Deconstructing: The Space-Time Continuum
Well we deconstructed the sickness, electromagnetism, Ajira... it was only a matter of time until we addressed the big one, I suppose. Of course, this topic focus comes from the monumental finish to the last episode - where Sayid decides to shoot young Ben, thereby opening up a can of worms about what you can and can't do in time travel.
Let's briefly outline the H.G. Wells-y classical view, which Daniel Faraday appeared to share at the start of Season 5 when time travel was going crazy. In this account, one cannot go back in time and "change things" as such things would have already happened in your present if they were changed in the past. Time is, thus, considered a river or invariant timeline where changing things would affect your own future and so consequently mean you wouldn't go back in time in the first place (make sense?). Using the typical Hitler analogy - you can't go back in time to stop Hitler before what he did during WWII. This is because, if you did, not only would history change but so would your own time - so you therefore wouldn't go back to kill Hitler as Hitler no longer existed. Let's put it another way: in the Red Dwarf scenario. You can't go back and tell yourself to not do something - as if your past self avoided it, then he/she wouldn't go back again and say it - and so you couldn't have the memory of being warned by your future self, as for it to work your past self would later have to act as the future self in the conversation. This view is all about the cycle - one can theoretically go back in time to observe changes, or even make changes - but such changes have to have already happened in the traveller's world. So, for instance, the Losties could have been in the DHARMA Initiative, but they cannot affect what we already know occurred, e.g. the Purge (many people argue "why didn't the Others see that photo of Hurley et al in the 1977 DHARMA group shot at the Barracks - but for the moment we'll attribute that to an oversight - or should we not?)
Apologies for poorly articulating the standard time-travel theory anyway, for the majority of you will probably get it better than I do. But now we face the point of issue - how can Sayid shoot and kill a young Ben?! It could simply be "he's still alive, and it's that shooting that makes him so bitter and crazy", but I'm going to take a risk and gloss over that, though it would obviously completely solve the issue and negate this post entirely (fun!).
How can this happen? Are the Losties now in an alternate world, and do they now have the power to control the future - seemingly without any rules at all. This can't be true, as what would be the point of Faraday's warnings or Pierre Chang's comments at the start of the season that "there are rules". Faraday already broke them with Desmond - creating a sudden memory in Desmond's mind. Are the rules just going to be flung out of the window? What will happen to Ben now? It seems like Sayid has caused everything to now hit the fan, and will we see immediate consequences next week?
One can, unfortunately, only speculate what will happen when the rules have seemingly been broken. Are there any other time travel theories out there that you guys know of? What do you think will happen to "present" Ben now that little Ben has snuffed it? Let us know! And physicists among you be kind about this post's explanation of time travel - apparently everyone's an expert/critic these days!
24 comments:
Seeing as how I operate on UK time too, I thought I would post first. Also, I do have a little technical background as I did study astrophysics many moons ago, although have forgotten most of my masters.
First off, let me say I think Ben isn't dead as the episode ended, so who knows what happened after that. Locke has been miraculously healed from a gunshot wound before. If the island needs you (like Michael) it seems you can't die. And for a previous poster who mentioned a Hollywood cop-out in a trained killer missing the shot, if you're referring to Collateral, watch it again. Tom Cruise would have killed Jamie Foxx but his overly accurate shooting put the two bullets in the metal joining of the train doors and not through the glass.
As Nick said, there are essentially 2 forms of theories for time travel. You can't change the past and you can change the past. One involves one timeline and the other involves many. This is quantum branching resulting in an infinite number of universes resulting from an infinite number of possibilities which can be changed. However, Faraday has said that "whatever happened, happened" (funnily enough, the title of the next episode) so who are we to believe? On another blog, I posted a third theory and as no-one can currently prove anything, I'll post it here. There's one timeline in which certain events HAVE to occur. So the Purge has to happen, Charlie has to die etc. The events leading up to this can be changed, but what this means is that something ELSE will change to ensure these events still occur. I.e. course corrections.
I also don't think Faraday broke his rules at all. I think the key scene for me is when Faraday spoke to Desmond during the flash. He knew Desmond didn't know any of the 815ers before the hatch was opened, so there was no way they could speak to him, no matter how hard they tried. It just wouldn't be allowed to happen. Same way that Michael isn't (should that be wasn't? Is he dead?) allowed to kill himself. BUT he surmised that it's entirely possible that Desmond could have met him during the flashes as there was no evidence to the contrary. Hence he knocks on the door repeating "please let this work, please let this work" and Des opens it and they have a conversation. Which meant that Faraday was SUPPOSED to knock on the door and speak to Desmond, the universe allowed him to do it as it was supposed to happen. The cut to Desmond after that doesn't necessarily mean Des didn't remember the memory before, maybe he had just remembered it at that point. Remember, we are only seeing the story the way the producers are giving it to us. They show us events from many different times in the story, but it's still one story. So the scene could have been placed next to the scene where Des remembers as he only remembered just then. Ok, that maybe a little flimsy.
The picture of Hurley et al could be explained as always having been there but that it was a greeting area and not the Barracks.
Also, did anyone notice a lighting change when Sayid takes the drugs and leans towards Horace? At first I thought it was a continuity error, but watching it again on Sky1 last night, it seems really deliberate!
I'm a relatively new Lost-obsesser (obsessor?), but I had an idea about the "seeing Hurley in the picture" point. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
When Ben sends Ethan and some of the Others out to scout the wreckage and survivors, he has them make lists. What are those lists? Is it possible that he's keeping an eye out on the people that showed up in his childhood? Is that why he already had the big file on Jack when he & Juliet had him in lockup?
Just an idea.
I think young Ben is dead. Adult Ben is alive. But there is no alternate timeline.
We just saw the same thing happen to John Locke, so I don't know why many fans are having such a hard time coming to grips with this. Nobody claimed there was an alternate timeline when Locke was killed off and then suddenly walking around on the island.
John and Ben have many parallels in their lives, and this is just another one. Both were murdered by someone who they thought was trying to help them - and both were reanimated by the island to become powerful leaders.
Sayid always killed young Ben, just like Ben always killed John.
That's my interpretation, at least! It is still a mind bender, because it means adult Ben has been dead/undead all along. In my opinion this explains many of the mysterious references we have heard regarding Ben. Widmore and Ben apparently can't kill each other, and Widmore told Ben "I know what you are". Interesting! When Miles (who knows all about dead people) confronted Ben for the first time, he said "Do not treat me like I'm one of them! Like I don't know who you are, or what you can do!"
As for the Hurley photo - I don't see a problem here. Has Lost EVER shown us the Welcome Center between the the time when when photo was taken and the time when Sun sees it? I don't think they have. So what's the problem? Exactly WHO are we saying should have seen the photo but didn't? Juliet? We have no reason to believe she was ever in the Welcome Center after 1977. Ben? He already knows everything anyway.
i think of time travel as a river as well, but a river that can be easily diverted.
if you change the path of the river, everything that comes after this change will be effected. this includes everything in both paths of the river(old/past & new/future).
going a bit further with results of this change, the experience of everything that would have encountered the original path of the river will have been changed. similarly, the experience of everything that would not have encountered the new path of the river will have been changed as well.
in some cases with some changes, the river will easily find it's way to the original path. let's assume that these kind of changes happen commonly while time travelling.
however, what if a person causes major changes in their own past timeline? i feel that 1 of 2 things will happen to that person:
1) he/she will disintegrate because that person's experience of the past no longer leads to his/her current place in space & time. i think this is what nickb123 was trying to describe above.
2) his/her own experience of time will have been effectively splintered from the new timeline. he/she can try to rejoin life in the new timeline, but there will be a different being already living in his/her place.
obviously, the first is more commonly portrayed in media, but the second is much more interesting to me.
In response to anonymous...
The whole Faraday knocks/Desmond remembers obviously do not happen back to back. Faraday talks to Desmond within a month of his departure, however, when Desmond wakes up remembering, he and Penny already have a son. Theres an episode in between before we actually see Charlie, but he is with the couple when Desmond arrives to talk to Widmore in Britain.
I think its normal to forget something and then suddenly remember it years later. Especially something that happened that seemed to have no real significance at the time it happened.
There, Time Travel Anomaly solved. At least in my opinion. Poke holes in it though if you find some!
This could be how this works. Yes you can go back in time and cause some changes, but you can't kill someone and not have that person to exist as an adult in the future. We know from the clips that Ben did survive the shooting. And I suppose all the people that have been killed off are not needed to maintain the present time.
A book I read that does help me dealing with these situations was written by Dean Koontz called "Lightening" It's one of his oldest books and it deals with a traveler from Germany trying to stop Hitler from using a time machine that was built. Hitler wanted to use it to get advantages over the allies to avoid defeat..there is much more than that of course but ya'll get the gist.
It dealt with paradoxes similiar to these in Lost. You really couldn't change the past totally but one could alter things enough to stop a bad outcome. One way was the traveler had the allies to bomb the area of Berlin that had the time machine..that did work.
The end of the book was unique in that present time never had a war such as we know, but a milder form and the world was changed with future generations living in a different type of world than we know now.
Point being...for some reason the Island wanted the Losties, it wants something concrete done without creating a paradox. And it can do this with the people now in place without them really remembering and without an endless loop perhaps.
The problem with that is all the people who have died have already altered the world in some way. The Losties have lived in a world that is different, but if you never have or know it you don't miss it.
Another short story by Issac Asimov was "The Ugly Little Boy" about snatching a neandertal child into the future to study him. In the story the scientists had to make darn sure they didn't get a child whose descendants that he might have could be important to the present time such as a future world leader.
Having read these books kinda sorta helps me grasp Lost without going really loopy. Of course this is TV and things can be done without sticking too close to facts or reality. We are asked to enjoy and not worry too much.
Merlud - good points, but episode descriptions for future episodes are seen as spoilers by Lostpedia - so had to delete your comment.
One of the most interesting points in the book Lightening by Dean Koontz is the recurring theme of course correcting. The time traveler gets caught up trying to rescue this one person and every time he saves her from one fate, a different equally bad one pops up eventually. He saves her from being delivered dead due to a drunk doctor, then he finds her at a later date in a wheelchair, so he goes back to stop the robber from shooting her, then he finds out she is going to die in a car accident and he stops that and on and on. It seems one way or another no matter what, life course corrects to render this person either dead or disabled.
I wonder if the producers read or know of this book. Some of the story lines in Lost are similiar.
Ok, in the final analysis it's all fiction and time-displacement is a fictional mechanism, so there's no real point to arguing plausibilities. Having said that, I'm kind of disappointed in the writers/producers' decision to use this plot mechanism.
I had thought during season three or early in four they pledged not to do time-travel since they knew it would piss off the fan-base. So I wonder if they pulled a "Bill Clinton" by parsing us with time-displacement instead, since our protagonists aren't literally time travelling by machine or even by choice.
We're already seeing the effect of our collective disappointment when everyone is claiming that young Ben isn't dead. We can't even enjoy a shocking kill scene when everyone is so twisted by time displacement confusion and the island's weird and selective healing properties. You see ?!
The show is losing its credibility when we don't believe what we see because we know some deus ex machina force is going to throw us a plot-correcting curve. Many critics would say this is the "jump the shark" moment for LOST. But we've all got too much time invested to quit watching so that's not an option.
I'm just not impressed with this time displacement plot mechanism, it's ultimately going to lead to audience disappointment, and it's already lead to confusion/disillusion. I'd really like to be proven wrong but Lindelof/Cuse will have to play an incredible end-game to do that.
The person whose post was removed didn't give a spoiler. The fact of Ben being alive and jack/kate arguing about saving him is on the Lost website by ABC as part of the preview for this week's show. Its been up since this weekend for all the world to see. This person is owed an apology.
My quick take on time travel (keeping everything consistent that has been presented on the show only):
1. For everybody: What happened...happened. In history, Sayid always shot Ben. The Ben we see in 2004 always remembered he had been shot when he was a boy by a man named Sayid, but he may not have known that a man named Sayid would appear on a plane 20+ yrs later and travel back in time.
2. While everyone else is stuck in the what happened...happened rule, Desmond is NOT. Desmond is special - the rule doesn't apply to him. Even though Faraday tells Sawyer that he can't meet Desmond, Faraday himself speaks to Desmond a few minutes later which sends a "ripple" forward and Desmond suddenly has a new memory.
On a different note, I have a bad suspicion that we're going to be tricked at some point into a story about LSD or the powers of hallucinogenic drugs have created a whole multi-episode arc that was all a hallucination (remember Dallas from the 1980s where a whole season was a dream?). Maybe it's a red herring, but that book that young Ben gives Sayid in Dharma jail is a book about how drugs will bring you insight and "seeing". I hope that isn't the secret of time travel.
Joyce, some people consider previews as spoilers. They turn off the show before they can see the preview for the next week. It's just courtesy to the fans that do not want any hints as to what will happen next.
I don't know if this has been answered or if this is completely obvious but can somebody PLEASE help as it has to do with the idea of changing the future in the past:
When Locke blew up the submarine back at the end of S3....did the dock blow up as well? The dock that Sun and Lapidus landed at and walked on in "He's Our You"?
By looking at the dock as a sort of "constant" if you will, if the dock blew up when Dharmaville was still semi-functional then how could it be back after Dharmaville is clearly deteriorating? Has the past really been changed?
There are clearly people with a firmer grip on this than me so any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Joyce is a crazy person
The dock was not blown up with the submarine.
Ugh! It drives me nuts that anyone actually believes that young Bed is dead. Come on folks.
cynical siren..watch out what you say are you might be labeled a crazy person like me
Yeah watch out what you say. She's not crazy, she's a spoiler!!!
Personally, I believe that all those that have a full understanding of the Island have had to die (or potentially be born on the Island)to gain it. It may only be in these circumstances that these characters can connect directly with Jacob.
We know so far that death and subsequent revival has occured with Christian and Locke, but it looks likely that this happens to Ben also (he did make a comment about being born on the island - which as we know wasn't true in the usual sense of birth - but may have held a meaning in connection to a 're-birth' on the island)
In a related, but purely speculative theory, I believe that we will most probably see some sort of flashback in which this happens to Richard too.
It is also quite possible, given recurring themes, that the purpose of this death/revival cycle could be linked with a necessity to break the connection to pre-defined events (space time continuum time/fate).
The only characters that I cannot apply this theory to, but who clearly have more insight and connection with the island are; Widmore, Eloise, Desmond and to a lesser degree, Walt.
Man, I love this show. Even if the ultimate revelation is contrived and shallow, it has certainly kept my brain ticking over! :)
I did not blog a spoiler..I was not aware that information that ABC posted on their website was considered a spoiler. I check the main Lost website on a regular basis for updates.
I would not post nor do I read any of the spoiler websites as I enjoy seeing each episode fresh.
I am really surprised that no one thinks that the Ajira folks are in an alternate time line. I know that Back to the Future isn't the best example of time travel, but remember how in the second movie the alternate 1985 is created when Biff goes back in time to give himself the almanac so that he can get rich?
Maybe Ben did die, an alternate time line was created where Ben doesn't initiate the purge because he isn't there to do it, and Dharma now ends up leaving the island for some other reason. Or maybe the purge happens differently because Ben isn't there to do it. An alternate time line could explain why everything was falling apart at the barracks in Ajira time, why the Dharma signs were still there, why the pictures of all of the Dharma people were still at the barracks, why the numbers were playing over the radio for Lapidus when the plane crashed, etc. It goes on and on and on.
I must say though that in my own opinion time travel never works as a plot device because now matter how smart the writer is they will never be able to catch every plot hole that could possibly exist. However out of all time travel stories that exist I personally think that Back to the Future works the best because it is a comedy and so no one takes the plot holes seriously.
faraday is jacob
hes going to time travel prob for charlotte and hes going to keep time traveling and cant stay in one present time
I think there is a lot of evidence to support the fact that time CAN be changed in the "Lost" universe. If time course corrects, and everything that must happen, happens, then why did Eloise Hawking have to intervene when Desmond was trying to buy the engagement ring?
There are people or people-like beings doing some, if not all, of the course correcting, which I propose implies that the "course" is not an unbiased working of chance. Faraday has conveniently been absent for a while now. My theory is he himself has attempted to change history to his liking but it backfired, which is why he said the past can't be changed--he has learned that it shouldn't be changed.
I think Ben is dead. I think he was an inferior leader of the Others, and now that the Oceanic 6 are back the island is having a "do-over" with somebody more qualified.
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