Discussion on time, part 2: My Dinner With Jazprof
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By ProfOzone
- Discussion on time, part 2: My Dinner With Jazprof
- Created: May 28, 2007
- Last updated: Aug 13, 2008
- After episode: 3.22: Through The Looking Glass
- Status: Current
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So, following jazprof’s lead… what if the whispers and other similar phenomena are “a leak” from the so-called shamanistic realm?
— ProfOzone
So jazprof… I’ve got an idea, but I need to review a few things first…
In my post “Discussion on time” I use a particular analogy in order to grasp the concept of non-linear time. The goal was to conceptualize how non-linear time might allow us to “remember” the future and “anticipate” the past. For simplicity’s sake, please allow me to paste a portion of that post here:
“Imagine a vending machine, and in it there are treats of various kinds… candy and the like… and all of it is put into the machine in a perfectly random way. However, for any treat to come out of the vending machine, a person must put in a certain amount of money, press a button denoting the treat she or he wants, and allow the machine to find that particular treat and drop it into a bin for retrieval by the hungry customer. The treats in the machine represent moments in time in no particular order. But everything done by the machine to sort out the treats represents our perceptions. We can only take the moments in time one at a time and in a particular order. So that is how we experience them. But that is not, in fact, how they actually are. If we could overcome this limitation in the way we experience (break the vending machine), we could ‘remember’ the future just as we remember the past, or we could ‘plan for’ the past just as we plan for the future. Not by traveling in time… that concept has no meaning here because time is not a road to be traveled. Rather, it’s a point wherein all possible events, past and future, exist.
The reason we have this limitation in our perceptions is due to the ‘dimensionality’ of our experiences. I don’t know if any of you have read ‘Flatland’, but in it is described a two-dimensional world that is visited by a three dimensional object. A 2D being asks the 3D being if it will show itself. It agrees, and passes through the 2D plane for the benefit of the 2D being. The 3D creature happens to be a sphere, so the way the 2D being experiences the 3D being is first as a point materializing out of ‘thin air’, then as a circle that gradually gets larger, then the circle gets smaller, then it’s a point again, and then it vanishes. This experience is the best conception the 2D being can have of the 3D being… and notice how inadequate it is!
For us to see time as it truly is, it’s theorized that we’d need to be 4D beings. But we’re more like 3.5D beings, experiencing 3 full spatial dimensions and only half the time dimension (as it travels one way). So there we have it. We’re stuck seeing only one time line when there really isn’t a time line at all. Just every possible moment existing behind the glass of the vending machine waiting for us to call them out one at a time in a logical order.
Now, I really feel as though I must say right now that I am vastly oversimplifying these explanations, but I think they may suffice to get the relevant points across.”
(Yes! That WAS just a portion! :-)
And this comment from the post might also be helpful before we continue:
“Imagine that not all of the treats in the vending machine have the same mass. Actually, some of them are quite heavy. In fact, the greater mass of some treats as compared to others make them more likely to be ejected from the vending machine, such that this concept of ‘varying mass’ among the treats contributes some to the logic of the sequence of events we observe.
Let’s take two treats in the machine. One is a single Skittle in a tiny plastic bag. The other is a five pound bag of Skittles. As it turns out, the single Skittle is very near the five pound bag… there may be five or six other treats between them. Now, the single Skittle is selected. But the five pound bag is so close and so heavy that it slips in the vending machine, knocking out not only the single Skittle but also the five or six treats that had been between the single and the five-pound bag. If the single Skittle represents the most immediate moment in time, then the treats that fell out ‘accidentally’ represent flashes of the future, premonitions of what is most likely to happen based upon the ‘weight’ of the future event. Even though it remains in the machine, we can tell what the weightier event might be by noting what the ‘accidental’ treats are. For example, maybe the treats that ‘accidentally’ fell out are also Skittles in progressively larger bags. So we can guess that it’s a huge bag of Skittles that pushed them out and will soon fall out of the machine itself.
But now that we know this, we might alter our next selection! The incredible weight of the five pound Skittles bag doesn’t make it inevitable. Just very likely. Perhaps we can prevent the five pound bag from ever coming out of the machine. Again… perhaps we can do this. We don’t know precisely what will or will not trip the bag into falling. In fact, in our attempt to avoid tipping the five pound bag, we might decide only to select treats (moments) from the machine that are as far away from the bag as possible. So then we select a very small treat that is miles away from the big bag. But it turns out to be miles above the bag. The considerable distance allows it to gain all the momentum it needs to knock the big bag loose as it falls past it and into the receptacle. Our very act to avoid the big bag caused it to fall!
So, as you can see, there are limits to how much synchronicity can help us. There are things we won’t be able to predict. There are things we won’t be able to avoid. And some things we will cause by trying to avoid them.”
And…
“The ‘heavy moments’ … tend to make themselves known before they happen via omens and premonitions. And people who can read the signs can pick up on this. All divination might be thought to work according to this principle. (The I-Ching, referenced in the Dharma Initiative logo, is often used for divination.)”
I’ve suggested elsewhere that shamanism might be seen as a spiritual discipline that breaks into the vending machine. A shaman can, conceivably, go to any place in any time without limits, because all places and times are right here, right now. I’ve also suggested that a fundamental conflict in the show may be between indigenous shamans and more “scientific types” who, via technology, have broken into the “shamanistic realm” and have done some damage, having never been properly initiated in the manner shamans often are.
So, following jazprof’s lead… what if the whispers and other similar phenomena are “a leak” from the so-called shamanistic realm? (Recall that Kelvin called the incident a leak… he seemed to be referring to built-up electromagnetic radiation… but was he?) And also… what if there is a special place (the temple?) or object that can be used by the uninitiated to “break into the vending machine”?
The more I think about it, the more I realize that popping that machine open would cause all kinds of freaky things to happen. Actually, TOO many freaky things. I mean, the island IS freaky… but not THAT freaky. :-) Still, it’s an interesting idea, I think, that suggests several intriguing possibilities. Thoughts? (Please, everyone… not just jazprof. :-)
Similar theories
| Title | Author | Cmnts | Votes | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Changing the Past w/o Time Travel or One’s Heart’s Desire | jazprof | 14 | 6 | +6 |
| My “Not Really Cloned/Not Really Time-travel” theory | jakasalo | 6 | 3 | +1 |
dude, how much time did it take you to think this up? no offense but i think this thing has gone way past an obsession to way too many people.
Don’t they have those 5 lb bags at Sam’s Club? Why use the vending machine? :) Your posts are very interesting. I have not read them all yet, but I feel that I have a higher knowledge of the show after reading them, then chasing down some answers. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ll be off reading about the shamanistic realm now!
Kewl theorie… It would explain why Hurly remains so huge after all this time… lol just kidding… But maybe Desmond is able to break into your vending machine once in a while?
“My dinner with jazprof” hehe — a Lost theorizing dinner would be so great!
So combining my idea—that the Losties desires are having a causal effect on both their flashback/flashforward stories (example Jack cured Sarah because on the island he expresses a strong desire for her to be happy) with your analogy of the vending machine—is desire something that might make a bag particularly heavy (on the island)? And does its weight tend to bring down more things than one intended or desired? Maybe the island shamans practiced a kind of desirelessness in order to harness the island power without these unintended effects—that is, desirelessness allowed them to break into the machine? Did Dharma (like the scientist in Forbidden Planet) unleash the causal effect of their own desires in harmful and unforseen ways?
Here’s the clincher for this idea: why does Ben need others to want things in order to bring them into being? Why does he not just desire or want them himself? Because, in his sneaky way, he is trying to break into the machine by having others do his wishing for him. Contrast that with Desmond in Catch 22 who sacrifices his own desire (Penny) in order to save Charlie. I don’t know if Desmond has now done the opposite in sacrificing Charlie. I hope not.
Okay, Prof, you are really onto something with this theory! We know that “Dharma” was trying to enhance life by harnessing and further developing the natural metaphysical, electromagnetic and special properties of “the island”. However, by Dharma introducing science into the mix and messing with the natural order of things, it could account for why so many things have gone array there. It would certainly account for some of the strange events and occurrences we’ve seen going on. An example of this would be remote viewing which is used not only as a tool to see into future events, it is used to gain further clarification and insight into past events and utilized by psychics. What if “Dharma’s” experimentation were responsible for altering some of these things and effecting the outcomes. One example is, how current governments are using remote viewing as a viable tool for “Intelligence” gathering purposes. Technology could be considered “the enemy” and ancient cultures also shared similar views. I’m not sure if I’ve explained this very well, but think I get where you’re going with it!
LOSTman: Heh… actually, the “vending machine” concept is one I developed some time ago for purposes related to my work, long before I’d ever seen an episode of Lost. And it didn’t take me much time to come up with it even then. It’s not as complicated an idea as it may seem on the surface. :-)
But even if I did come up with it after watching Lost… dude, there have been three seasons worth of shows and a group of us here on the site have been bouncing these ideas around for a while. It isn’t that unusual that we’d come up with something like this given that kind of context.
Of course, in saying all this, I’m not saying you’re wrong. :-D
NowImLost: I’d say that Desmond is actually getting more out of the vending machine than he bargained for. He only gets bits and pieces. Never the full picture. And this is often how being attuned to synchronicity works. You just get signs and maybe flashes of insight, but rarely anything like a fully detailed, coherent vision.
jazprof: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it… does desire make a bag in the machine heavy, or does a heavy bag in the machine create an intense desire? I’m guessing there is no certain answer to this question, and that’s part of the fun of it. As for Ben… I suspect it’s more important for him to know what it is a person wants “more than anything in the world”. This is his method of divination. Because I think in his mind, once he knows what a person wants more than anything, he knows what their purpose is on the island. Now, again… I don’t think the cause-and-effect relationship is cut-and-dried. Surely Ben believes if he can get a person’s “more than anything in the world” desire to work for him, then he has effectively made what HE wants part of THEIR destiny. So his first choice is not to work against whatever synchronicity is doing. He wants to work in harmony with it as much as possible, and tug and poke at it here and there in order to bring about his aims. For example, he didn’t fight his tumor. In fact, when he learned a spinal surgeon was on the island, he manipulated events such that he would HAVE to rely on Jack to operate on it. Because in his mind, that’s the whole reason he got the tumor in the first place, because of Jack.
dab: I think you’ve gotten it exactly. Carl Jung seemed to believe that what the shamans did and experienced had scientific validity. If he was correct, then surely the Dharma parapsychologists would have explored this, perhaps made inroads, and conceivably really messed things up! :-)
kat: Very insightful points re: Ben, and I think you may be right. As for breaking into the vending machine… I’m not sure shamans would think of themselves as “breaking into it” to begin with. They travel in it and honor it. For a person to break into it might only take something as simple as an LDS trip, or the use of some device that creates heightened states of awareness without the person having to practice any type of mental or spiritual discipline first. Or, perhaps some other technology is being utilized that creates a kind of “portal” at the temple that people can use to enter and exit this thing I’m calling “the shamanistic realm”. There are many possibilities, really. I’m very interested to learn what’s up with the temple (and have been since all we knew about it was that it was “an old place, actually”). :-)
As always Prof great post and very well structured. I think the possibility is great Im just not sure such a complex explanation would appeal to the masses that Lost is aimed at. Lets try and remember the number of viewers of varying intelect.
Well, sleepz, my explanations tend to be a lot more complicated than the actual concepts themselves. The only way the show needs to sell the idea I’m suggesting is just the way it HAS been selling it already. In fact, I don’t think the show needs to give any more explanation than it already has for people to “get” that time doesn’t function “line-like” in the show. My theories are just attempts to flesh-out what is pretty-much already obvious to everyone.
I like this explanation, not of Lost necessarily, but of how we view ourselves in the universe.
And I would definitely liken the perspective of a 3D object in a 2D world to your scenario of one of us coming in contact with a truely 4 dimensional object—vending machine. (Actually, it’s a little scary.)
It’s hard to imagine being able to know and see every possible event in all of time, or just being able to see all the possible future/past events, or just being able to see all future events 108 minutes into the future or past!
Oops.
It’s my renewed theory that the Losties will eventually get off the island in a way similar to Desmond’s brief escape from the island.
They’ll be given a choice perhaps, to have their consciousnesses removed from their present selves and have them “dropped-off” in their past selves.
I’m not quite happy with this theory yet, so I haven’t posted it.
But I agree that the island is somehow free from normal time and I imagine that there is a danger that whatever forces are at play on the island could leak to the “outside” world, which could be a bad thing.
All around, a good theory.
Cheers.
Thanks, thug! Always good to hear your thoughts. Looking forward to your next big post!
sigh…
i have NO idea whatsoever what you mean about the candy machine… sure id love a 5 pount reeses bar, but what on earth does that have to do with shamanism? i dont get it… the bigger things come out first? so you select something 5 miles above it… WHA?!?!
Sorry, RacecaR. Please believe me when I say that the concepts aren’t really as complicated as I’ve made them. Let me approach it for you this way.
When an event in the future is nearly inevitable, certain people have the ability to anticipate it before it happens. Maybe they just feel it, like John seems to feel the rain coming on. Or Desmond gets flashes of it. Now, whatever these special people sense is not the only possibility. In fact, the “future” they sense can even be avoided. But sometimes, by trying to avoid it, they actually make it happen. Like, I get a flash of my son dying in a car crash. So I forbid him from ever riding in a car, or even learning how to drive one. One day, there’s an emergency somewhere and my son feels that he must drive someone’s car to get help, but since I never allowed him to learn to drive, he has an accident and dies. This kind of scenario is actually quite common in literature and film.
Now, what all of this suggests is that perhaps the “time line” understanding of time isn’t quite accurate. Time is more fluid than that, not like a “line” at all. But this further suggests that perhaps our typical perception that time only flows one way (past to future) is an artificial limitation that might be overcome by a more “enlightened” mind. Shamans (to continue to oversimplify the case) often believe that they have the ability to break the rules of “time and space” that typically “enslave” ordinary folk. When they enter trances and go to different worlds and commune with various spirits on them, they do not take these as dreams or hallucinations, but actual psychic traveling. If they’re right and the realm they travel in is real (in a “scientific” sense) then not only can uninitiated folks mess around there, but it might be possible that the so-called “shamanistic realm” can mingle with the “ordinary” world in troubling ways if some “scientific type” makes an error that a trained shaman would not. To put it all in the context of paranormal psychology, this would create a space where we would expect to observe an extraordinary amount of paranormal activity. The island certainly fits that description.
But keep in mind all of this is combining “science” with “faith” in a way similar to how Carl Jung combined these concepts in his work. I believe the work of Carl Jung and some of the work that has spun off of his work since his death are important guides for the writers.
suddenly, the Tralfamadorians of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 make ALOT of sense… I can always count on you to at once confuse and enlighten me utterly!! thanks!! :D