Faraday’s Notebook, a Paradox?
If you’ve look at my other posts on the subject of paradox’s, I’ve found a handful of objects or pieces of information which are paradoxes. These objects and ideas seem to be contained within a circular movement between two distinct times, with no origin outside of that circle. I’m calling it a “closed loop paradox” to represent the fact that the objects or information are trapped within that circle.
One of those pieces of information was a number that was in Faraday’s book. He told Desmond to remember the number and to recite it to his younger self to prove that he had spoken to his older self. This number turns out to be variable that allows his mock-up time machine to move a mouse’s brain into the future. The knowledge the mouse gains of the maze is a second paradox because the mouse doesn’t have to learn the maze, it just knows it.
So now we have the notebook itself. Eloise gave Daniel the empty notebook as a graduation gift in “normal time”, so there is no paradox there. Daniel spends his time after graduation persuing time-travel experiments. We know that young Daniel was pushed aggressively by his mother to do everything he does in his life, and although we don’t know for sure if she pushed him to study time-travel, we can assume she did. And we do know that Daniel claims that his mother is the only other person alive who understands time travel.
Fast forward to young Eloise shooting Daniel in the back. We don’t know yet, but we can assume that young Eloise studies Daniel’s notebook. Proof: All of her Destiny talk. Every time she steers Daniel in a specific direction or away from a girl (she knows that his relationships all end in tragedy) it’s because of what she read in the book.
So where is the paradox? Left to his own devices, young Daniel Faraday might have become a musician. He was molded by his mother to become a physicist, and it’s possible that he built on top of her own research, which of course was all fueled by what she read in the journal. So if his research is based on her research, and her research is based on the Journal of his research…. then where did the ideas come from? They didn’t! Time-travel off of the island is a paradox that cannot happen, which is possibly what causes rats and lab assistants to die and go crazy. It’s not the time-travel itself that makes people sick, it’s the fact that it’s a paradox, something that shouldn’t be known and shouldn’t be possible that makes people sick.
The paradox is an excellent theory…
i dont think he built upon his own research. i doubt she told him anything from the book besides things like all your girls are gonna die.
eko, yeah it’s a long shot… but she doesn’t have to directly TELL him. All she has to do is publish her own research or make it available for him to read. The fact that she has pushed him so hard in this direction will do the job of leading him to “her” research, which might turn out to actually be his own notes that she spent a life-time reverse engineering… thus the paradox. He has mentioned several times how smart his mother is and that she knows about time-travel which indicates that he has either looked at her research or spoken to her about the subject directly.
For Cuse and Lindeloff to claim they are so paradox averse, there does appear to be a slew of them popping up this season.
Ha! Seriously! What’s funny is that there are a handful of possible paradox’s that could be explained away with only seconds of footage, while there are others… and especially the information in Daniel’s book which are starting to mold into certifiable impossibilities!
I am not sure i like the idea of Eloise Hawking being Biff Tanen…
🙂
Hahaha, well it’s certainly on the magnitude of getting World Series’s scores from the future to make your younger self rich in the past… although it’s wrapped up into one timeline instead of two.
I don’t think this is a paradox because, his knowledge was gained from college professors and his own studies. its not like she directly told him everything.
bill and ted calling Rufus: Rufus, is a paradox. cuz nobody told them his name is Rufus, just themselves.
I don’t think there are many college professors who have much experience with actual real time travel. I mean sure, in the mythical LOST universe, he could have taken classes under several imminent professors who have personally undertaken time travel… but that same logic also says that there is a TV-land cop-out to every question on the show. Given what we know about the real world, with the Island being the major thing which is going against what we know about the real world, the only person qualified to teach Daniel anything about time travel of any actual revelant use would be the person reading lines out of his own research. See what I mean? It’s not like a dozen different scientists have stumbled on the answer to time travel before… just this one, and just using information that may very well have come through a loop in time to get to him.
Yes, there are plenty of possible paradoxs (paradoxi?) floating around but they are just that. Possible. Not confirmed. The compass? Possible but easily explained. Locke’s status as leader of the Others? Possible, but easily explained. The notebook? Well, the notebook itself is confirmed not as a non-paradox since it was new and blank when Hawking gave it to him. The ideas she may have found in it in 1977? Possible paradox, but easily explained. She could have published based on his work but we could easily do away with the paradox by simply saying that she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t even understand what’s written in that notebook.
Sure, it could all be explained away, but this one is a whopper. Did she not understand what was in the journal? Hmmm… well I mean you COULD say that, but it would go against what we already know. What we know is that young Ellie is a trigger happy Other… we don’t know if she knows anything about science. But old lady Eloise is well versed in physics and specifically time travel. She also specially says several things that indicate she read the journal, such as the quip about him not having good relations with girls and the whole destiny thing. I think it’s pretty self evident that she read the book. The simple fact that she forced him to stop playing piano and made him focus on science is just the tip of the iceberg. She doesn’t even HAVE to understand physics for it to be a paradox. The simple facts that she forced him to go into science instead of music, and pushed him away from women, and gave him the book are all parts of the paradox. Yes, even her giving him the book is a paradox! Why? Because she got him the book she knew she was supposed to give him and signed it the way she was supposed to. If someone else had given him the book, if someone else had pushed him into physics, like a mentor or teacher, easy, not a paradox. But it’s all events that are self-contained within a circle of time revolving around that book and the information in it. What comes out of the book? What comes out of living a life-time molding your actions around the insights found in a paradox? Aweful things. How did Widmore even discover the island to begin with? Could it be our little paradox with it’s notes on bearings and directions could have lead him right to it? After all, if Daniel’s mother read the journal, what about his father? Maybe Widmore and Eloise both knew every single thing that was going to happen? Maybe Widmore’s thread to Ben of coming back to the island wasn’t a hollow threat, it was just him telling him what was going to happen???
Ok, so Hawking reading the journal greatly increases the risk of paradox. Then she doesn’t read it. The thing is I don’t remember her ever displaying any kind of understanding of physics and time travel. Sure, she knows time travel is possible but that seems to be about the extent of it.
I think she has some reason for pushing Daniel to get into science and it isn’t the notebook. It could be something she knows he’ll do in the 1970’s with the DHARMA Initiative that will require his great knowledge of time travel and whatnot. Who knows? But it must be something very important because she knows that in order for him to do it he’ll be put into the situation in which she knows he will die.
She pushes him away from music and women because he needs to focus on science because he has work to do that will require all of that study.
From a transcript site:
“ELOISE: Your gift, Daniel, is your mind–a mind that is meant for science, mathematics. And it’s my… job to keep you on your path. So… unfortunately, there’s no more time…
[Eloise eyes the keyboard.]
ELOISE: …for distractions.
DANIEL: But I want to keep playing the piano. I can do both. I can make time.
ELOISE: If only you could. ”
(It’s interesting her use of words… it’s not her duty as a parent, it’s her JOB, it’s what she has to do to fulfill destiny)
“MS. HAWKING: I’m sorry to tell you, Daniel, but you’re not going to have time for relationships. The women in your life will only be terribly hurt.
FARADAY: What does that mean?
MS. HAWKING: It means that your work will always comes first, that’s all. ”
(The last quote is followed shortly by her giving him the blank notebook. Notice she says WILL, not might, not maybe, not possibly, but WILL)
“WIDMORE: Unfortunately, Eloise, my relationship with Penelope is one of the things I had to sacrifice.
MS. HAWKING: Sacrifice? Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles. I had to send my son back to the Island, knowing full well that–
WIDMORE: He was my son, too, Eloise.”
Of course she knows that Daniel was a certain age in 1977 and he looks just like he does when she send him off… but how did she know that him going with Widmore would bring him to 1977… after all, Widmore was going to the island in 2004! The only way she could have known that and the only way she could have known that her putting Daniel on Widmore’s boat would bring him to 1977 would be if she read the book.
“Dear notebook. Today I’m getting on the freighter to head to this magical island where my mother insists that my memory problems will be healed at last!”
“Dear notebook. Damn helicopter crashed. I’m stuck on this island with these people we found here… This woman Kate is pretty cute but she hasn’t showered in months and he leg hair is out of control…”
“Dear notebook. Disabled the gas at the Tempest today. Juliet and Charlotte were wrestling and it was super hot! It was getting a little steamy inside my gas mask…”
“Dear notebook. The sky is flashing with bright lights and we’re jumping through time. I wonder where we’ll end up. I hope it’s the ’70s because I really love to roller skate…”
“Dear notebook. Sure enough, it’s 1974. I’m headed to Ann Arbor to study and smoke pot for a couple years… I’ll be back though around 1977 sometime. I hope I don’t get killed on this island…”
I don’t think anything like that appears in Dan
You’re such a smartass Highbrow. Funny, but smartass.
Okay, of course that’s not what he wrote, but he did write: “In case anything happens, Desmond Hume is my constant.” So, I think there would have been more than mathematical formulas in there for her to figure a few things out about his work, the people he encounters, etc.
I don’t think the journal is necessarily her means though. This is where the discussion Dabs post was good for talking about Hawking’s ‘foresight.’ Journal was helpful, but probably limited. I think she’ll also be getting some insight from Jackie boy, among other things.
Sure the island is associated with time travel, but why push Daniel to be a physicist? So far all she knows about this guy is that he showed up once and said some not really very technical stuff about burying a bomb (knowledge that anyone from the future could possibly know) and then showed up again 20 years later asking where they buried it. If anything, what she knows about Daniel is that he time travels and he’s strangely obsessed with nuclear bombs.
kim, you might be right about Jack and Kate filling in her gaps, but the two of them missed all of the important stuff… they just went to a creepy high-tech sayaunce with old Eloise and then got on an airplane and woke up in a jungle. Other than giving her the directions to find the Lamppost, Jack is pretty useless on the topic of time travel I think… remember, the only they THEY know about Daniel is that he arrived on Widmore’s boat and talked funny, then they were gone for 3 years and he shows up in a timely fashion to be part of the exodus.
My idea of why she pushed him to be a physicist is unfortunately buried in the middle of a long smart ass comment (yes, I’m a smart ass… it’s a point of pride). His research in Ann Arbor is probably pivotal and Hawking knows that. She feels like it’s her job the make sure he’s prepared for that.
pjdkrunkt, I like the idea, that Ms. Hawking and Daniel are playing off of one another’s knowledge and information contained in Daniel’s journal.
What is presently difficult to ascertain is, the sequence of these events. Which came first, and what and who inspired who and what.
The viewers are not seeing the story in a linear fashion, making it fairly difficult to pinpoint where it all initially began.
I guess the real question about Jack who now has possession of the journal is, will this be enough for him to figure out what he needs to!
As a Doctor, Jack may have enough background to do this, with the assistance of somebody else who may come to his aid!
I would tend to think that in the 3 years Daniel was in Ann Arbour, he may have made some very specific notes and instructions.
At least we hope this turns out to be the case!
Nice post!
I do certainly agree with both of you that whatever happened in Ann Arbor is going to be relevant… which means I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Daniel, he may be dead (or he may not) but regardless, flashbacks have always been an important part of the style of the show by keeping the audience either up to speed with characters inner turmoil, or shedding light on things the characters themselves are ignorant of… such as all the connections with Christian that are still unknown to Jack.
It’s also interesting that we don’t know what the Incident is still, and while we can guess that Daniel spend his “free time” calculating the energy magnitude of the Swan, he couldn’t possibly know if his attempt to stop it would actually stop it or create the situation itself!
If they detonate the bomb and it averts the incident then no problem.. but if they detonate it and it turns out that it is the cause of the incident then I don’t think they would have been able to build the Swan Station because of the radiation and the crater and whatnot. My guess is that they don’t detonate it…
Wait, isn’t there a crater?
pjdkrunkt, I think perhaps it may be a little of both, in terms of Daniel.
I am certain this is why he wanted to speak with Ms. Hawking. He was going to advise he had been previously wrong, and needed her help.
Thank you Mixen, I’ll look that up. “Closed Loop Paradox” is a cumbersome phrase. I do think it is a paradox in the sense that it is impossible…. objects or ideas with no clear origin. Looking up types of Paradox’s I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_paradox
It is interesting to note this is exactly the same kind of Paradox as “I am my own Grandfather” and their may be more lurking in the dusty corners of Lost as well. Ben’s obsession with Julia would be another example.
Also note that the 4th example is almost exactly the situation we have, except that the information does not pass linearly from notebook to notebook, but is (presumably) transferred by Eloise, through her own research… similar to the second example.
So really, the word “paradox” simply means something that is impossible… not nesesarily an event or statement that cancels itself out. Chicken or the egg is a classic example of a non-negative paradox, an apparently impossible to answer question.
Well, the “closed loop paradox” is only a paradox in that it prevents itself from being… Take the compass for example. It could be that Locke gave it to Richard and Richard then gave it to Locke but that’s impossible. We can rule out anything that’s impossible and we only run into problems when we’re left without any possibilities. But since we do have a scenario where the compass does have an origin that is possible it’s not an issue. We know that Richard had the compass before he met Locke and the he gave it to Locke and Locke gave it back to him.
Yeah I do think the compass falls out of that paradox schema, but other things have fallen in! 😉