The Constant/Theories

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Theories about The Constant

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Theories may be removed if ...

Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc). More appropriate for another article. Illogical or previously disproven. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article. Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments. Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead). This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory. Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response. See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

Contents 1 Desmond 2 Daniel 2.1 Time-traveling and his constant 2.2 Mental health 2.3 Vector 3 Charles Widmore 4 Time Traveling 4.1 Time-traveling triggers 4.2 Time-traveling and changing the past/future 4.3 Other people who are or have been time-traveling 4.4 Time-traveling and side-effects 4.5 Time-traveling and The Others 5 Time 6 The shot 7 Good People vs. Bad People 8 Penny's red-tincture painting 9 Further unanswered questions

Desmond

• Desmond's exposure to electromagnetism when he turned the fail safe key caused Desmond to "time-travel". Dharma built the Swan to experiment with electromagnetic radiation. Desmond had to "push the button" to regulate its intensity in order to prevent the inhabitants of the Island from receiving a dose too high, which would cause "time-traveling" in the person. The fail safe release gave everyone on the Island (and maybe some people in range of the Island) a mega-dose of electromagnetic radiation, opening them to the possibility of having "time-shifts."
  • This is supported by the fact that both Daniel's radiation device and the sky during the event emitted purple light
  • Desmond's premonitions about Charlie dying started after the explosion of The Swan. They were not premonitions: it was time-traveling into the future. Desmond's consciousness was traveling to a future consciousness where he saw Charlie dying. If this is the case then he would have never been able to stop Charlie from dying. Remember, it has been said at least twice, once certainly by Daniel in 1996 that you cannot change the future.
    • I keep seeing this but it doesn't seem right to me. Isn't the lesson of Charlie/Desmond, that you CAN change the future, but you CAN NOT stop it from happening all together? Remember Charlie was not always going to die in the Looking Glass, he was "supposed" to die by lighting strike.

• Desmond had been time traveling ever since he first arrived on the island. Minkowski was nowhere near the island when the Swan exploded, yet when he approached the island by boat, he and his friend both began time traveling and became so physically ill that they have already died. Unless Desmond by a highly unlikely chance was on the proper bearing and never got off that bearing during the storm as he ran aground on the island, it would be reasonable to think that he has been time traveling for three years.
  • The Swan implosion clearly had a major impact on Desmond. It enhanced his time travel capabilities and allowed him fragmented glimpses of the future and/or caused the time travel to become more frequent.
  • Perhaps the island offers some protection, but once off the island time travel becomes uncontrollable if the bearing is not followed.
  • Desmond's daily injections may have mitigated the effects of the time travel, but he became worse once he stopped taking them. Ray is injecting the same chemical into Minkowski to try and save him.
  • Perhaps one can only experience the time-travel of ones consciousness if one actually IS conscious when crossing the "barrier" surrounding the island. We have seen that Desmond was knocked unconscious before his ship ran aground, and only regained consciousness once on-shore. This could also be why Juliet was sedated for her journey to the Island.
  • This is also supported by the fact that anyone brought to and from the island in the sub is rendered unconcious.

Daniel

Time-traveling and his constant

• Daniel wrote in his journal that Desmond would be his constant if anything went wrong. Desmond informed him they meet in 2004, but he would not remember Desmond in the future. It makes sense, therefore, that Daniel wrote it down as soon as possible after that 1996 meeting so he'd have a reminder in 2004 of the 1996 meeting.

• Daniel is chosen to go on the expedition to the Island because he knows about "time-traveling".

• Daniel's erratic behavior can be explained by the fact that he does not want to create a paradox by changing the future before events transpire that affect the past.

Mental health

• Daniel's mind crack started sometime after 1996, while trying to prove his time-travel theory. This is why we see him with a caretaker in 2004 when they find 815.

• Daniel suffers from memory loss. This is why he has trouble remembering the three cards in "Eggtown". This is also why Daniel writes things down in his notebook because he suffers from memory loss and is afraid he will forget things.

• Daniel suffers from brain damage as a result of being exposed too much to radiation. This is why he cannot remember things and why he needs a caretaker.
  • Yes, and in "Eggtown" when Charlotte is testing his memory of the cards, she says that two of three is "progress". The island's healing properties are fixing his brain damage and slowly restoring his memory.

• In 1996, it wasn't made clear to Daniel that Desmond was not on Flight 815, therefore, Daniel assumes Desmond was on the plane. When he sees the TV news reporting the crash, Daniel believes he has lost his constant and is thus crying.

• It's very likely that either he assumes he's gone crazy or that everyone else thinks he is. He either would have kept the information to himself, or if made public, authorities would have to cover-up that discovery and discredit him get him fired from his job and such. Either way the stress could land him under supervision and seeing the crash of the flight would re-affirm his actual sanity and cause tears of joy. He would be unable to tell this those supervising him, and thus have to say, "I don't know".

• Daniel cannot hold fixed memories, as his past is constantly been revised, by other people, like Desmond, time traveling into his past.

Vector

• Daniel gave Frank the correct vector, but due to the storm they veered ever so slightly off course to about 310 (reading from the gauge during the storm).

• In Live Together, Die Alone, Ben tells Michael to leave the island and follow a bearing of 325 degrees. However, Faraday insists that the helicopter must follow a bearing of 305 degrees to safely exit the island. The bearing at which you enter or exit the island is important. The Two bearings could both be courses to get off the Island if there is some sort of "keyhole" departure/entry point for the island. Since the helicopter and Michael departed from different points on the island the two bearings could intercept at a given location (i.e. the thunderstorm) which allows vehicles to enter or depart from the island. Like two corners of a triangle, each bearing moves in different directions (their sides) to reach the third point.

• The bearing is 305 from the survivor's beach, but 325 from the Others' boat dock further north. The bearing is to a fixed point (the storm), so the bearing has to change somewhat if you move up or down the island's coast.

• If the island is in fact surrounded by some sort of field, and this field revolves around the island, it would explain the fact that the location of an opening in the field changes depending on what time it is.

• The Island is in some sort of "alternate time thingy" and it is located at the North Pole (Google the book The Smokey God and/or the manuscript "Admiral Byrd's Secret Diary" and/or "Hollow Earth Theory").

• It is possible that the bearing changes, so that 325 was the required bearing at that time, and 305 now. If this is true, then either the bearing changes are predictable or the pathway can be detected since Ben knew the bearing.

Charles Widmore

• Widmore is in the same situation as Faraday and Desmond, trapped between time periods.

• Charles Widmore is a powerful man - he knows about the boat and he told the crew of the boat not to answer phones from Penelope (he doesn't want her to find Desmond).

• Abaddon works for Widmore and hired the crew.
  • The members of the expedition have been told different stories and have different objectives.
  • Naomi stated they were on a search and rescue mission and that Oceanic 815 had been found on the ocean floor. If the objective of the search mission isn't the plane, the Black Rock is the only thing on the island worth the expense of a search.
  • Widmore convinces some that an objective is finding Desmond on behalf of his daughter Penny; or he instructs Naomi to lie to the people she finds on the island and tells Minkowski not to answer the phone.
  • The scientists have objectives related to the island's properties and may, with Widmore, be connected to the Dharma Initiative.

Time Traveling

Time-traveling triggers

• There are different triggers to a time travel event: flashes of light, contact with certain metals, and exposures to bursts of electromagnetic energy or radiation. Desmond time travels three times when he touches metal. The first time is when he grasps his chair in the helicopter during the turbulence, the second time is in the restroom, and the third is when he is picking his metal coins off from the ground. It is plausible that the first episode was triggered by a flash of lightning, but note the scene is edited to show that when Desmond grasps the metal side of his chair he is simultaneously grasping the rail of his cot in the army.
  • This has a lot to do with electromagnetism and the fail-safe key and the times when Desmond spoke to Mrs. Hawkins.
  • Desmond flashes back to the helicopter without being in contact with metal. Neither does he touch the tap water. Red herring.
• The triggers are that Desmond doesn't want to be in a certain situation. He time travels when he is scared on the helicopter and just wants to be with Penny. He time travels when he is being yelled at by the army officer, when he is pushed by the other soldier and in other situations when he wants to be elsewhere.
• Faraday, Ray and Widmore all have an understanding of ways that time travel can be triggered.
• The numbers are triggers. It will be discovered that some of the the flashbacks and flashforwards are actually time travel.
• Although the triggers seem random, there are mathematical solutions. Time travel works like a pendulum in motion. Desmond is the ball swinging back and fourth from two different positions (1996 and 2004). Desmond (and Minkowski) are basically stuck on five-ball pendulum, except on a larger scale that involves space, time, electromagnetism and gravity.
• It was revealed in the official podcast that the Desmond from 1996 is the one doing the time skipping. Therefore, when Desmond was in the helicopter and it veered a bit off course, it essentially pulled the Desmond from 1996 into 2004. The very first time skip was when 1996 Desmond (who was probably sleeping at the time) went forward into his body in the helicopter for a few seconds--just long enough to realize that he was in a helicopter. A few seconds later he was back in 1996, now fully awake but thinking that maybe what he just experienced was a dream. The odd thing about all this is the comparison between what's happening with Desmond and what happened with Eloise. Both Desmond and Eloise experienced something that acted as a trigger that sent them into the future, but while Eloise's trigger was in her PAST, Desmond's trigger was in his FUTURE. So a trigger can either SEND or it can PULL.

Time-traveling and changing the past/future

• This episode shows that the future can be changed because Daniel's note could only have appeared in Daniel's notebook in December 2004, when Desmond traveled to the past and met Daniel in 1996. Therefore, Desmond's traveling from 2004 to 1996 had the effect of changing events from 1996 on and that is a change of future events.
  • In the 02/22/08 podcast, the executive producers state that Desmond did not travel back from 2004 to 1996, but that instead his 1996 consciousness traveled forward to 2004.
    • His 1996 consciousness oscillated between the two years. Thus he jumped forward, met Daniel in 2004 (in a disoriented state), then returned to his native 1996 and went to find 1996 Daniel. This eventually caused the note to appear in Daniel's notebook. The only question is whether this was the first iteration of a loop which may or may not be stable, or if Daniel knew the note would be there because he remembered having written it in 1996 and had sent Desmond to begin the next iteration. Josiwe 23:18, 28 March 2008 (PDT)
  • But, from the point of view of 2004, the appearance of the note is a change made in 2004 to past events, and not a change made in 2004 to future events. It would look as what has changed is the past, and not the future.
  • The future cannot be changed: alterations in events in the time line can be made, but whatever was supposed to happen, will happen, time will correct itself. If everything we have seen in this episode is "what was meant to happen", then it would look as it nothing has been really changed: every character has done what he was supposed to do.
  • In turn, Daniel's note while it is a change in the past events that was caused by Desmond's time-traveling, it is better regarded as an instance of "time correcting itself." Everything that happened in this episode "was supposed to happen" in the manner that it happened, and nothing of what actually happened could have been changed.
  • These all assume that a) Daniel wrote the note and b) it was not in the journal all along, neither of which we know with any certainty.
    • What if the note was there all along? When 2004 Daniel finds out that Desmond thinks it's 1996, he remembers a man named Desmond visiting him in 1996 at Oxford, who gives him the directions on what settings to use for the machine. He realizes he (2004 Faraday) must tell Desmond this information to pass on to his 1996 self, because otherwise, the timeline unravels. He gets the information out of his journal, where in 1996 he wrote down what Desmond told him and made the note about his constant.

• Time-traveling can change things in space: Daniel's notes changed, much like the pictures on the wall at the house Miles visited in the second episode of Season 4. (When Miles walked back down the stairs after communicating with the dead and retrieving the money in 4.02, the pictures on the wall were in different frames then when he walked up. Speculating that whatever caused the frames to change is also responsible for there being new notes in Daniel's notebook. Perhaps Miles is able to unstuck himself in time and change his own present.)

• Time-traveling creates paradoxes. Daniel gave Desmond the correct numbers for his radiation machine to properly work, yet Desmond got those numbers from Daniel himself in 2004, who would know them because he got them from Desmond in 1996.
  • In the 02/22/08 podcast, the executive producers state that their concept of time travel is paradox-averse and that they do not adhere to a model where anything any character does during a time travel experience can change any event seen so far in the past, present or future.
  • 2004-Daniel found the proper settings for his machine on his own. Desmond only gave 1996-Daniel the answer he would have found himself eventually. It's the same thing as with Eloise, who does in the present what she would only learn later in the future.
    • That would change time. If he knows the settings then he would not look for them later by himself. So present Daniel would only know them from Desmond and only be able to give them to Desmond from Desmond.
      • As stated before, the time stream has a way of correcting itself so that, while small changes may occur, major events stay the same. We should assume that Daniel was going to discover the settings with or without Desmond and their discovery a day or an hour early will not alter the future.
        • This would totally contradict the statement of "Whatever happened, happened", except if you don't interpret 'whatever' as everything but indeed as 'major' or at least specific events, points in space-time that are unchangeable. It's important to understand though that any 'course-correction' makes that you can indeed change certain events in the past as long as they are not a part of a specific outcome for which the universe is course-correcting.
    • This sort of anomaly (known as a jinn) is a common occurrence when dealing with closed time loops. As it's self-resolving, it is not considered a problem.

• Time-travelers in the past do not remember that they have time traveled to the future. There is no indication that the 1996-Desmond actually knew any future events after he became stuck again. Maybe one can influence actions and others in the past, but after you reset yourself with a constant your past-self loses all knowledge of ever being in it's future.
• This is a process comparable to his future self losing all memories between the point in time on which his past mind intrudes his present mind and the present of the past mind itself. Only the past mind suffers a total blackout for the relative short time his mind was traveling between times while the future mind just gets replaced by those memories.
• When leaving the island those who have been exposed to em-fields are thrown to a point in their past. This point might be a nexus-point which started their 'path' to their getting to, or near, the island. By this past-consciousness viewing the future a pre-destination paradox is formed, creating an alternate 'branch' of time. If you find a constant you 'commit' this branch returning your past consciousness with no knowledge of having seeing the future end of this time line but The future-self retains knowledge of having been traveling and the influence to those around you in the past and present are have happened. If one fails to restore 'commit' the time line your branched self gets stuck in the future, and you die because of the strain.

• In theory one shouldn't be able to travel to the future. If someone's conscious starts traveling between the present and the future, and then the host suffers from the side effects and dies, then the future "self" wouldn't exist, which alters the future permanently and also creates a paradox.

• The future receiver could at that point just die from the effects of receiving his former mind. The possible paradox would be if the sender would remember having had his mind in his future self, without his future self knowing he once in the past had his mind stuck in his future self. This is no paradox though, if the mind that moves to the future at some point remains there and the past self just doesn't keep the memories from the point the mind moved in between the current and the future until the mind stayed in the future.

Other people who are or have been time-traveling

• Jacob's aversion to technology and his outburst when Locke turns on a flashlight suggest that he is a time traveler and may be fighting its effects.
  • The movement of his cabin may be a physical manifestation of time travel unique to the island but not the outside world.
  • The fact that he is invisible but can be heard first by Ben but not Locke then vice versa may also be a physical manifestation.
• The reason flight 815 crashed in the first place is the pilots "jumped-time" and so were in a catatonic state and unable to control the plane. This was either the primary cause of the crash, or it was why the pilots couldn't recover from the effect of the primary cause--the electromagnetic pulse Desmond caused in Live Together, Die Alone.
  • The plane crashed because the electro-magnetism ripped the plane in half as it was flying over the island. No pilot would have been able to save it.
• The reason Frank wasn't the pilot on 815, even though he was supposed to be, was because he experienced a "time-jump" which showed the crash, or him on the island.
  • If that was so, he would be on the island from the crash. You can't change the future as had been said multiple times. Once by Miss Hawkins, once by Daniel Faraday in 1996. So if he saw himself crash, then he would be there now, crashed.
    • That could apply to the course correction stuff. Frank knew that the plane would crash because he traveled forward in time, swapped his shift so he wouldn't make it onto the island. But there time is correcting itself and he is going to end up on the island.
    • He could have seen himself on the island as one of the freighter folks. He could have seen the crash on a TV news report. (Although, I don't necessarily like the second one because I think this would be a paradox: for him to see the news, he would have had to miss the flight; and to miss the flight, he would have to see the news... neither can happen without the other. Aack, time travel gives me a headache!)
    • But Daniel did change the future with Eloise. If Eloise already knows how to run the maze you can't teach the rat how to do it in a hour, it will already know how so the she was never "taught" how to run the maze in this time line.
      • Even more interesting Eloise learns how to run the maze from the future, but then dies before she would have been taught. Thus Eloise was taught to run the maze in a timeline where she didn't time travel, but then in the later resulting timeline never was taught the maze. Maybe because Daniel did not fix the paradox he caused Eloise to die.
        • Not verifiable. Desmond was unconscious for 75 minutes we don't know if Faraday fulfilled his intention with regard to Eloise or not.
        • Eloise learned from her future "self" how to run the maze, which means then that the "present" Eloise wouldn't be able to be taught how to run the maze, as she already knew. This again creates a paradox.
          • As we've seen from Desmond's example, when your consciousness travels to the future, the future self, loses the previous memories and is left only with his past conscious memories. That would enable the rat to learn the maze again. Entering the catatonic state after learning how to run the maze (trying to get back to its own self). It eventually dies because its consciousness is 'smashed' by its past consciousness and lost in the process, losing its link with the present time.
          • The end result is the same and cannot be changed; Eloise learns how to run the maze. She either learns from her future self or Daniel Faraday taught her. If she learns from her future self she dies when she catches up to that future self (or maybe she dies regardless because of all the EMP watts pumped in her head everyday...assuming this wasn't the first time Daniel zapped her). Actually, a resolution to this paradox would be that she forgets how to run the maze when she catches up to her future self and then Daniel has to re-teach her. Her future self knew how to run the maze in the first place because Daniel taught her, but since he doesn't teach her the second time around she forgets when she catches up to that time.
            • You can change the cause but not the effect. Just like Desmond was able to delay the timing and method of Charlie's death but not the fact that he died, Daniel is able to move up how and when Eloise learned the maze, but not the fact that she learned it.
            • When Daniel used the machine on Eloise, her mind was sent to one hour to the future. One hour in the future, Daniel teaches her how to pass the maze. She returns to the past, and passes the maze. After Desmond passes out (during 75 minutes), the hour passes and the past Eloise arrives at her body. Daniel notices this (because she doesn't know how to pass the maze) and teaches her - as it was supposed to happen. Her mind returns to the past. But during this hour she made other time travels. This made her die at some point in time (since Desmond passed out during 75 in which 60 minutes were the time for the past Eloise appear in her body, and Daniel teaching her how to pass the maze [in 10 minutes, perhaps?], she, in some point of time during 5 minutes before Desmond awakening, died).
    • Frank saw himself on the island (as he is right now) and saw himself talking to someone about the crash of Oceanic flight 815 (which is entirely possible). He saw this when he time-jumped, assumed that he was the pilot and had crashed, and so decided that he couldn't fly the plane, thinking that he averted ending up on the island. But in fact, he didn't change the future, because his vision of being on the island and talking about a crash to someone came true.
    • If you cannot change the future, then Desmond's events in 1996 wouldn't have had any bearing on the future. However, Daniel's notebook contains his name as his "constant". This means that when Desmond is in the past, he is affecting the future to some degree.
• You can change the future. If Miss Hawking was telling the truth, than why was she so adamant about Desmond giving back the ring and not marrying Penny, and why would she say "if you don't push the button, we're all dead."? If this course correction were absolute and nothing could change the future, she would not have been so worried, and in fact would not have needed to intercede in Desmond's affairs at all, as it all would have turned out the same anyway. It is more likely that her appeal to Desmond was manipulation, more that he must not change the future for the sake of the world, than he cannot change the future at all. We have seen that course correction may work for certain things (Charlie is going to die), but not other things (how will Charlie die). This example is important in that Charlie's death at a certain moment changed the course of events; had Desmond failed to save him all those other times, the events in the Looking Glass would not have taken place as we saw them, and the freighter people might not have found the island.
  • Unless Ms. Hawking is the course correction. Fate sent her to ensure Desmond doesn't change something so major as marrying Penny and avoiding the Island altogether.
    • Good point, however, perhaps she recognized him as a time traveler and wanted to "teach" him how to "behave". Also, if Desmond would have let "Chah-Lee" die the first time, him and someone else would have gone down there and may have gotten the code from the Others that were there (because they knew the code...when the one was dying she started to tell Charlie the numbers but then told him it was "Good Vibrations"). Also, perhaps the timeline was what we saw. Desmond was supposed to try to save Charlie until his vision of Claire getting on the helicopter popped up.
    • Mrs. Hawking is working for Charles Widmore.
• Whether or not something/someone has "changed" the future is impossible to say unless one's perspective is from outside of time altogether. Otherwise, all one can ever know is what is; all actions go to establishing the flow of time as it must be. What, to one person, would appear to be a change is, to another, simply the sequence of events. Thinking about it in terms of "change" assumes a straight "point A to point B" timestream, while in reality there's no reason to deny eddies and swirls within the stream, wherein it flows from point A in a circle back to point A, and this is completely natural. Faraday and Ms. Hawking both say that one can't "change" time because no matter what one does, it's what one was supposed to do: hence, no paradoxes. Ms. Hawking was so adamant about Desmond doing what she told him to do because this is the path of least resistance, and she (and those associated with her) are trying to see/reach something further along in the timestream; they want Desmond to continue moving along the timestream rather than spinning in an isolated spot.
• The universe course-corrects towards certain checkpoints in time on which the situation of everything in the universe for that moment or that period in time is unchangeable. This has to do with the specific windows in time on which the Island is reachable as well as with the constants people need to keep a grip on the flow of time. Desmond is special because is one that get's to choose to which checkpoint the universe will course-correct itself. This makes his time line, his perception of what came first and what came after, the only one that can't possibly be changed.

Time-traveling and side-effects

• The confusion experienced by those who travel between past and future (1996 Desmond freaking out in 2004) is the sickness that Rousseau's team experienced. If her team members were acting the way Desmond was in The Constant, this could be portrayed by someone who did not know what was happening as them going crazy. To protect herself and the life of her then unborn child, she killed these seemingly dangerous crew members.
  • The research Rousseau's team was doing involved exposure to radiation, which Danielle avoided while she was pregnant. This explains how she was the only member of the team who was not affected as they approached the island.
  • This could be why pregnant women died on the island before giving birth. Their child starts to experience consciousness-travel (to the future when they are adults) before even being born and thus dying without finding their constant and killing the mother with him creating a paradox.
    • Remember however, that the consciousness time travel that affected Desmond and Minkowski only occurred when they went to the island, then went off of the island to the freighter, traveling along the wrong bearing (deviating slightly from 305). There was nothing in Rousseau's story about her crew that indicated they went off the island at any point (in fact, just the opposite, she has never been off the island to our knowledge, so it seems unlikely that any of them were).
      • Disagree, because in "Flashes before your eyes", the consciousness of future Desmond probably traveled back to the past, and it was not just a vivid dream. He does that just by turning the safe key, and not going off Island.
        • But Daniel Faraday says rather explicitly that the "side effects" (Desmond's consciousness time travel) are a result of leaving the island on the wrong bearing, and that had they been able to stay on that bearing of 305, he would have been fine.
        • Also, what happened to Desmond in Flashes Before Your Eyes is not exactly the same thing as what happened to him in this episode, though the two are obviously related. In season three, Desmond's consciousness from the present traveled back in time once, for an extended period of time, then traveled back to the present. In this episode, Desmond's consciousness from 1996 traveled into the future, than proceeded to uncontrollably jump back and forth in time; while these two things are similar, they are not the same. The first instance was apparently caused by a concentrated dose of electromagnetism released by turning the failsafe key, while the second was caused (as stated by Faraday) by someone with electromagnetic exposure leaving the island on an incorrect bearing. Note that there was no worry of brain death or need of constants in the first experience.
• Memory loss is the mind's way of fighting the sickness -- or "course correcting" to avoid the effects of being unstuck in time. Loss of memory protects the individual from going crazy and suffering the brain aneurysm that poor Eloise (and possibly George) suffered. This is the reason Desmond temporarily lost his memory and Daniel has memory issues -- subconscious self-preservation.

Time-traveling and The Others

• The island inhabitants have worked out how to exploit its distortions of time/space. Because of the potentially disastrous repercussions of reckless behavior, they keep their expertise secret (including hiding the existence of their skill from outsiders, rivals, or malicious enemies). The Others' interest in the survivors of Oceanic 815 stems from a need to identify people who have been affected by their passage to the Island, both positively and negatively - the ones that might be useful, and the ones that might be dangerous.
  • And this is maybe the whole premise of the show; the struggle between different clans, possibly Dharma, the natives and the oceanic survivors to in some way influence future world events that can in some way endanger the entire human race.

Time

• Time moves at the same rate both on and off the island, but, as Faraday said, time is "perceived" differently on the island.
  • Reason: The date on the boat (Dec 24) is very, very close to the number of days they have been on the island (by Lostpedia count, the date of "The Constant" would be Dec 27, not 24), which is just an error on either the writer's or Lostpedia contributors.
    • The date on the boat may actually be Dec 26. Minkowski said the communications equipment had been destroyed 2 days earlier and no one had been in the communications room since to mark the calendar
    • Or part of the time anomaly that has not been explained.
  • Reason: With all the talk of black holes and such, the perception of time depends on one's relative velocity. The helicopter, which moved at a slow speed away from the island appeared to take days to reach the ship to the people on the island. The projectile traveled much faster and took only 30 minutes. The phone's data traveled at the speed of light and arrived instantly.
  • Reason: When Desmond calls Penelope from the freighter she says during the conversation that she has been looking for him for the last 3 years. This would suggest that time is moving at the same rate due to previous information pertaining to Desmond being on the island for the last 3 years.

• Time moves at the same rate both on and off the island (as it must). It is only while traveling between the two that the difference occurs (see special relativity).time dilation by which time is condensed for the person or object that is traveling to/from the island, i.e., time appears to move slower for persons or objects in motion.
  • Scientific Support: Time dilation is an accepted scientific theory that is a central part of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
  • Minkowski (spelled same as the character) spacetime is the mathematical setting used to solve Einsten's equations of special relativity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space). If (special) relativistic time dialation was occurring, it would be observed for massive objects (objects with mass, ie - the rocket and helicopter) but not for radio signals traveling at the speed of light. BUT at the speeds (<< speed of light) of the rocket and helicopter, the time dialation according to special relativity would be minimal (fractions of a second), not minutes or hours. Time dialation may be occurring due to general relativity (curvature in Minkowski spacetime) due to some unknown source - this would explain the precise bearing required (and the extra numbers) to navigate the helicopter.
    • Time moves at the same rate, but time between any two points on & off the island is not in sync. Thus a zone of distortion exists around the island bridging the time difference. The distortion of time changes depending on the position where one encounters it (a non-uniform 'time field') by heading back at the same speed and heading as one entered the 'field' you would be shifted by the same amount of time ( +30 mins on the way in, -30 mins on the way out). Going at different speeds and directions will cause you to arrive in a different time then you left ( -10 hours on the way in, +5 mins of time on the way back out).

(see Black hole (theory))

• • Factual Application/Support:
    • The missile loses 31 minutes traveling to the island.
    • The helicopter loses a day going back to the freighter.
  • The amount of the time dilation is likely related to the bearing used and the speed of the object moving.
  • Time dilation does not have any direct effect on radio signals passing through the electromagnetic gateway. That is why they are able to communicate with the freighter using the satellite phones in real time.
    • Energy/Matter moving at, or near, the speed of light is not subject to the time-field around the object

• The island's time moves differently than the rest of the world.
  • Reason: Sayid mentioned to Frank that they left the island at dusk, and when they arrived on the freighter it was in the middle of the day.
  • Reason: No one actually confirms what day it is off the island.
  • Reason: The Calendar is meant to keep up with the time that the Survivors have been on the Island since the crash, not a real-time/off-the-Island calendar.
    • Penny is phoning in front of a Christmas tree
      • It may be around Christmas, but not necessarily 2004. If time on the island moves slower than time off the island, it could actually be 2005 or 2006.
        • Penny did say "I have been trying to look for you for 3 years" so maybe it is Christmas 2007 not 2004.
          • Surely Penny is looking for Desmond before Oceanic 815, maybe since she saw him last time or since he disappear at the race around the world (she knows something about it by her father). That's why she have an listening station at the pole and look for Des by radio, heard by the freighter.

• The calendar date should not be trusted. When the writers go to the trouble of having a character point something out (Sayid's mention of how close to Christmas is it), it is almost never an idle comment; there's more to the dates and times than we're seeing.

The shot

• The mixture Richard Alpert gave Juliet was to prevent time-split mind.
  • And Richard has made the journey back and forth from the Island several times.
    • This doesn't explain why he looks so young. If he had spent a lot of time 'between' the island and the outside world, where time moves more slowly, you would expect him to look older, not younger.
    • The Richard we have seen both on and off the island is one Richard traveling through time. He's found a constant. Maybe the island is his constant.
      • But Desmond's body doesn't time travel, just his consciousness. How does Richard get his body to time travel?
        • Richard might be using the same technology that we saw in the orientation video for The Orchid
  • The mixture was simply a sedative. If a person is without a consciousness at the moment they cross the barrier then their consciousness cannot time-split.
• Desmond was taking shots of something during his time in the Swan. It is possible that constant administration of this drug helps keep one 'stuck'.
  • This is the same shot they gave to Aaron when Claire was being "treated" by Ethan Rom.
    • Daniel asks if Desmond has been exposed to radiation or electromagnetic energy. This implies that the exposure is the trigger for the time travel not that it's a normal thing that happens to people on the island.

Good People vs. Bad People

• The Others have a list of 'good people' and 'bad people', and seem quite concerned about it. Perhaps the 'bad people' are those who are 'unstuck in time' like Desmond and Minkowski, and so need to be quarantined because they have the ability to change the past/future, and so are pretty dangerous.
  • Daniel says you can't change the future.
    • "Can't change the future" means the future is fated. It doesn't rule out changing the past. And Daniel could be wrong.
    • Seeing the note about Desmond in his journal proved that the future can be changed.
      • It is quite possible that the note itself proves that Faraday did remember Desmond's arrival to the university quite well. Furthermore, it may imply that Faraday is a time traveler who just cured himself by ensuring his constant (which has been there from the beginning) met him in the past. Last but not least, the note itself makes little sense at all, as there's no guarantee for the past Faraday that Desmond had survived his unstuck consciousness.
• There is a somewhat simpler concept. Perhaps if the Island has the capacity to facilitate time-travel, someone able to fully control this power (the Others) could use it to see the future, but possibly only to a limited extent of seeing the individual futures of individual people (tracking their time-line in a sense). In this way, by whatever value system they have, they can gauge anyone as good or bad as they have seen the totality of their life.

Penny's red-tincture painting

A tiny red-tinctured painting appears in both Penny's house in 1996 (behind Desmond's head) and Penny's house n 2004 (beside Penny when she answers Desmond's phone call). What's the significance of this painting, if any?

• It looks like a wedding picture (the bride and the groom).
• The picture is of Adam and Eve from Season One.
• It's a picture of Magnus Hanso and one of Penny's ancestors before the disappearance of the Black Rock.
• It's got no particular significance. It's just a painting Penny owns, and the creators have put it in the two scenes to create continuity between Penny-1996 and Penny-2004. After all, people tend to carry their possessions with them.
  • Perhaps the picture is Penny's constant that will play significantly in an upcoming episode.

Further unanswered questions

• When Desmond flashes forward, he experiences time compression (75 mins becomes 5 mins). However, when the mouse flashes forward, in a few seconds she learns the maze. What causes the difference?
  • The mouse doesn't learn the maze in a few seconds; its consciousness is away a few seconds, which is a different matter. The mouse is not seen learning the maze, only running it.
  • The difference may just be that a person has a more complicated brain than a mouse.
  • If we were to view the episode from the mouse's perspective (Eloise) it would have learned how to run the maze in normal time, then at some point it would have had a flashback (similar to Desmond's) and found itself back at the beginning of the maze. But this time, because it has already been taught how to run it, it doesn't need to learn it again. So it appears to Desmond and Daniel that it automatically runs the maze without learning.
  • It's clear that there is a difference in the perceived passage of time from one setting to another; Desmond appears to be in the future for a mere 5 minutes, but Daniel has him timed at close to 75 minutes gone; the mouse appears to be "gone" for mere seconds while sitting in the maze, but would have taken a much longer period in the future learning the maze. So what accounts for the differences in the passage of time?
  • There seems to be no constant relation between past time and future time in a jump. In Faraday's office 75 minutes in the past was compressed to 5 minutes in the future; when picking up the coin in the rain a brief moment in the past expanded to a longer time in the future.
• If past Desmond's consciousness was time traveling to the present, why wasn't he sick in the past (i.e. nose bleeding)? Alternatively, if present-day Desmond's consciousness was time traveling to the past, why couldn't he remember anything about the present? It seems present-day Minkowski's consciousness was time traveling. He was sick in the present and he remembered the present.
  • If Minkowski was traveling to the future, then his future consciousness would remember his present situation, and that would explain why he didn't suffer memory loss.
    • But Minkowski has no future self to travel to, because he dies on that day. There is not much of a future to travel to for him. He's more likely to have been traveling to the past.
• Which way did Minkowski's consciousness travel? Since he died shortly after traveling - thus having no future, was it past?
  • He went into the past. When Desmond saw his "future" self in the mirror, Minkowski mentioned that Desmond must look older now.
    • Or when Minkowski's 2004 consciousness went into the future, he saw himself older in a mirror, and remembered this experience when his consciousness returned to 2004 and he mentioned it to Desmond.
• When an individual's consciousness travels into the past, where does his past-self's consciousness go? The answer is that it goes nowhere: the past and future minds are present in a single brain, with one or the other predominating. In Minkowski's case, the 2004 Minkowski remained conscious during his time-oscillations. In Desmond's case, while it was his future consciousness that traveled back from 2004 to 1996, the shock of finding himself back in time caused Desmond's future mind to shut down, leaving his past mind with a few confused images of the helicopter. For the remainder of the episode, it is 1996 Desmond who is active, while 2004 Desmond is in a catatonic state. Finding his Constant, a person of great importance in both 1996 and 2004, allows Desmond's brain to integrate both 1996 mind and 2004 mind into a single, unified whole. The interesting thing about this is, whereas 2004 Desmond would be relatively unchanged, 1996 Desmond might well have the memories of 2004 Desmond, just as if 2004 Desmond had physically replaced himself in the past.
  • The producers have said that 1996 Desmond traveled to the future. 2004 Desmond did not travel to the past. We still have no answer as to where/when his 2004 consciousness was while his 2004 body was occupied by his 1996 consciousness, and the episode ended before we could see any repercussions of the entire ordeal on the fully restored 2004 Desmond.
    • So if it was 1996 Desmond traveling into 2004, then I assume that the very first time skip (from the helicopter into the barracks) was 1996 Desmond returning to himself. So if that's the case, then how long was 1996 Desmond in 2004 prior to that? Has it been since the turning of the failsafe key? Maybe when he first crossed over the island's barrier when he came to the island during the boat race? Before that even?
      • 1996 Desmond was asleep the first time his consciousness traveled to the future (while 2004 was in the helicopter). Because he was asleep, his consciousness did not take over the body (or push 2004's consciousness out, or whatever happened); instead, the 1996 consciousness experienced the 2004 reality as a dream. The next leap forward, though, was while 1996 Desmond was conscious, and thus freaked him out.
        • The only way that works is if 1996 Desmond briefly (and I mean, briefly) traveled to 2004 in the helicopter--just long enough for him to look around and see that he's in a helicopter, anyway--and then immediately return to his body in 1996. Is that what you're proposing? I didn't watch that part of the episode closely enough to see if that's maybe what happened. That actually makes sense now that I think about it, because the helicopter seems to be the only thing 1996 Desmond remembers when he's asked what he was dreaming about. He doesn't say anything like, "I dreamt that I was on a world boat race, and then crashed on an island, and then started pushing a button, and then..." etc. etc.
• What is the significance of the year 1996 for Desmond? When The Swan exploded, he went back to 1996, with memories of the future (or present, however you look at it - 2004). And as a result of this "side effect" he's also sent back to 1996, slightly later in the year.
• What exactly transpired between Penny and Desmond following their conversation at her new home in 1996? When he leaves her, he states the intention to leave her alone and not call her until Dec 24, 2004; yet he sends her letters the whole time he's in prison (intercepted by Charles Widmore). And Widmore also feels significantly concerned enough about continued contact to offer Desmond a sizeable bribe to walk away and never attempt to contact Penny again. Why? And what makes her want to track him down at the stadium and ask why he never wrote her?
  • Not only that, but right after Desmond gets Penny's phone number, his consciousness makes a final trip to 2004, where he calls Penny. But at the same time, they show a scene of Desmond leaving Penny's house in 1996. So it would seem that Desmond's consciousness split into two--one staying in 1996 and one time skipping forward to 2004.
    • That's right. So maybe that was our clue that him contacting Penny from the future resolved the side-effect of consciousness jumping, and he's restored his consciousness in both time periods. Will his memory of 2004 and the events on the island return?
      • I'm just wondering if it's not so much a split as it is that the consciousness of 2004 Desmond that seemingly disappeared in the helicopter reappeared later after Desmond established his constant at the end of the episode. The problem with that though is when you start trying to figure out when it would have reappeared. It wouldn't be able to reappear until after Desmond establishes his constant in 2004, but there was no indication in the episode that his 2004 consciousness returned right at that moment. It was more seamless and fluid, giving no indication in a change of consciousness. Another possibility (although I don't really buy into it), is that instead of splitting into two at Penny's place, 1996 Desmond went into 2004 and stayed there, while back in 1996, 2004 Desmond's consciousness appeared and took over. All throughout the episode, you only see one consciousness in control at any given time. It's not until that final time skip at Penny's house that you see both of Desmond's bodies in both times still conscious. So far, there is every indication that 1996 Desmond is now in 2004 to stay and never returned. One thing that keeps popping into my head is that scientific theory that energy doesn't cease to exist, it just gets transferred. So I don't believe that 2004 Desmond ceased to exist--it went somewhere! I don't know, the more I think about it, the more I fear that the writers didn't think this part through all the way (oh, the horror!) and that despite their shared loathing of paradoxes they have ended up creating one anyway. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
• Was Desmond exposed to radiation or electromagnetism prior to that evening in 1996 in the barracks?
  • If he was, why didn't his consciousness return to that point in time instead?
  • If he wasn't, how was he able to time skip into the future?
• If Desmond's consciousness returned to 1996 from 2004 (instead of the other way around), how long prior to the helicopter trip had his consciousness been in the future?
• If Daniel's so sure that the future can't be changed, why does he warn Desmond about traffic if he knows that Desmond will be alive in 2004?
• Even though we see a 2004 calendar on the freighter, is it still possible that for the people on the freighter and the rest of the world it's much later? Perhaps the calendar is not a method for the people on the freighter to keep time for themselves, but to keep track of what date the people on the island think it is. Perhaps the differing rates of time between the island and the rest of the world have been calculated already, so the people on the freighter know when to cross off a day on the calendar.
• When Desmond was exposed to electromagnetism after turning the failsafe key, he skipped time just once. Is it possible that on the island if you're exposed to radiation or electromagnetism that the full effects are put on "pause" until you try to leave the island? Perhaps everyone else who was exposed to the resulting electromagnetism from the Swan's explosion is also on "pause", like ticking time bombs waiting to go off the second they try to leave the island.
• Is the 'sickness' that Rousseau spoke of the same as what Desmond and Minkowski experienced?
  • My brother-in-law wonders the same thing. I think I read somewhere on this site that it could be explained by the fact that the team of scientists that Rousseau was with might have been getting exposed to radiation on a regular basis, thus unsticking them in time. Since Rousseau was pregnant at the time, she probably would have stayed away from the radiation, thus explaining how she survived. I think it's very plausible. This all happened in the Dark Territory where Rousseau claims that the scientists got sick. This is also where the Black Rock is.
• If memories are basically neural pathways created in the brain at the time something is experienced, how could Eloise's consciousness return to its body and remember something that its brain had not yet experienced? In other words, if memories are based in the physical brain rather than a person's mind (getting into issues of dualism here), then it wouldn't matter what time your consciousness came from since it would be limited to whatever neural pathways were present in the brain at that time. Obviously the writers aren't going for this scenario, but it's just something to think about. A possible consequence of this is that it could create a paradox in the Eloise situation. She gets sent into the future, where she learns the maze. But when she comes back, she starts time skipping and eventually dies. Now, we don't know if Daniel ever got around to actually training her how to get through the maze. But if he didn't, how did she learn it? Did she go to an alternate future where she didn't die and Daniel was able to train her? I don't get the impression that the writers are dealing with alternate futures and all that, but these questions have to be answered. It's one thing for the universe to make course corrections when someone's death is delayed (like in Charlie's), but it can't course correct when someone dies prematurely. Once someone's dead, they're dead. Unless...
• Does the device settings (2,342) that Faraday mentioned to Desmond have any significance to the Swan computers numbers? The last pair of these are 23 and 42. Faraday's numbers: 2,342. Does this mean 23 and 42 in the numbers represents some kind of time failure for the world?
• Why Desmond and not anybody else on O815? I can't remember all of the intricacies of the flashbacks - Has every single one of the oceanic survivors on the island met one of the other survivors at some point? If so, they would all have constants, but is it true? What about Henry Gale? Or any of the losties before they found each other (like Jack in the jungle in the pilot)? Bernard also moved to the rear of the plane, amongst people he might not have met yet in the flight. Charlie also moved at the last moment. Did they experience "time travel?" Cindy the flight attendant and the pilot would have met everyone, pretty much, but they were abducted by the Others early on and killed, respectively.

v • d • e Theories for Season 4 Episodes Theories in general "The Beginning of the End" • "Confirmed Dead" • "The Economist" • "Eggtown" • "The Constant" • "The Other Woman" • "Ji Yeon" • "Meet Kevin Johnson" • "The Shape of Things to Come" • "Something Nice Back Home" • "Cabin Fever" • "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1" • "There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3" Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 5 • Season 6