Moderators: trustno1
|
Go
 |
New
|
Find
|
Notify
|
Tools
|
Reply
|
|
Member |
(reposted from the Lost blog)
THE NUMBERS Okay, no joke, or even half, uncertain kind of joke here ... I think I know what the numbers are ... really ... They represent I Ching hexagrams, as seen on all of the Dharma station logos ... got to thinking about this in response to the "wrong Orchid Station symbol on Ben's Tunisian jacket" thing, but didn't occur to me until about an hour ago ... and if someone out there has already suggested this, I apologize for the redundancy, but never remember seeing that here (I don't discount that it may have been presented elsewhere, but really don't go hunting around for this kind of thing ... keep my Lost thought/dwelling here) ... Quick summary - Each of the six numbers can be represented as six-"digit"-binary sequences, which define the I Ching symbols (wiki "I Ching" for more info), and their meanings: 4 = 000100 8 = 001000 15 = 001111 16 = 010000 23 = 010111 42 = 101010 These can be divided into I Ching "trigrams" (as seen in the Dharma station logos) by splitting them into 3-bit pairs: 4 = 000 100 = kūn zhèn 8 = 001 000 = gèn kūn 15 = 001 111 = gèn qián 16 = 010 000 = kǎn kūn 23 = 010 111 = kǎn qián 42 = 101 010 = lí kǎn Now the question arises ... are these values to be interpretted as I Ching hexagrams in top/bottom (from left to right) form, or bottom/top form? I will interpret both ways (based upon the wiki info), and let you decide (or decide to ignore this completely) ... In top/bottom form, they translate as: 4 = Recovery (return), 8 = Stripping (splitting apart), 15 = Launching Charged Assault (great taming), 16 = Union (holding together), 23 = Waiting, 42 = Incompletion In bottom/top form, they translate as: 4 = Start of Something New (enthusiasm), 8 = Being reserved (modesty), 15 = Withdrawal (retreat), 16 = Bringing Together ("the Army"), 23 = Conflict, 42 = Completion I think either way works in some sense within the framework of the show, and maybe the dichotomy of "solutions" actually works into the plot (where my mind is headed). Regarding "The Valenzetti Equation" ... honestly, it is EASY to make "the numbers" fit any number of equations (basic 5th order polynomial for one, easily produced with Excel using the "add trendline/polynomial/order=5" option if you create a simple chart with the numbers ... just an example, there are LITERALLY an infinite number of equations that can produce the same set of numbers in sequence). I think the numbers have meaning as I Ching hexagrams, and the Valenzetti Equation was created after the fact, just to reproduce them (i.e., it means nothing), and send viewers off on the "wrong" track trying to figure them out ... IMO. |
||
|
|
Member |
Wanted to add this clarification (also reposted from Lost blog) ...
>>> Second, you pointed out something else I was not aware of ... the difference between the "King Wen Sequence" and "Fuxi Sequence" (aka The Shao Yong Square). You are certainly correct to point out that the Dharma logos use the King Wen Sequence. However, "the numbers" are directly associated with the Fuxi Sequence (you won't find this on wiki, but can google it for links to info). In the Fuxi Sequence, the hexagrams are ordered in straight binary order (note the "dashed lines" in trigrams/hexagrams correspond to binary zeroes, while the "solid lines" correspond to binary ones). Therefore, the Lost number 4, characterized in 6-figure binary as 000100, is the fifth entry in the Fuxi Sequence (ordered 0 to 63), and Lost number 16, for example, is the 17th entry. However, in the King Wen Sequence, 000100 is the 24th entry (ordered 1 to 64). You can verify this by going to the wiki site for "King Wen Sequence" and looking at the "Chessboard Presentation" of the sequence ... beginning with "1" in the upper left, and going across to "8" on the first row, then starting the second row at "9" and so on. Note that the hexagrams are read in top/bottom trigram pair form, from the bottom up. Therefore, entry "24" (the last on the third row in the chessboard presentation - top trigram [top three lines] dash-dash-dash bottom-to-top, and bottom trigram [bottom three lines] solid-dash-dash), is in fact 000100 in binary ... number "4" when converted from binary to decimal. Also note that the hexagram numbers in the "Hexagram Lookup Table" for the wiki "I Ching" site, are the King Wen Sequence equivalents (in case some of you may have been wondering why I translated Lost number "4" as the meaning for entry "24" from that table). Honestly, I was unaware of the "Fuxi Sequence" when I posted my original translation ... I just followed the rules suggested on the wiki "I Ching" site for translating each hexagram in terms of its top/bottom trigrams. Finding later today that the Fuxi Sequence directly corresponds to the Lost numbers was just a bonus. In summary, what I find interesting is that the Lost "numbers" are essentially the Fuxi Sequence translations of King Wen Sequence hexagrams, yet they use the King Wen Sequence trigrams in their bagua for Dharma station logos. What this means, if anything aside from being devious, is beyond me ... >>> |
|||
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
Wow! That required some concentration reading & three open browser windows (here, Wiki, Lostpedia). Very interesting ideas & correlations...thanks ealgumby.
Regarding the interpretations of each hexagram, I can see that they have relevance to what we've seen for the last four years in terms of various themes of the show. Although "modesty" & "being reserved" actually make me think of Sun...hmm. Suppose instead of the themes of the show, each hexagram corresponds to a member of the O6? "Start of something new" = Aaron. "Modesty, being reserved" = Sun. "Withdrawal" = Hurley (withdrawing to Santa Rosa). "Bringing together" = Jack (who wanted to keep the Lostaways together & who wanted to bring together an army). "Conflict" = Sayid (who's working for Ben, reluctantly). That would leave "Completion" for Kate, & at this point she seems the most contented of the O6 (not to say that that won't change). Did becoming a mother "complete" her? (Reminds me of Murphy Brown singing "You make me feel like a natural woman" to her infant...which always annoyed me anyway w/its suggestion that a woman had to have a child to be a natural woman, but I digress.) |
|||
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
ealgumby: I admire your focus and tenacity! I have to admit that I never paid any attention to the lines around the hatch logos!
So I checked them out and by golly they are indeed the eight I Ching trigrams from which the hexagrams are created. Clarification please: Are you simply correlating each of the LOST numbers to the I Ching hexagram of that same number? I found this as well, it might help in this crash course of How to Read the I Ching: The first three lines of the Hexagram, from the bottom up, constitute the lower trigram and symbolizes the inner world. The fourth, fifth and sixth lines constitute the upper trigram and symbolizes the outer world. The lower trigram of the Hexagram represents the attitude towards motivation, the upper towards intention. So each hexagram is describing the inner/ personal aspect of change in relation to the outer/external situation. I found this very simplified summary of the LOST Number's hexagrams HEREHERE. 4. Meng: Immaturity (Youthful Folly) MOUNTAIN above, WATER below ~ Be cautious with everything, but particularly ensure others are being honest with you. Check your facts carefully, nurture honesty, and only give advice when you are really sure! 8. Bi: Holding Together (Union), Grouping WATER above, EARTH below ~ Honesty and sincerity will lead to success, if you are able to cooperate. Any hesitation in your honesty will lead to misfortune. Good Fortune is indicated if you do! 15. Qian: Modesty, Humbling EARTH above,MOUNTAIN below ~ Equal partnerships benefit. Act with humility to all people; restore balance between excess and dearth in order to be successful. 16. Yu: Enthusiasm, Providing for, start of something new THUNDER above, EARTH below ~ Everything is as it should be! Take opportunities as they arise, and act with conviction, but make sure you do not appear over-confident or 'immodest'. 23. Bo: Splitting Apart (Disintegration) MOUNTAIN above, EARTH below ~ The current difficulties will end in the natural cycle of regeneration. Be patient, and continue to work hard in preparation for the good times to follow. 42. Yi: Augmenting, Increase, Welling, Renewal WIND above,THUNDER below ~ This is a good time for increased activity and prosperity, and maybe travel over water. Make the most of this time because it will pass. Be generous and do not seek unfair advantage over others. _______________ What's interesting is that it reads well in either direction. I actually like reading it with the starting point being the first number on the right...42. |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
If I understand correctly, the Arabic numbers don't correspond directly w/the numbers of the hexagrams. In other words, LOST's 4 does not equate to Hexagram #4. You have to turn each of the Arabic numbers into binary code, which is all 1s & 0s. The 1s & 0s can be translated into solid & dashed lines, which results in a six-line pattern. Then look for the matching pattern in the list of 64 hexagrams to find the corresponding hexagram. That's why the interpretations ealgumby has listed aren't the same as the ones you listed. I still like the number 42 as homage to the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series...so long, & thanks for all the fish!  This message has been edited. Last edited by: Alaïs_Longthought, |
|||
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
Okay, I have been avoiding this discussion but since I drank excessive beer after playing golf on Memorial Day let me take a stab at this;
So, in order to make all of this work you need to stand on your head, wear purple tinted bifocals, look at the numbers through a fun house mirror, smoke peyote and then, after all of this, analyze the results after an acid trip suitable for a Ken Kesey novel. And this is what the writers intended? I am dubious. And I am an admitted smart a$$. |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
You could make the same argument about the numbers being from the Valenzetti equation. And at least this theory brings in the Dharma station logos. I somehow don't think that the Dharma people chose the design of their logos because they were playing w/Tinkertoys or pick-up sticks & happened to like the patterns that were randomly made... So how was your golfing round today? |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
Am I missing something obvious here? Because it wouldn't be the first time I missed something obvious! But if that is what he meant, then I have to disagree. The only thing binary about the I Ching is the ____ ____ Yin of it and the _______ Yang of it. Each trigram, and so each hexagram, is made of combinations of either ____ ____ and/or _______. But most importantly, the I Ching hexagrams are in fact numbered 1-64. So why would you have to translate them from the arabic numeral to a binary code when it's right there in the book under #4. If we are trying to figure out the meaning of an I Ching reading without the numbers or names of the hexagram(s) being referenced, or a picture of the hexagrams being referenced, then I'm with PageCarl... cuz we'd have more luck reading something that doesn't exist if we were to put a peyote button in just the right spot and wait a little while for the revelation to come. I'll have a Dos XX while I wait. |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
I think that the reason for going through the binary coding (if that's the correct term) was to arrive at the pattern of solid & broken lines that actually corresponds to the Arabic number, & use that pattern to find the matching hexagram pattern. While the I Ching hexagrams are numbered 1-64 w/Arabic numbers, the pattern of the #4 hexagram, for example, doesn't match the pattern that means 4. In other words, the numbers of the hexagrams are arbitrary, & just picking 4, 8, etc., from the numbered list of hexagrams doesn't equate to the line patterns that those numbers can be translated to. Maybe another way to look at it is that everything is being translated into one common "language"—that of dashed & solid lines, especially as those patterns are what appear on the Dharma logos. I would be curious to see what the hexagrams on the logos translate to & whether they're all the same on all logos. W/just a quick look at them side-by-side on Lostpedia, I thought they were different, but someone over in the review section said they were all the same. |
|||
|
|
Member |
Alaïs_Longthought has correctly interpreted what I'm trying to say, but it's not as complex as it might seem. I tried to explain this further in the first reply to my original post above, as I realized it may have been confusing.
Without even having to bring binary conversion into things, suffice it to say that there are two different recognized sequences of hexagrams (don't even think of them as numbers, but symbols at this point). The sequence "right there in the book" is the King Wen Sequence, also known as the "traditional" or "later heaven" sequence. The other (apparently earlier) sequence is the Fu Xi Sequence, also known as the "original" or "earlier heaven" sequence. The same hexagrams in both sequences have the same meanings, but their order is vastly different (the King Wen Sequence, simply numbered from 1 to 64 as laid out, is based upon geometrically inverted pairs of symbols, with at least one line change between every pair, while the Fu Xi Sequence, corresponds to a binary number sequence from 0 to 63, with solid lines (yang) being ones, and broken lines (yin) being zeroes). In short, I suggest the Lost numbers correspond directly to the Fu Xi Sequence, although the King Wen equivalent "positions" can be symbolically derived using the component trigrams and look-up table. It may seem I went about this in a really convoluted way, such that it falls into the same objection I had with regard to any possible Valenzetti Equation. However, I would suggest I came to my conclusion in very logical manner. Upon realizing that the Dharma Station logos were surrounded by trigrams (I later discovered the logos are all essentially traditional bagua), it occured to me that the Lost numbers could be split into trigram pairs, as they are all less than 64, and hence consist of 6 binary digits each. I just went to the wiki page for I Ching, determined the trigram pairs for each Lost number, and followed the table rules to arrive at the corresponding King Wen Sequence order for each resultant hexagram (and translation). The results seemed to make sense in terms of Lost lore, so I posted those results, rather excited at the time that I may have stumbled upon something significant. The only "stretch" as I see it, would possibly be to jump to the conclusion that the Lost numbers should be interpreted in binary form; I came to that conclusion for two reasons though: (1) the first table on the wiki I Ching entry breaks down the trigrams into binary equivalents, and (2) I deal a LOT with binary/octal/hex conversion in my line of work, so converting the decimal Lost numbers to 6-digit binary came as naturally to me as counting fingers would to most people. From there it was just a matter of figuring out what the trigrams/hexagrams might mean. In retrospect, I realize the I Ching "translations" are very ambiguous, and the "straight" King Wen translation (i.e., "going from the book") yields results that are perhaps just as satisfactory. That being said, quickly scanning the "table" of translations also seems to show that any random combination of six hexagrams will most often produce "unsatisfactory" results in terms of the Lost story. There are a *somewhat* limited set of six hexagrams in sequence that could conceivably make sense in terms of the show. Therefore ... I'm not swearing I am correct about my interpretation of the numbers, but DO tend to think the writers were aware of these correlations when they came up with them. Via either the King Wen or Fu Xi translation, it makes for yet another clever way to integrate the numbers into the story, and do not think it involves jumping through too many hoops to get there. In summary, this may not be THE answer to what the numbers are, but find it too coincidental to ignore. |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
Alais: Here are the 8 I Ching trigrams seen in the Dharma logos. They are the basic building blocks for the 64 I Ching hexagrams.
_______ _______ ___ ___ Xun: wind; gentle ________ ___ ___ ________ Li: fire; clinging ___ ___ ________ ________ Dui: lake; joyous ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Kun: Earth; receptive ________ ___ ___ ___ ___ Gen: mountain; stillness ___ ___ ________ ___ ___ Kan: water; abysmal ___ ___ ___ ___ ________ Zhen: thunder; arousing ________ ________ ________ Qian: heaven; creative |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
ealgumby, thanks for the further clarification, & undaunted, thanks for providing the design of the eight trigrams. I went over to Lostpedia to check out the design of the DHARMA logos & yes, each logo has the trigrams in the same pattern, that of the bagua (I don't know why I thought they were different...too much deer scent dispenser book this weekend, I guess).
This links to Lostpedia's article on the DHARMA logos: http://tinyurl.com/4j72yn The most interesting part of the article, IMO, was the part under "The Logos' Origins" (nearing the bottom of the page). There's a diagram of the bagua w/the name of each trigram attached to it, & a second diagram of the bagua w/a color & attributes attached to each trigram. But the following line stood out:
Just for fun I searched Lostpedia to see if there was anything about binary numbers or binary code, & found the following—a link to an article on binary code as a LOST-related theory: http://tinyurl.com/53ok4w The author cites an official podcast by TPTB as support for her theory:
For me, the most interesting part of this article was again near the bottom of the page, when the author relates her theory to LOST:
Again, she brings up binary code, but what really stood out to me was "good and bad exist as a duality within the same person, and the choices we make are determined by this balance," as I've been thinking for a while that that is one of the key philosophical underpinnings of LOST, going back to Locke's comment to Walt when he was explaining the game of backgammon:
On the surface this refers to the war between Ben & Charles, I think, but it also refers to each person. We have two sides, one light, one dark, & no matter what events happen to us, we have the free will to decide which side to express. This message has been edited. Last edited by: Alaïs_Longthought, |
|||
|
|
Member |
Alaïs_Longthought, thanks for the additional info ...
I should point out that the very bottom of the first Lostpedia link you presented contains an error: "The King Wen sequence is the current sequence of the hexagrams in the traditional book and is also the same sequence used for the DHARMA Initiative symbol but turned inside out. There is another called the Later Heaven edition where the trigrams have a different arrangement." True enough, except for the ref to the "Later Heaven edition" ... the King Wen Sequence is the "Later Heaven" order ... the Fu Xi Sequence is the "different" Earlier Heaven order. Also .. and perhaps a bit of a reach ... I have also wondered why the Dharma baguas have their trigrams "turned inside out" (in the traditional bagua, the trigrams are read "inside out" from the center of the symbol, but the Dharma logos have the trigrams read "outside in") ... in my mind, this indicates the "different" sequence should be used to interpret the hexagrams ... hence confirming my analysis. Wishful thinking? ... maybe. I do think it odd though, that for them to put the bagua in such a prominent visual position within the show (as the station logos), they would "accidentally" invert the trigrams. I know, for those of you who may know me from the blog, I tend to hate "production accidents" as explanations for things in the show, but this seems rather egregious, given they obviously went to some effort to incorporate this imagery ... hence my rationale for thinking it points to an "opposite" interpretation of the trigrams/hexagrams ... i.e., the Fu Xi Sequence ... i.e., my original post about the numbers and their hexagram correlation/meanings. JMHO. |
|||
|
|
Wicked Awesome Member |
Thus illustrating why Lostpedia isn't canon... |
|||
|
| Previous Topic | Next Topic | powered by eve community |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
|||
| Site | Filmfodder Forums | ||
| Servlet | eve2da015 | ||
| Version | 1.2.22 build 9062 | ||
| Module | Forums 4.0.3 | ||
| Stylesheet | "Filmfodder Style" | ||
| Wordlet Set | "Default Wordlet Set" | ||
|
© 2000-2007, The Fodder Network. All Rights Reserved. Don't steal our stuff.
Spider-Man 3