Alpert tracked Locke from birth. Met with him and tested him when he was about 6 years old, but Apert decided that Locke "failed" the test.

I wonder if the fact that Alpert decided Locke wasn't the one because he failed to choose the "correct" artifact is one of the course corrections being pursued now.

Ben appears to be the alternate to Locke. Had Alpert accepted Locke in spite of the knife choice, Ben wouldn't have ascended to Island Most High Mucky Muck. Had Alpert chosen Locke, a different series of events would have occurred, perhaps avoiding "the incident".

So Alpert is now scrambling to correct his error
in judgment. Ben is working to assist Alpert in the correction because although he covets the position, he is aware that something huge hinges on the correct person being in place at a pivotal time yet to come. Destiny is a fickle bitch.

Or not.

The singular interesting part of the idea of a "course correction" is whether any changes in time can be made. One of the greatest threads in science fiction is whether the future can be changed through time travel in the past.

Thus far, we have seen no cases of the future being changed. Faraday claims the future cannot be changed but proceeds the wait for everyone to leave so he can find des in a attempt to do the "one thing" which will seemingly change things. Maybe we go back to the numbers and the key as one method of re-stabilizing time and the island if only Desmond can get back to that point. If Ben, or others, have gone forward and witnessed events from which they deemed it necessary to go back and change things in the past, can it be done? Locke's leg was still "shot" regardless of when he was in time. He carried the bullet with him.

What events, actions, physical items carry through time and what things do not?

Can the choice of Ben or John be "fixed"?

quote:

Originally posted by undaunted:
Alpert tracked Locke from birth. Met with him and tested him when he was about 6 years old, but Apert decided that Locke "failed" the test.

I wonder if the fact that Alpert decided Locke wasn't the one because he failed to choose the "correct" artifact is one of the course corrections being pursued now.

Ben appears to be the alternate to Locke. Had Alpert accepted Locke in spite of the knife choice, Ben wouldn't have ascended to Island Most High Mucky Muck. Had Alpert chosen Locke, a different series of events would have occurred, perhaps avoiding "the incident".

So Alpert is now scrambling to correct his error
in judgment. Ben is working to assist Alpert in the correction because although he covets the position, he is aware that something huge hinges on the correct person being in place at a pivotal time yet to come. Destiny is a fickle bitch.

Or not.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: pagecarl,

howdy pagecarl, nice to read you again.

I've been sitting here mulling it all over and my conclusion is: I don't bloody know!
And it is making my head hurt.

In no particular order:
1. Is that island actually moving in space?
It would seem so because how can you not find an island? You have the coordinates for a specific geographical point. Even if it is enveloped in the Cloak of Invisibility, it is still there. If it is a time thing which makes it disappear then one would have to go far back to prior island creation or far forward to post island destruction for it not to be there. So...we know the island is physically moving. Right? Or it could be that the island is where it has always been but it's door is locked; what Mrs. Hawking is looking for is the key to get in.


2. The time/record player analogy: The needle is people and the record is time. The grooves are the continuing path, but on this jaunt, we don't walk down the path,the path moves beneath us. If that record is dirty we might skip immediately from "oh say can you see" to "the rockets red glare". And if that is the only way I've ever heard The National Anthem, I wouldn't know that it isn't how the song goes. But if I knew how the song goes, I would be aware that the record was skipping. So is Alpert trying to clean the record to prevent it from skipping?
Is LOST about someone of pivotal importance getting stuck in a record skip? Is one side on LOST trying to change the future whie the other side knows more and is just trying to clean the record so the the future can happen.

3. The record analogy reminds me of Xeno's Paradox that says in order to move from point A to point B you must first move half the distance and in order to get to the half way point you must first move half that, etc. Ergo: Movement is impossibe. And what that has to do with anything...I do not know, but the record analogy made me think of it.

4. I think the whisperers are the same thing as Jacob, only Jacob is in a prison of sorts and the whisperers are not. Maybe Jacob is the pivotal one stuck in the record skip. Maybe Aaron is the one who cleans the record, but he won't be able to do it if he isn't raised in a specific environment surrounded by specific people whose presence shape who he is.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: undaunted,

quote:

Originally posted by undaunted:
Alpert tracked Locke from birth. Met with him and tested him when he was about 6 years old, but Apert decided that Locke "failed" the test.

I wonder if the fact that Alpert decided Locke wasn't the one because he failed to choose the "correct" artifact is one of the course corrections being pursued now.

I don't think I buy the course correction idea, but your mention of the knife brought up something I haven't seen posted yet. ...

At the end of the last episode, where the others were going to cut off Juliet's hand and Locke appeared to save everyone, there was a close-up of the knife as Locke removed it from the body. Is this the same knife that Locke was presented with as a boy?

undaunted...

I like the idea of course correction and have always agreed that Ben was Plan-B. I always had the idea that course correction had, at some point, taken place to alter a few things so that Locke would eventually get to the island where he was supposed to be. It does seem he was meant for it, despite his efforts as a youth to try to go his own path.

Beyond what everyone has been posting, I think we need another couple juicy bits of info before we can really start piecing stuff together.

When I saw Richard with young Locke, I thought he went back in time and was trying to prove that his choice of Locke for the new leader was a good one.
Now that Locke is moving through time, I guess he doesn't have a chance to be a bad leader, so that kind of kills why Richard would go back in time. So I am, well kind of, lost.
No connection to reality in this now, no matter what the producers say. From the crash we were on a rollercoaster, and it has just picked up speed, I am truly enjoying how the season started.

Nice to see people back talking about Lost again! And I'm so glad it's back.

My head is still spinning but two things stand out for me.

Course correction - Daniel told Sawyer "if it didn't happen, it can't happen", to explain why he couldn't get Desmond to answer the door. But then he went and knocked and Desmond came out.
What does that mena? It did happen before? Or is it to do with the pair of them whizzing about in time and Des being Daniel's constant?

And what was Daniel doing back in the Seventies Dharma world anyway?

Last question: will Marvin Candle's Dharma baby turn out to be Miles?

We may not be able to change the future by going back in time and changing the past, but we know with certainty that what we do in the present effects the future.

"If it didn't happen, it can't happen": Either Daniel is lying (or mistaken) about that or we have to consider the possibity that there is no such thing as past/future there is only now.

Because if Daniel is correct about not being able to change the future by changing the past then Ben's and Alpert's manipulations have to be happening in the present because if it isn't happening in the present why bother manipulating?

I figure if I am transported some place in the past and I am there in the flesh then it IS the present because I am there at that moment...So I can't really wrap my brain around the concept of being "in" the past/future.

To summarize: I don't know what the hell is going on.

YingYang excellent call on Miles being Marvin Candle's son.

The race kind of fits, both look Asian in origin.

Miles can speak to the dead, which again could be attributed to some Island phenom.

Good call!

Thanks. Daniel has been to the island before... In season 4 Charlotte said something about her mother, didn't she? And coming "back" to the island? Or am I dreaming that?

So why shouldn't Miles also have some connection? As you say, the ethnic group fits in, which is what sparked off the thought, and his particular talent could be due to the island.

One big question - was he born on the island?

Was he born on the Island?

I guess he would have had to be conceived off Island. We already know that you cannot conceive on the Island and have a healthy pregnancy. They all die.

That said all bets are off now since time travel has played a massive part. We don't know when the no pregnancies issue began or even in which of the many possible time lines. Clearly the past and future will be changed otherwise the story will get extremely boring, there would be no point doing a time travel arc otherwise.

Going back to course correction Daniel said you cannot change the future. Pagecarl has gone into depth on this and was talking about the definition of future and perspective. I was thinking that in actual fact Daniel did not change the future per say, he changed his present and Desmonds present. The timeline did not change, a memory was only implanted. Essentially he never said you can't change the past just that the future would be unaffected.

Again blood drips from my nose!

quote:

Originally posted by Kris_London:
Was he born on the Island?

I guess he would have had to be conceived off Island. We already know that you cannot conceive on the Island and have a healthy pregnancy. They all die.

That said all bets are off now since time travel has played a massive part. We don't know when the no pregnancies issue began or even in which of the many possible time lines. Clearly the past and future will be changed otherwise the story will get extremely boring, there would be no point doing a time travel arc otherwise.

Going back to course correction Daniel said you cannot change the future. Pagecarl has gone into depth on this and was talking about the definition of future and perspective. I was thinking that in actual fact Daniel did not change the future per say, he changed his present and Desmonds present. The timeline did not change, a memory was only implanted. Essentially he never said you can't change the past just that the future would be unaffected.

Again blood drips from my nose!

Yes, I continue to try to get my head around the past-present-future issue. Some things, I think, are for the good of the show. An examplae is that clothing time travels with people. Bogus, but it would be ineffective to have all of the Losties searching for a big leaf every time they jumped.

The past impacting the future is another issue. If we say the past cannot impact the future, we are done with the agrument. This is so because the Losties have ben in the future and know what is to happen.

If, on the other hand, we say the past CAN impact the future, we have another problem. Using Locke as one example, he sees what ahppens in the future and uses his trips to the past to change things. But if he is successful in changing things it is likely that he would not be in the position in the future, which already happened, to even go back into the past to change what he just changed. It is the old erase the future problem. So, what is it to be?

My current thought is that the island, apart from the rest of the world, is like a flood of water spiraling down one of the carnival drains. Events on the island were poised at the edge of the drain until the key was turned. That sent events on the island plunging down toward the drain at the bottom of the spiral funnel. Once things hit the bottom of the funnel, whatever goes down first is what is and what remains. Hence Ben and Hawking being so worried that they cannot get the Losties back to the island in time. Events will reach their conclusion and no amount of time travel will reverse them.

quote:

Originally posted by undaunted:

"If it didn't happen, it can't happen": Either Daniel is lying (or mistaken) about that or we have to consider the possibity that there is no such thing as past/future there is only now.

Good question. Perhaps Daniel does know that things can change, but makes this statement as an authority on the subject to get Sawyer/Juliet and crew to NOT try and change things, understanding that there will be consequences.

Also mentioned earlier, Desmond's apparent radiation exposure (releasing of magnetic energy in Season 2 finale) may have altered him. He did almost "not leave" Penny and he did avert Charlie's death on numerous occasions. But in the end he did do what he was meant to do. So even speacial Des can perhaps "delay" certain events, while not altogether changing them.

This all reminds me of a book I once read called "The End of Time." It was all about the theory that time is not at all linear. The only thing keeping Time Travel from being a reality in everyday life is the massive amounts of energy required for the process. In the first chapter, however, the author describes what might happen if it were done. Basically he recounts another book where a man goes back in time and tries to change things, but it turns out that the actions he takes in the past end up doing nothing but bring to pass what has already happened in the past. So nothing changes because his actions were already a part of history.