splinters, and time travel to a point before vs. after one’s birth
I’m a new user here and haven’t read through everything posted to the site, so forgive the redundancy if this idea has been tossed around before…
but after watching five seasons and rewatching some episodes, I became a bit preoccupied by some characters as they stumbled onto themselves in the past, or when they seemed to co-exist for a time in the past with an earlier version of themselves… such as when miles and the others end up with the dharma group back in 1970 and miles sees himself as a baby.
so, I was born in 1973. if it’s 2007 and I travel back to 1996, I’ll be completely gone from 2007 forward but I (in my 2007 version) will exist in 1996 simultaneously with my 1996 version which, according to theories I think I agree with to some extent (such as some of the rules outlined at http://www.timelooptheory.com/the_timeline.html), will continue to age as my 2007 version does not, at least until it reaches 2007 again (which would maybe explain richard alpert). so there are two versions of me at that point and, if we both reach 2007, and thereafter, then there will continue to be two versions (even if I travel forward again, that other version of me will continue to exist, to progress forward, and there’s no guarantee that that other “earlier” version will ever travel back in time, especially if the 2007 version of me does something to disuade it – but our two versions will never merge, so to speak).
on the other hand, if I had traveled to 1970, three years before I was born, all would be well, but only for a few years until I was born in 1973 (then the same scenario above would proceed to unfold) – unless of course I somehow prevented that birth, which spins off somewhat in a separate direction, but suffice it to say, I don’t think that would eradicate my existence (the existence of my 2007 version), only the existence of that alternative “earlier” version of me.
essentially what I was thinking is that, when it comes to screwing around with time, traveling back through it, it doesn’t seem to me as though one can ever really return to the present one left, because when one travels back and steps out of time, one seems to veer off course forever from the original forward-moving timeline, like a splinter. and in that sense, one becomes lost.
I read another post here that this notion sort of ties into (https://www.theoriesonlost.com/2009/05/the-8th-day-of-creation-the-octagon-dharma-logo/), but wasn’t sure whether to post this one as a comment to that or just as a question, as this isn’t really a theory to sum up the show (which I’d rather not do any way – let it take its own course), and it might all be crap. no matter.
Hmmm… Great ideas, but I think you need to think this out better.
thanks. I realize it’s not fully baked so far as ideas go, but it’s something that’s been bothering me and I was curious whether anyone else had given it any thought, which is why I posted it in the questions section.
there seem to be competing notions of time travel – (1) the michael j. fox/back to the future version where, if you travel back and kill your mother (or prevent your mother and father from coupling) you will begin to evaporate and then cease to exist; and (2) the lost/farraday version, where your present is your present regardless of the time in which you’re currently existing.
I was going with the second, because the first doesn’t make much sense in the lost context and it’s also been more or less dismissed, I think, by farraday and other characters. so, going with the second, I was just stuck on the notion that multiple versions of a person can exist when that person splinters from the present and travels back to an earlier point in time, but a point after which they originally were born – as did miles in season 5, such that adult miles and baby miles co-exist… it also, for me, jibes with the run-ins sawyer, locke and some of the rest had with themselves just after ben turned the wheel and caused the island to keep jumping to different times, and it helps explain those whispers in the forest.
brianu, perhaps ‘the island’ is 4th dimensional, where past, present and future co-exist, simultaneously.
This could explain all of the ‘time’ elements.
We have already witnessed this, to some extent. In particular, when the Fake Locke sends Richard Alpert over to the ‘time flashing’ Locke in the past, and gives him the message he is going to have to die!
There are many theories on the the consequences of time travel. There has much debate on just which theory that the Lost writers are following, if they are indeed following just one theory. In ‘Whatever Happened, Happened’, which is also called fixed time theory, the time line cannot be altered no matter what. If you tried to prevent your own birth, you simply couldn’t no matter what you tried.
A second theory can be called ‘Multiple Universes Theory’ where you can travel into the past, but another universe will somehow branch off. Like you mentioned before, in this one, you could never travel back to the future that you came from. That is because you, the time traveler, have changed the course of history. You would be in another parallel universe.
My theory is something I call ‘Protected Traveler Theory’ others may call it something else. A past-going time traveler could change things in his past, even killing his mother when she was a young girl and he would still exist (unlike Back to the Future). There aren’t multiple parallel universes. However, you would change the course of history, and could in theory make it to where people and places that once existed, never exist.
The important thing to take from this as it pertains to Lost, is that we as an audience do not know for sure just what rules the writers of the show are following.
Thus the question of just what the ’77 losties did, and what are the consequences of what they did.
thanks… it was probably those theories I was thinking of – they sound familiar. and it makes sense, that is, that not much sense can be drawn perhaps from applying one of them to the show in hopes of figuring something out, because the writers haven’t clarified the applicable “rules” as it were. thanks again for the reply.