I've posted questions in many threads in which the posters speculate that there will be some sort of a time loop; especially common are people who think that Jack will return to the island and we'll see him again in the bamboo forest following a repeat of an airplane crash or something like that.

I have no problem with the basic idea of time loops, not at all, and I can understand why some people are speculating that it could happen. What I have a problem with is that most people don't try to give explanations to resolve problems that exist with a time loop theory that involves the O-6 or any of the Flight 815 survivors.

Whichever question below your time loop speculation is connected to, please respond:

1. Who do you believe will be part of the time loop?
All the passengers of Flight 815? Only the survivors of Flight 815? Only the people who were still alive at the time the Islands were moved and the O-6 left? Only those who have left the Islands? Only the O-6? Or only certain members of the O-6?

2. Since there are now (in the show) people from Flight 815 in a variety of different places or situations, the potential of a time loop would seem simpler with a smaller selection of people. So, working in reverse from #1 above, if for instance Jack (or perhaps only a couple of the O-6) will be time looping, then what will be the time loop?
Will Jack just wake up in the bamboo forest and believe that it is 2004, without there being a crashed plane with surviving passengers on the beach?
Will Jack wake up in the bamboo forest and then discover a crashed plane on the beach with surviving passengers, but other than the O-6 all the other passengers will be new?
Or will Jack wake up and go to the beach and discover the crash wreckage and survivors of Flight 815 again?

I could make this post very long, because each option that someone chooses will entail another question that I could ask, but instead of asking all the consecutive questions now, I'll wait to see what responses each person might make.

1. Who do you believe will be part of the time loop?
All the passengers of Flight 815? Only the survivors of Flight 815? Only the people who were still alive at the time the Islands were moved and the O-6 left? Only those who have left the Islands? Only the O-6? Or only certain members of the O-6?

I'm in the camp that every FB is a TT event. So, anyone who's had a FB has looped. In addition, other loops have been laid in, especially in Season 1. Charlie saving Claire in RBA, Kate and Locke working over Sawyer in Outlaws... really, the looping is almost incessant.

I'm in the camp that every FB is a TT event. So, anyone who's had a FB has looped. In addition, other loops have been laid in, especially in Season 1. Charlie saving Claire in RBA, Kate and Locke working over Sawyer in Outlaws... really, the looping is almost incessant.

I'm having a hard time thinking that all the FBs are TT. When we have had a CTT event, such as Desmond, he has been in some way aware of the future. nobody else seems to be.

Kiddie Locke's memory test is, to me, a form of looping. Kiddie Locke's drawing pictures of Smokey who inhabits an island that Kiddie Locke's been to, but hasn't been to yet. Notice the black and white swans on his game board also. Seems kiddie Locke is a reincarnation of John Locke, and has imprints of the island in his memory. And dammit, he's gonna take the path through life that will return him to that island, no matter how many obstacles and enticements are laid in his path to change his course in life and to generate a different outcome.

After all, he's coming to the island whether Richard likes it or not, so Richard tries to entice him into science rather than boxing, cars, girls and knives. Because, if Locke is going to be on the island no matter what they do, they would rather have him on the island working with Mittelos Bioscience (hence the science camp invite) under their watchful eye than to be a rogue element helping Abbadon and Widmore accomplish their agenda....In more detail:

http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?p=2011861#post2011861

Kate's do-or-die attitude about retrieving the 815 toy model suggests it's significance as a constant for her, but for this trip or the next?

Oh, and about that opening segment for the show with Jack in the jungle. I've never taken for granted that we are seeing time/scenes in necessarily a linear fashion, so what if that whole front end wasn't the start of the real show's timeline but is placed there out of order...This time the flight could be Ajira Airlines flight 316 making a rough crash landing on a rough little airstrip carved out of the terrain by the Others...

I feel like Farraday's weeping in front of the tv with a shorted out memory was not a linear scene as in before he goes to the island-seems like he's looped back around to the point of the crash with a shorted out memory and a caretaker...

Oh yeah, and the fact that some entity was working to get the specific people on the flight, the 815 baby mobile already hanging over the baby crib in the Staff, and the 8:15 clock hands on the Looking Glass logo...(<>..<>)

I'm in the camp that every FB is a TT event. So, anyone who's had a FB has looped. In addition, other loops have been laid in, especially in Season 1. Charlie saving Claire in RBA, Kate and Locke working over Sawyer in Outlaws... really, the looping is almost incessant.

So, jane, are you saying that all the time looping could pretty much be individual, and not necessarily one major loop that would include all or a significant number of 815 members? In essence, therefore, the context of the loop wouldn't need to be another plane crash or some other significant event in the show, right? Or am I just not understanding you correctly?

I'm having a hard time thinking that all the FBs are TT. When we have had a CTT event, such as Desmond, he has been in some way aware of the future. nobody else seems to be.

Good point! There are a couple of ways I look at this. First, the entire consciousness of the individual isn't traveling through time, but an emotion may be, or some other kind of "information". Emotions, which are subconscious drivers of Choice, may change the past without the character being aware of it at the time. As such, this makes the FBs very dangerous events, and may explain why the Others decided to distance themselves from these emotionally volatile characters.

Secondly, Desmond's experiences were his first; he was understandably surprised and confused by what was going on. But what if you'd gotten so used to time-travel that you weren't surprised by it? You wouldn't be demonstrating knowledge of TT openly, certainly not around a bunch of people who aren't aware of it at all - they'd think you're crazy.


So, jane, are you saying that all the time looping could pretty much be individual, and not necessarily one major loop that would include all or significant number of 815 members? In essence, therefore, the context of the loop wouldn't need to be another plane crash or some other significant event in the show, right? Or al I just not understanding you correctly?

You're understanding me. The looping, like Time itself on the Island, is local to the individual characters.

Ben seems to have been particularly proficient at on-Island looping, which seems to entail "reversing polarities" the second time around. And, um, there seems to be a lot having to do with mirrors - in FB, they may mark points of greater awareness for the characters involved.

If there's a "big loop" involved as well (and why not?) then it would have something to do with the Island herself performing the loop. There are two ways she could do this - one is via CTT. The other would be extremely dangerous, a physically instantiated loop, and the only way she could pull that off would be to manifest on the Other Side. That may be what's allowed the characters to TT in the first place...

I find that certain moments bring out the time loop theory for me, ways things are said actions that are taken differ slightly from the norm of the character, as an example the opening scene of the pilot Jack heads stright to the beach no doubt, no stopping in the jungle to find his bearings, right to the crash site, I can't think of any other examples right now, I'd also like to note that I'm not particularly a huge fan of the time loop theory, just every once in a while somthing gets me thinking about it.

I find that certain moments bring out the time loop theory for me, ways things are said actions that are taken differ slightly from the norm of the character, as an example the opening scene of the pilot Jack heads stright to the beach no doubt, no stopping in the jungle to find his bearings, right to the crash site, I can't think of any other examples right now, I'd also like to note that I'm not particularly a huge fan of the time loop theory, just every once in a while somthing gets me thinking about it.

As I said in the OP, I have no problem with a time loop theory in general, and I can see the general sense of it with respect to certain elements in the show. What I have problem with is in picturing how it could be applied to specific situations without ultimately causing some sort of paradox or situations that just don't fit right.

situations that just don't fit right.
Yeah tell me about it, I don't speak of paradox's only because you can't avoid them no matter how hard you try.

I have a question for all you time travel specialists what is the problem with running into yourself in the past, how is that a bad thing, we've been told it could possibly destroy the universe, Back to the future anyone?, but how would it destroy the universe, wouldn't it just be a personal destruction your brain would explode trying to understand what it was seeing but how would that destroy the entire universe? I've never understood why this is such a bad thing, it's not like the universe would say "omg 2 of the same beings are in the same place at the same time time to explode" would it?

I tend to agree with UAC, some kind of consciousness looping (in some manner or for lack of a better term).

I do believe that by the fact they ended up there, they always knew.
I tend to shy away from thinking about physical loops/multiple iterations.
I think it's a variation of consciousness looping and subtle changes.

Changes that essentially weren't physical changes.

For instance:
Kate's consciousness has looped (for lack of a better term) her whole life. In some manner, she always knew she's knew she's end up there, her eyes are wide open because she somehow knew she wouldn't die in that crash.

So anyways, as her life is unfolding, she can see/sense/feel possible futures. Like one where maybe Ray (was that his name?) beat up her mom to the point of killing her or something. So as her consciousness is moving back and forth, she senses this, so she kills him because of something he actually hadn't done yet. In fact, he never does this. This is what I mean by not being a physical change. It had never actually happened that other way, only Kate sensed that this would happen. Jack's father never skated after accidentally killing the woman while drunk. Jack sensed that it happened and he can't 'let things go'. He can't let go of what he sensed, not what actually happened.

When Kate felt as if she were actuating changes (perhaps felt like she was changing her own past) she unconsciously went out of her way to get that toy plane because essentially, simultaneously she knew that 1-she needed to get it as we observed her past (the bank) 2=she needed to confirm it as we observed her 'present' (from the case)

So what happens is, we the observers witness what appears to be her physically changing her own past (like iterations of a physical loop) when what's really occurring is that we have just witnessed the only event that ever transpired. It only ever happened the one way, whatever happened, happened.

She knew when she was (21??) that she'd need to have that plane, so that when she was (24??) she'd be able to confirm that what she had sensed her whole life was real. She knew this would happen. That's why she's running, she senses how it all ends.

THUNDERSTORM - Perfect explanation!!!

now we figure out how they know

Thanks, Thunderstorm and jane_eire. I mean, at least you've given me a different version or twist on what a time loop in this situation could refer to. As you're saying, it may well not be a "physical loop" but rather a "consciousness loop". Somehow the Islands are able take a person's consciousness and allow different times to sort of intermingle, it seems like you're suggesting.

We did see Desmond (and Minkowski) begin with the consciousness problem away from the Islands, of course beginning with the helicopter flight that momentarily veered off the set course. But then there was also Daniele's team who supposedly experienced some sort of "island sickness", and now we see that Charlotte apparently will have the same symptoms as did Desmond and Minkowski, yet Charlotte and Daniele's team were/are on the Island, so being on the Islands doesn't necessarily appear to help with CTT or CTL.

If many Lost members were CTL during different moments that we've already seen in S1 to S3, then why didn't any of them experience the same thing that Daniele's team experienced, or that Charlotte is going to experience? Sure, Kate had her little plane with her, and Hurley had the numbers, Boone and Shannon had each other. But what about Sayid, Jack, Sawyer, John, Charlie, Claire? Hmmmm, well, I guess John had his knives, Sayid had his picture of Nadia, Charlie had his drugs, Claire had the baby inside her (but maybe that was it, the reason why Ethan gave drugs to her, because they knew she'd need something more, something outside of her), Rose had Bernard's ring, Sawyer had his letter to Sawyer. But what did Jack have?? Could it have been his tatoos... but they're part of him, not something external.

And as for the tailees, just perhaps on that part of the Islands it wasn't necessary to have a Constant. And then, when they arrived to where the others were, Bernard then had Rose, Eko found his brother's plane, and Libby found Hurley. But then, what was there for Ana Lucia?

I think it's most helpful to look at other existing theories and try to apply them to see how they match up with several different themes.

We have a huge theme of TIME in Lost. IMO all answers should flow into one unified basis that explains several different examples.

Addhawk used the following to explain where the Island exists and how travel to and from the Island effect the individual and why:

- between the singularity and event horizon is the tape or time "recording" of the history of the blackhole. This time record region is twisted, looped and folded onto itself. Many theorists thought that this "recording" was totally lost and unrecoverable by the outside world. Hawking proved otherwise.

Best thinking says that a wormhole is found inside of the singularity. To get there, you have to cross the event horizon and the folded time region.

I do not believe that there have been multiple iteration of life on the Island. Everything has happened just as we have seen it play out.

When TTers go back in time, a different iteration of the time is written in history. Desmond's adventures are the perfect example. This is not a loop, it is TT.

There is a region where the events of time were twisted, looped and folded onto themselves. I believe this is where a lot of our "inconsistencies" lie.

As for the "premonitions" like kid Locke had when drawing Smokey....this may be an example of a special awareness some have of all events in their history happening at once or "folding" upon themselves. It could very well be that his "miracle" survivals, at birth and later in life, have helped with this "sense."
I've posted questions in many threads in which the posters speculate that there will be some sort of a time loop; especially common are people who think that Jack will return to the island and we'll see him again in the bamboo forest following a repeat of an airplane crash or something like that.
When and if we do see this happen, I believe it will be due to TT, and an attempt to manipulate (or consequence of manipulating) time.


1. Who do you believe will be part of the time loop?

2. Since there are now (in the show) people from Flight 815 in a variety of different places or situations, the potential of a time loop would seem simpler with a smaller selection of people. .

I agree that it is possible to seperate on-Island and off-Island people and give them different experiences. However, IMO if there is any kind of time loop here, it will be a phenomena of the entire Island as opposed to certain individuals.

Could the unconscious mind somehow feed the conscious mind, providing the conscious mind with items of familiarity in order to make it feel as though it is part of a different time, the time in which it is now present?
100%
I agree that it is possible to seperate on-Island and off-Island people and give them different experiences. However, IMO if there is any kind of time loop here, it will be a phenomena of the entire Island as opposed to certain individuals.

These are just a series of questions that I asked on another board, though with the idea of CTL, perhaps most no longer need apply:

If it's going to involve all of Flight 815, then what happens with:
1. All the people who died in the crash?
2. Those individuals that the Others took?
3. Will the marshall that had Kate in custody once again be alive (and soon to die) and Kate coming from the forst after removing handcuffs?
4. Will Eko, Ana Lucia, Libby, Boone, Shannon, and Charlie be alive? (as well as Nikki, Paolo, Arntz, etc.)
5. Will Walt be back on the plane, younger again, and will Michael be alive?
6. Will all of the left-behinders suddenly appear on the beach among the crash survivors, just as if they hadn't already been on the Island but had been part of the time looping flight?
The big ones coming now:
7. Will Aaron return to being in Claire's belly as an unborn child?
8. Will Ji Yeon just disappear from the face of the earth? What if Sun doesn't bring her with, how could Ji Yeon's existance in the outside world be explained? Leaving Ji Yeon behind leaves a residual effect of the first loop on the outside world.
9. Will Jin be alive and will Sun get pregnant again on the Islands... with Ji Yeon or with yet another child?
10. If a time loop occurs including the O-6, they'll be coming from 2008 (there abouts) back to 2004, so what will happen with those 3-4 years that they were off-island?

5 arguments against a physical time loop.

1. What was changed on Iteration 6 from Iteration 3 and how do you convey it to the audience?
2. A production nightmare. How do you re-shoot scenes with no guarantees of casting?
3. Reason for the no-paradox rule? Trust what you've seen. Another iteration means, I won't see it.
4. Telegraph #1 (video game spoiler) The LOST video game Via Dormus ends this way
5. Telegraph #2 (Stephen King book spoiler) JJ and Damon are signed to do the Dark Tower next and it ends this way.

So, if you are like me and buy most of this^
And you also think that there is a sense from the characters of 'deja-vu'
Then you've got to explain it differently, I think.
Think about Desmond seeing Charlie's possible futures as a heightened sense of what they are all experiencing.

Jane likes to talk about 'localized time' well, these experiences are all localized.
You wouldn't need to worry about who specifically is changing what, where and when and how times they had done it before etc.

Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part. I'd rather not see 1-Jack wake up in the jungle as if nothing had happened 2-the crash averted as if nothing had happened, if that's the case, then why not go the tacky Heroes route of changing anything and everything you want and 'to Hell' with averting paradoxes, just have a bunch of TT'ers going around do whatever needs to be done. This is not that kind of show, IMO. The stakes have to matter. You have to be able to trust what you've seen. That's the audience's reward for investing and that's how you get a 'general audience' on a broadcast network to tune in for science fiction.

The first FB in Pilot Part 2 gives us a clue as to how a loop may occur without paradox - it involves a sort of course correction instead.

Charlie and Kate are coming back with Jack to the beach, having retrieved the transponder. Kate asks Charlie what he was doing in the loo, and Charlie says he was being a coward. "You're not a coward," Kate says, expressing an emotion, that she has some faith in the wee hobbit... and then Charlie has a FlashBack, which begins with an auditory transition...
tap tap tap tap tap tap tapHe's on the plane, tapping his ring, wanting his fix. He can't get to the back loo (is Bernard in there?) so he dashes up front, bumps Jack, cuts across Boone and Shannon to the right aisle, and then back again to the left, and locks himself in the front loo.

He pulls out his stash from his checkerboard shoe, takes the bright yellow rubber band loop and wraps it around his finger, gets off, and looks in the mirror. He has a loop necklace on, and on the right side of the loop is a piece of tape. And then...

...then he feels an emotion... perhaps an inkling of self-respect...

His right hand is up against his forehead, and we cut from a head-on shot of him to a shot from his left. The tape on his loop necklace has flipped, from his right side to his left, but otherwise the continuity of the transition is seamless. He drops the stash and it falls in the toilet (now his loop-tape is on the right again) and he reaches down...

...not to pick up his stash, like a good little junkie, no. No, he reaches down to the toilet handle, to flush the drugs away.

Now, if this is a time-loop, a new iteration, and Charlie succeeds in flushing the drugs, what happens when he gets to the Island? He doesn't go to the cockpit with Jack and Kate, or if he does, he doesn't duck back into the loo. If Charlie succeeds in flushing the drugs, there would be a paradox. So what does the Universe (or the Island) do to preempt him? The plane hits some terrible turbulence, it gets knocked off-course, and Charlie flies up to the ceiling - then gets slammed back into the floor. Paradox averted. Charlie rushes out of the loo, nearly gets crushed by a runaway beverage cart, dashes up the aisle to an open seat and straps himself in...

...

So the past can be changed - Charlie has a different emotional reaction in the loo - but the cause of that past change, which comes from a future emotion triggered by Kate, is ultimately not allowed to change.

(Stephen King book spoiler) JJ and Damon are signed to do the Dark Tower next and it ends this way.



No kiddin, I can't wait to see that!!!

Sorry, OT

The first FB in Pilot Part 2 gives us a clue as to how a loop may occur without paradox - it involves a sort of course correction instead.

Charlie and Kate are coming back with Jack to the beach, having retrieved the transponder. Kate asks Charlie what he was doing in the loo, and Charlie says he was being a coward. "You're not a coward," Kate says, expressing an emotion, that she has some faith in the wee hobbit... and then Charlie has a FlashBack, which begins with an auditory transition...
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
He's on the plane, tapping his ring, wanting his fix. He can't get to the back loo (is Bernard in there?) so he dashes up front, bumps Jack, cuts across Boone and Shannon to the right aisle, and then back again to the left, and locks himself in the front loo.


A sort of OT question... If Charlie's ring was his Constant, could his leaving it behind in Aaron's crib have been part of the reason why he died?

A sort of OT question... If Charlie's ring was his Constant, could his leaving it behind in Aaron's crib been part of the reason why he died?

Ohhh, I think you might have something there!

Interesting that it's a ring, it is...

Leaving behind his finger-tape late/fate in Cowboys, like them hobbits in LOTR...

5 arguments against a physical time loop.

1. What was changed on Iteration 6 from Iteration 3 and how do you convey it to the audience?
3. Reason for the no-paradox rule? Trust what you've seen. Another iteration means, I won't see it.

So, if you are like me and buy most of this^
And you also think that there is a sense from the characters of 'deja-vu'
Then you've got to explain it differently, I think.
Think about Desmond seeing Charlie's possible futures as a heightened sense of what they are all experiencing.

Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part. I'd rather not see 1-Jack wake up in the jungle as if nothing had happened 2-the crash averted as if nothing had happened, if that's the case, then why not go the tacky Heroes route of changing anything and everything you want and 'to Hell' with averting paradoxes, just have a bunch of TT'ers going around do whatever needs to be done. This is not that kind of show, IMO. The stakes have to matter. You have to be able to trust what you've seen. That's the audience's reward for investing and that's how you get a 'general audience' on a broadcast network to tune in for science fiction.
Cheers Thunderstorm. I agree with your logic regarding the rules, the stakes, and TPTB's desire to have us fully invested in what we've seen.

Ohhh, I think you might have something there!

Interesting that it's a ring, it is...

Leaving behind his finger-tape late/fate in Cowboys, like them hobbits in LOTR...

And apparently Claire never discovered it in the crib either.

And apparently Claire never discovered it in the crib either.

Maybe Aaron swallowed it?

Maybe Aaron swallowed it?

They show Claire,Aaron walking away with the ring in the crib.
I just watched it a couple nights ago.