Maggers, you seem to be juggling all the Lost chainsaws and knowing where they are despite their Brownian motion. I'm busy juggling Jack's world so I'll defer to your take on the Lost world.

The key sentence, I think: "What happened happened." But can it be unhappened?

If you believe what Sideways Jack said to Sideways Locke in the first episode of this season, "nothing is irreversible".

Also, it seems like a lot of things were UNhappened in the sideways flashes which would seem to support that it is possible, depending on what the sideways views turn out to really be.

I would somewhat go along these lines as well, but I think I have seen somewhere that Damon or Carlton had said that somehow the sideways and island is actually in the same world. Also everyone has always thought that the whole show was maybe a dream or thought in Hurleys head and Darlton always said it wasn't. What if the sideways is just thoughts or a flash of life that could have been, that took place during the blackout from the bomb?

I somewhat doubt my own theory but for some reason it just makes sence to me. Who knows? :confused:

I heard the same thing about the sideways and the island being the same world. That's partly why I started thinking about a split in the timestream.

Unless they're saying that there are two Kates, two Jacks, two Hurleys, etc. running around in one world (doubtful), then there has to be something that separates these two versions of reality we are seeing.

Which brings me back to an unnatural split in the stream (dimension?) of time that must be repaired before, ahem, all hell breaks loose.

The annotated versions of Season 6 episodes have stated something like, "This is not a flashback or a flash forward. It's a flash sideways which shows what happened when the Oceanic 815 landed in LA."

In spite of those subtitles or explanations which come from the writers/creators, I have not accepted that the flash sideways ARE what happened. Now, if that's not the height of hubris, I don't know what is - I don't believe what the writers have written! Nevertheless, I believe the flash sideways show what MIGHT have happened IF the plane landed. They could be one of many alternatives, especially if we are dealing with multiple dimensions and alternative ways of experiencing time. That's what my gut tells me, at any rate.

However, I would not bet my paycheck to back my own belief in this instance. I still need more information.

Maggers, you seem to be juggling all the Lost chainsaws and knowing where they are despite their Brownian motion. I'm busy juggling Jack's world so I'll defer to your take on the Lost world.

High praise, Paul, thanks (I think). We shall see if I really know what I'm talking about. Only time and 5+ episodes will tell.

I read a "Whoa" theory on another forum...

"I have a new half baked theory. Jacob seems to always know where to be, as if he might be able to perceive all of time at once rather than in a linear progression like regular humans. He brings people to the island as candidates to replace him, and as he assesses their worthiness or unworthiness as the case may be, he crosses them off the list. For someone to be a suitable replacement, the whole perception of all of time at once thing will need to not be a problem for them. So as a way of getting them used to this weird 4 dimensional existence, every week someone's consciousness will travel either backwards or forwards in time about five times over the course of a few hours. Each time their consciousness returns to the present day on the island, they completely forget everything from the experience, because they're still mortals and incapable of processing what just happened (except for Desmond). And that's what the flashbacks and flashforwards are."

There was another theory that Jacob and the man in black are the same person but from different sides of the flash sideways.

If Jacob could perceive all of time at once then wouldn't he already know who the replacement was? So why even need a list? Just perceive of the time when the replacement has happened and see who it is.

Eloise has always been exceptional on the Island and off. She has powers and abilities and can see things none of us has seen thus far. She can work mathematical equations (think about The Lampost, the Dharma site in the US). She was a leader of the Others. She has flipped around time like Desmond has (think about the engagement ring scene in England). She appeared in a picture with the monk who "fired" Desmond when Desmond was a monk-in-training. That relationship was never explained, though she and the monk looked like sister and brother. She has popped up with Desmond in more places than anyone else.

Eloise is as key to the time business as Desmond. They have to work together or work against one another, but either way, they have a conjoined role in the outcome of the Island. Her manner with Desmond in the flash sideways was very reminiscent of her manner with Desmond in the engagement ring flash back where he first met her and she told him he was never going to give Penny the ring. She was all knowing and rudely insistent with him then, too.

That Eloise would like to keep her son alive and undo her having murdered him is key. I suspect she'll do anything to undo THAT.

Desmond is key, was key, always will be key. Penny is the constant. She was and always will be.

I like Alvin's theory about the characters having and not having, getting something and sacrificing something.

I like that Daniel and Penny know one another in their sideways lives.

I like the picture in Widmore's office, a large painting of a scale with a black stone and a white stone. Back in the day, it was the large painting in Widmore's office in Desmond's first flashback that tipped me to his involvement with the Island. That was the first clue for me about him, other than the fact that he was in the script to begin with. The other, first large painting was of a polar bear on a tropical island with NAMASTE written backwards across the top. With the new sideways flash painting of the scale and the black and white stones, it seems Widmore is aware of the Island scales and all that they portend.

More later....

Maggers, I just love you to bits. You're kind of doing a "woman of faith" thing with your analyses while I'm doing a "woman of science" thing with mine.

Considering that the Lost writers have paid homage to a number of philosophers and scientists alike over the course of the series, I think there's a possibility that we can both end up being right (or something like it).



And if I may, I have one more argument for my "split timestream must be repaired" theory ... Schrödinger's cat.

Put simply, Schrödinger's cat paradox says that a cat, placed in a sealed box, is simultaneously alive and dead until an outside observer opens the box and perceives the cat as either alive or dead. The act of observing determines which potential reality becomes fact.

In the case of Lost, we have our cast of characters both on and off the island, apparently simultaneously, some of them both alive and dead (Charlie, Locke, Faraday, and a few others). This is clearly Schrödinger's cat writ large. Only one of these states of existence can become the real one in the end, depending on what is finally observed ...

by Desmond - our constant, our key, our man outside of the rules and outside of the box.

Obviously, resolution will require more than Desmond just looking at the situation. He will also need to take some kind of action. He will at least need to "open the box". What that might mean literally remains to be seen.

For what it's worth, I think (at least I hope) the writers will play a little loose with the quantum physics and instead of forcing one reality or the other to win out over the other, we will see a blending of the two somehow.

The Schrödinger's cat model is brilliant, Wendy. Has the paradox been mentioned in the show? (Or was that "Big Bang"? TV shows tend to bleed into each other in my brain.)

The Schrödinger's cat model is brilliant, Wendy. Has the paradox been mentioned in the show? (Or was that "Big Bang"? TV shows tend to bleed into each other in my brain.)

I think you are thinking of Big Bang, I think the episode was from last season with Penny wondering whether or not her relationship would work with Leonard and Sheldon was using Schrodinger's cat to help her.