New Lost Thread

[joekerr31]

ok, so you guys got me into the lost theories and i started trying to figure the show out.

so i get that the island is in a different 'time' than the present. so the plane obviously slipped in to some space/time continuum (STC) thing.

i get that there are scientists / business men with a vested stake in the island on both side of the STC thing. ben/dharma on the island, and then ben / who knows who else in the present.

all in all i can see them explaning the show in a scientific / plausible way - which they have said is what will happen as theories that they are dead / purgatory / supernatural explanations, etc have been discredited.

but here is what i don't get.

1) the characters were linked together in the real world long before the plan crash (sawyer's con man was locke's father, jack's father is claire's father, jacks father spoke with sawyer in australia, kate was friends with sawyers girlfriend and con partner, jack and desmond were running at the stadium together, etc.)

2) all these characters just 'happened' to be on the same plane at the same time. i mean, yes, the six degrees of seperation theory that we all are familiar with can apply, but not to this extent. every character has almost a one degree seperation from the other characters in the real world. statistically that's impossible.

the whole premise of the show is that all these people were on a plane that crashed. or, we might say, went through some kind of STC rip. as though it were by accident. but it clearly wasn't. the crash was destined to happen and they were destined to be on that plane when it did - and they were clearly selected for some reason. in essence, the 'island' or what forces are at work, hand picked these people.

im beginning to think that the answer to 'lost' is more about fate than it is about science. pretty much everyone seems to be placing their bets on some kind of scientific answer to what is going on (as in what is happening could theoretically be plausible in real life).

but i don't think even theoretical science can explain what has happened in the show.

things clearly go beyond science and into the metaphysical realm.

(will post my theory of whats going on in a few minutes)......

 

[joekerr31]

and another thing... even STC theory doesn't explain smokie. a smoke creature that can kill people, i mean, come on - we've totally left science and even the metaphysical with that and moved into fairy tale territory.

 

[Bible_Belt]

smokie. a smoke creature that can kill people


It sounds like something from The Office of National Drug Control Policy.

 

[joekerr31]

my theory on Lost is that the whole thing is a psychological experiment.
that both the island and the real world are virtual realities.

who knows when this experiment takes place (it could be a 1,000 years in the future).

or heck, they could all be in cryogenesis. think tom cruise in vanilla sky. where he died and was put in cryogensis but with an added kick - his mind was engaged in a virtual reality program so that he continued to 'live' until they were able to fix his body and bring him back to 'real' life.

in vanilla sky his virtual reality was designed around resolving issues he had during his real life.

while i know this explanation would upset a lot of the fans, it makes the most sense to me right now.

i don't even think all the characters are real. some of the characters may virtual, while some actually exist (well they have a body in the reality).

now how would they salvage all this with the fans? i think what is also going on is that some people realize they are in a virtual reality and don't want to leave it. while others do.

so ben and locke for instance realize that they are in a virtual reality and like it.

this also explains why Ben is prepared to kill some people (because they may simply be virtual people). like his dad for instance. if his dad was merely a virtual creation, then killing him isn't really murder.

the whole message of the show might end up being that if we were ever given the choice of living in a virtual reality, we would choose it over actual reality.

anyway, its the only thing i can think of that actually allows for everythign that has gone on to make sense without using the metaphysical.

i wouldn't be surprised even if the 'reason' for the experiment was some form of future-based psychological therapy. which explains why all the central characters have issues to work through.

 

[penkitten]

i like your theory.. and i believe the show is completely science vs fate

 

[joekerr31]

i like your theory.. and i believe the show is completely science vs fate

and heres another thing...

even on the island physical laws still apply. if you get punched in the face, it hurts.

so the whole notion that a plane could rip in two and fall thousands of feet out of the sky and smash into land and dozens of people would survive is absurd. if one person survived it would be a miracle.

the beauty about the virtual reality theory is that it allows the show to be explained by science (ie. computer science), allows for totally unrealistic situations (without resorting to metaphysics to explain it), and lets you take the story any way you want.

also any time they create a series they never know if its going to last. so you have to come up on with stories that you can either end quickly or can stretch out for years. VR allows you to do that - if needed you can write them out of the VR and have them return to 'reality', or you can simply keep the VR story going as long as you want.

more over, when the story ends, you could always start a whole new series with a new group of characters. and you could create a whole new virtual reality puzzle for viewers to try and figure out. so instead of dharma and polar bears etc it could be something totally new.

by creating a story within a story (a reality within a reality) you can pretty much do whatever you want and in the end the big twist is that it was all one big virtual 'who dunnit?' mystery.

 

[penkitten]

when i think of the island and community lost is on, when dharma was there... i think of the scientific sort of jim jones land minus the religion.
i think it seems so intriguing to have this utopia sort of place, but once you get there, you can never leave unless you die... and the writer's do it in such a neat way... that i can never stop trying to figure it all out... or what is next...

 

[joekerr31]

when i think of the island and community lost is on, when dharma was there... i think of the scientific sort of jim jones land minus the religion.
i think it seems so intriguing to have this utopia sort of place, but once you get there, you can never leave unless you die... and the writer's do it in such a neat way... that i can never stop trying to figure it all out... or what is next...

just think about the plot from a virtual reality perspective and it all starts to make more sense. some characters are real, some aren't. even though to us they all seem real.

like charlie for instance. i dont think he's real. i think any character that dies isn't real, but rather simply part of the computer program.

i think the oceanic 6 are probably the only real characters, everyone else is VR. although Ben might be an exception.

in the season finale in 3 years they will all find a way to wake up from the VR experiment and only say 7 or so of the characters will turn out to be real.

and we'll find out that in real life ben is a computer scientist that created the VR program or something. and that jack and kate are actually married. that sawyer is actually a politician or something. etc.

and the huge twist? (at least if i were writing the show)... once the audience felt like it was all wrapped up 'ahhhh, so it was all a VR program. but now they are out' - i'd toss question mark in at the end that made peopel wonder whether the VR program was actually still running, and that waking up from the VR program is actually part of the VR program (and that you really haven't left it).

then everyone would go 'holy cr*p what a mind f*ck"

 

[Harpe]

and we'll find out that in real life ben is a computer scientist that created the VR program or something. and that jack and kate are actually married. that sawyer is actually a politician or something. etc.

and the huge twist? (at least if i were writing the show)... once the audience felt like it was all wrapped up 'ahhhh, so it was all a VR program. but now they are out' - i'd toss question mark in at the end that made peopel wonder whether the VR program was actually still running, and that waking up from the VR program is actually part of the VR program (and that you really haven't left it).

Sounds a lot like Existenz.

I really hope they do not go down this route, unless they can tie it to the real world in an interesting way. This would only be slightly more interesting than "it was all a dream" or "they are all dead and in purgatory" in my mind.

That said, your theory does help to explain a lot of the mysteries and apparent inconsitencies in the show (like the not getting hurt on the plane thing). Were the 'lists' that Ben wanted his people to make when the plane first crashed lists of the 'real' people on the plane? hmmmm....

Right now I am worrying that they will not be able to end the show in a satisfactory way. I know that they will probably still leave questions at the end, but I wonder if they have gotten ahead of themselves. Part of me hopes that they know exactly what they are doing, but then I remember some of the aborted plots (Paolo and Nikki, Libby in the insane asylum) and I wonder...

 

[joekerr31]

the list could be of 'real' characters plugged into the VR - letting Ben know 'don't kill these characters because doing so will unplug them from the VR'.

but jack wasn't on the list. this could mean a variety of things.

it could mean my theory stinks.

it could mean that on the other side (in reality) jack was more of a risk taker than the other participants and wanted to 'play the game' without any protection.

it could mean jack is actually part of the people doing the experiment on the other side. yet at the same time he's also putting himself through the experience as well.

it could mean that jack isn't real but a virtual character / program.

but remember, for my VR theory to be correct we are talking about a story within a story within a story (the island, within VR reality, within actual reality - and right now we've only been given info relating to VR story).

so even with VR in play, there's still a boat load of 'mysteries' associated with the VR story the characters are living. think of it like being on the holodeck on star trek - its all fake, but its also real.

the only reason im so attached to this VR theory is that there is otherwise simply no way to explain all the fate elements - overlaps in character destinies, relations, surviving plane crashes, smoke monsters, etc.

given that they've said that everything in Lost can be explained scientifically (or through sceintific theories) the only thing that makes sense is VR.

i mean, we can explain the polar bears using the space time continuum theory (ie. the island is actually in the past somewhere), but that doesn't explain the smoke monster.

who knows... maybe the producers lied about it being explainable via scientific theory and it will turn out to be a dream or something.

but i have a feeling that plugging in to the VR comes with a price. people think the island is where 'magical' / 'destiny' things happen, but thats not true. hurly won the lotto and got creamed with bad luck. plus all the coicidences of character overlap prior to the island etc.

i mean, scientifically theres no way to explain hurley winning the lottery using the same numbers as the The Valenzetti Equation (an equation used to predict the time of human exinction). i mean, how do you rig the lottery to produce those numbers? or how does someone go forward in time, find winning numbers, then go back in time to the island and use them for military purposes, then go forward in time and give them to hurley, then have hurley go back in time to the island and see the numbers on the island, etc.

i mean, total insanity. there is no way in h*ll they will be able to explain all this with space time continuum theory.

the only way all these 'coincidences' and unfeasible scenarios (like surviving the plane crash) could possibly make sense is

1) an intelligence master over space and time is involved (which basically equates to a God explanation) or

2) its all virtual and as such is a pre-programmed simulation / experience. basically 22nd century entertainment of some sort (heck, i'd take the ride if i could!).

like i say, i think the VR theory would leave fans a bit upset. but to be honest, i don't see how they are going to possible end this thing without upsetting people.

if it is all 'real' (ie. its not VR), then people are going to be like 'WTF? so they dropped like a rock from thousands of feet in the sky and didn't even have a broken finger from it? give me a break."

i mean, you either explain it via VR or via some theological twist - otherwise it can't be tied all together in a way that is plausible.

 

[joekerr31]

argh! after doing some research 'apparently' the producers of Lost have already said that its not virtual reality.

that they really are on an island.

i'll give them this much. they are either going to go down in history as having produced the most elaborate complex television show, or everyone is going to hate them for some silly sci-fi explanation behind all this.

 

[ValleyDJing]

Jesus Christ! You guys are gonna hurt yourselves. I stopped trying to analyze and theorize during the second season. Now I'm just enjoying the ride. lol

 

[joekerr31]

Jesus Christ! You guys are gonna hurt yourselves. I stopped trying to analyze and theorize during the second season. Now I'm just enjoying the ride. lol

the thing is that its not that complex. its all right there in front of us. the only reason it seems complex is because they have multiple stories, occuring in multiple time periods, with multiple interwoven connections to each other - and they tell it to us in tiny little bits and pieces.

but the umbrella concept can't be that hard to figure out. the problem is that the moment you come up with a theory, there is some factoid that shoots a hole in it.

i like all the space/time/ mirror world stuff, but it doesn't explain how you could survive dropping out of the sky in a plane crash.

so far the concepts that we DO know are at play are
- time is f*cked up
- the numbers relate to the end of the world
- there is supernatural phenomena (smokey, surviving the plane crash, absurd coincidences, cabin appearing and disappearing, seeing dead people, etc.)
- whatever is going on has some kind of human scientific involvement (dharma)
- the plane crash wasn't an accident - whether it was fate or some other force, these peopel were 'brought' to the island for some reason.

so any grandiose theory has to either address all those points, or disprove some of them as false.

you watch, they'll end the series with some hokey bullsh*t explanation and p*ss off millions of viewers.

 

[KarmaSutra]

Smokie is like the boogie man. It shows up to those, thus far, who have come to a crossroads in thier lives and must make a decision about the direction they must take.

Look at Locke's encounter. He was scared sh!tless but faced it headon and he was rewarded with vision and symmetry with The Island.

Eko, lost his battle with Smokie but that was due to his anger and misplaced sense of loyalty.

Smokie is the protector of The Island. There are ways to stop it and ways of communicating with it but noone knows (yet) where it came from or who it serves.

As far as why they were not hurt when the plane crashed, it could be as simple that the magnetic shield slowed the plane down enough that the impact wasn't fatal. I think the plane just found off of the coast of Bali is a second plane, made to replicate the original 815, with already dressed corpses left to rot as fish food.

I don't think it's as scientific as it appears but it will be interesting to see who Ben and his assassins go after. My guess is they are taking out the ranking members of the Hanso Corporation.

 

[kickureface]

the plane crashed because there was an intense magnetic field around the island. do you remember system failure?
either way im beginning to think that its possible they are all in an experiment. voila~everything can be accounted for, including all the motifs and themse

 

[ready123]

i like all the space/time/ mirror world stuff, but it doesn't explain how you could survive dropping out of the sky in a plane crash.

technically it could since time and velocity are related via relativity

time gets fvcked up, velocity of the plane is affected, plane doesn't hit the ground as hard as it should

 

[Ever onward]

Part of me hopes that they know exactly what they are doing, but then I remember some of the aborted plots (Paolo and Nikki, Libby in the insane asylum) and I wonder...

What aborted plot with Paolo and Nikki? I think their storyline was resolved.

As to Libby in the insane asylum......just wait.

 

[penkitten]

Smokie is like the boogie man. It shows up to those, thus far, who have come to a crossroads in thier lives and must make a decision about the direction they must take.

Look at Locke's encounter. He was scared sh!tless but faced it headon and he was rewarded with vision and symmetry with The Island.

Eko, lost his battle with Smokie but that was due to his anger and misplaced sense of loyalty.

Smokie is the protector of The Island. There are ways to stop it and ways of communicating with it but noone knows (yet) where it came from or who it serves.

As far as why they were not hurt when the plane crashed, it could be as simple that the magnetic shield slowed the plane down enough that the impact wasn't fatal. I think the plane just found off of the coast of Bali is a second plane, made to replicate the original 815, with already dressed corpses left to rot as fish food.

I don't think it's as scientific as it appears but it will be interesting to see who Ben and his assassins go after. My guess is they are taking out the ranking members of the Hanso Corporation.

oh i really think you are right on target with the hanso corp...

werent there a whole bunch of people that died in the plane crash.. the survivors buried lots of them and had a funeral on day two or three of the island?

 

[Harpe]

What aborted plot with Paolo and Nikki? I think their storyline was resolved.

Their storyline was resolved, but it was originally supposed to be a longer arc. A lot of fans didn't like Nikki and Paolo, nor did they like how they were introduced (me included); making it seem like they had been there all along and involved in the action. If more of the other random losties had speaking parts or minor roles in the action, it wouldn't have seemed so strange and out of place. In response to the negative fan reactions the writers cut down their arc dramatically.

It also seems rather suspicious that the 3 actors who had driving infractions in Hawaii (2 driving drunk, 1 without a license) had their characters killed off shortly afterward... Disney/abc pushing their weight around trying to protect their family friendly image?

 

[Ever onward]

Their storyline was resolved, but it was originally supposed to be a longer arc. A lot of fans didn't like Nikki and Paolo, nor did they like how they were introduced (me included); making it seem like they had been there all along and involved in the action. If more of the other random losties had speaking parts or minor roles in the action, it wouldn't have seemed so strange and out of place. In response to the negative fan reactions the writers cut down their arc dramatically.

I think some fans forget that there are supposed to be like 40 people still alive from the plane crash. Maybe 15 or so are main characters?

I liked the Nikki Paolo story. It showed that there are actual other characters on the Island that have their own things going on. If fans didn't like them, it was probably because they were taking away from the main characters and story line.

It also seems rather suspicious that the 3 actors who had driving infractions in Hawaii (2 driving drunk, 1 without a license) had their characters killed off shortly afterward... Disney/abc pushing their weight around trying to protect their family friendly image?

The 3 you are talking about are Libby, Anna Lucia and Eko right?

I was disappointed that Eko was killed. I thought he had a lot of potential. He seemed to be the only one besides Locke who understood the Island. And I wanted to see what the deal was with the Church he was building. Remember that?

But I don't really think ABC was worried about tarnishing their image. Remember the movie Pretty Woman? That was made by Disney aka Touchstone. It seems Disney don't mind a story about a prostitute...

So maybe it wasn't that they were afraid of tarnishing their image so much as they didn't want to have stars in legal trouble who would be unreliable for the shooting schedules...I'm stretching here, I know.

Oh, and I do predict that Libby will be back, at least in flash back or something.