because somewhere on the net they can find support for their positions.

In-group bias is somewhat similar to the confirmation bias is the ingroup bias, a manifestation of our innate tribalistic tendencies. It is said that part of this effect may have to do with oxytocin — the so-called "love molecule." This neurotransmitter helps to forge bonds between people in our in-group, performs the exact opposite function for those outside our group. To outsiders,  it makes us suspicious, fearful and distain other people.  Ultimately, the in-group bias causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.

The Gambler's Fallacy is a glitch in our thinking. We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes. The classic example is coin-tossing. After flipping heads, say, five consecutive times, our inclination is to predict an increase in likelihood that the next coin toss will be tails — that the odds must certainly be in the favor of heads. But in reality, the odds are still 50/50. As statisticians say, the outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of any outcome is still 50%. This gives a person the false notion that events are not random. One can ride the dice rolls to victory. This positive expectation feeling often fuels gambling addictions. There is also the sense that our luck has to eventually change and that good fortune is on the way. It also contributes to the "hot hand" misconception. Similarly, it's the same feeling we get when we start a new relationship that leads us to believe it will be better than the last one.

Rationalization is a process which tends to gloss over one's mistakes to justify a prior decision. Example, if you bought something totally unnecessary, faulty, or overly expensive item, people tend to rationalize the purchase to such an extent that you convinced yourself it was a great idea all along. It is mental mechanism that makes us feel better after we make crappy decisions, especially at the cash register. Also known as "Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome," it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance. 

Neglecting clear probability is another strange twist in brain analytical function. Very few of us have a problem getting into a car and going for a drive, but many of us experience great trepidation about stepping inside an airplane and flying at 35,000 feet. Flying, quite obviously, is a wholly unnatural and seemingly hazardous activity. Yet virtually all of us know and acknowledge the fact that the probability of dying in an auto accident is significantly greater (1 in 84 chance) than getting killed in a plane crash (1 in 12,000) — but our brains won't release us from this crystal clear logic.  It's the same phenomenon that makes us worry about getting killed in an act of terrorism as opposed to something far more probable, like falling down the stairs or accidental poisoning. This is our inability to properly grasp the sense of peril or risk - - - which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.

Observational Selection bias is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased. A perfect example is what happens after we buy a new car and we inexplicably start to see the same car virtually everywhere. A similar effect happens to pregnant women who suddenly notice a lot of other pregnant women around them. Or it could be a unique number or song. It's not that these things are appearing more frequently, it's that we've (for whatever reason) selected the item in our mind, and in turn, are noticing it more often. Trouble is, most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias, and actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency — which can be a very disconcerting feeling. It's also a cognitive bias that contributes to the feeling that the appearance of certain things or events couldn't possibly be a coincidence (even though it is).

Status quo bias is an inherit form of security in one's place. We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible. Needless to say, this has ramifications in everything from politics to economics. We like to stick to our routines, political parties, and our favorite meals at restaurants. Part of the perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — an adage that fuels our conservative tendencies.

Negativity bias is the tendency to fixate on negative things. People tend to pay more attention to bad news — and it's not just because we're morbid. Social scientists theorize that it's on account of our selective attention and that, given the choice, we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we're suspicious (or bored) of proclamations to the contrary. More evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news (e.g. "saber tooth tigers suck" vs. "this berry tastes good"). Today, we run the risk of dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news. If presented with studies that  crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining,  most people would argue that things are getting worse — what is a perfect example of the negativity bias at work.

Bandwagon effect is a principle that one gets acceptance in accepting the consensus. Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "group think" or "hive mind" mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform.

Projection bias is a way individuals look at the world around them. As individuals trapped inside our own minds 24/7, it's often difficult for us to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We tend to assume that most people think just like us — though there may be no justification for it. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to a related effect known as the "false consensus bias"  where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. Moreover, it can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Likewise, it can create a sense of exaggerated confidence one has in predicting the winner in a sports match or an election.

Current moment bias is the tendency to live in the present moment. We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. In a 1998 study, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.

The anchoring effect or the the "relativity trap," this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. We tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, we tend to pick the middle option — not too expensive, and not too cheap. But that thinking does make the end choice a logically better one.

It is not perfectly clear why these biases and effects are so ingrained into human behavior. Some sociologists believe that these may be leftover defense mechanisms from the hunter-gathering period in human development. Others believe that much of these traits are learned behavior from the environment around you. If you are a child with a single parent welfare mother who does not work or betters herself, that environment could cause the child to integrate living for the moment traits or accept one's lot in life quicker than a person in a middle class family where goals and change is taught on a daily basis.

If you re-read the above list again, your own mind can flash to various characters who displayed those bias or traits during the series. It is like a mental popcorn maker. It also helps understand the notion on why so many of the main characters never could change their paths.

DISSOLVING ISSUES

It recently struck me as odd that throughout the series, MAJOR CRISIS (life or death) problems seem to fade away, lose survivor interest and become non-issues without any true resolution.

It is like the attention span of a child being bombarded with multiple stimuli. Once he has had enough of one thing he goes on to the next.

Things started off in a logical manner. The survivors needed food and water, so they plundered the plane and baggage for supplies. When the threat of disease from the dead bodies (and boar attacks), the survivors torched the plane's fuselage.

When there was an issue of safety with the reveal of the smoke monster, the camp started to become divided. It got worse when they were running out of drinkable water. When Jack found the water fall cave, his plan was to move the survivors to this safer location. But he was rebutted by half the group. So the significant water issue and relocation faded away from being a crisis to a non-factor.

Then there was the natural drive to be rescued. When no one showed up for weeks, Michael got the ball rolling on building a raft to get into the ocean current and cargo traffic lanes. Despite this being the only viable option, very few survivors actually helped with the plan. And after Michael's boat was ambushed, the survivors remaining on the island no longer planned on how to seek rescue or leave the island. It was only at the very end of the series did the subject come up with the Ajira plane.

The next great crisis was the attacks by the Others. Again, in a moment of personal safety, the panic was felt throughout the camp. But after a while, the idea of enhanced security at the beach was dropped like there were no problem by most of the survivors. Out of sight out of mind.

Then there was the infection or disease which Desmond and Claire were told about. The Others had a serum to ward off the effects of the infection especially in pregnant women. It was said to be fatal. If there was a serious pathogen on the island, it faded from memory quickly. Some fans believe that it is was just a false ploy to gain confidence of the survivors or keep people dependent on those in power.

The time travel and time skips were major issues for those main characters. Instead of trying to figure out what was truly going on, and possibly use the supernatural properties to their advantage, they just rode the time rifts like surfers until they stopped. And afterward, the time skippers did not discuss their adventurous plight with any of the non-skippers.

The story pattern is fairly clear: set up an improbable situation. Throw the main characters into a dangerous mix. As that story line is about to unravel, set up a new improbable situation and drop the old one. One of the better examples of this switch was when a small group went on a mission to stop Ben from using the poison gas plant. The unguarded facility was used briefly as a "trust exercise" between the survivors and the freighter science team, but there was only a faux emergency. And once that mission ended, the poison gas was never referenced again, including when the candidates were about to brainstorm how to defeat Flocke.

Because of LOST's story format, the individual story events seem to show the final pattern of a preschool pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game.

LOST WORLDS

“ Every man carries with him the world in which he must live. ”
— F. Marion Crawford 


A world is a place defined as a person's life and activities outside one's self.

Jack's world that he created was that of being a driven medical doctor in order to feed the need for his father's approval.

Kate's world that she created was that of a rebel in order to lash out at her parents for their secrets.

Locke's world that he created was one of forced acceptance equality and balance with others that he lacked in growing up without parents or siblings.

Sawyer's world that he created was one of darkness and revenge in order to fill the void when his parents were killed.

Hurley's world that he created was one of fantasy in order to avoid dealing with the issues of his father's abandonment and consequential depression and self-esteem issues.

Sayid's world that he created was that of a brilliant soldier to cope with the issues of growing up as the child who would do the dirty work for his father and siblings.

Charlie's world that he created was the dreams of a rock star in order to overcome the isolation from his family who moved on to create their own new families.

Rose's world that she created was one of faith and acceptance in order to deal with her terminal cancer.

Bernard's world that he created was that of curing Rose in order to be with her in order to deal with her terminal cancer which goes back to curing his bachelor loneliness.

Sun's world that she created was one of a rebellious child in order to seek independence from the customs and burdens placed upon her by her father.

Jin's world that he created was one of great expectations and wealth by leaving his village to go to the big city to find fame and fortune in order to end his cycle of poverty and shame.

Desmond's world that he created was that of the tortured soul who gets rewarded with his dream life with his lover in order to offset his fears of commitment and failure as a man.

If you look at all the character's worlds, they all intersect in the Island events. Their desires intertwine in the story lines, each helping the other toward their fantasy or dream goal that created their own separate worlds. It is the collection of the worlds that each character created on their own that fuses the premise of the island as the engine for their journeys to find resolution of the thing(s) they were trying to deal with from their childhoods. The world of LOST was made up the worlds of the characters colliding with other. In the primal mode of survival, no one notices that each has deep scars from their childhoods that their dream worlds were to heal. But no one can heal themselves. They need new friends, new families, new relationships and new ideas in order sort one's problems out to find a lasting resolution.