You CAN change the future - Page 2

06:41 AM

I think what Daniel meant with "you can't change the future" is two-folded: 1) one cannot undo an action or intervene with an event that already happened: say if a vase is broken at point x in time, one can not go from point y, back to x and save it from the accident. It will happen the way it will, because it already has. 2) Yet, it seems one can go back and do an act anew, like adding a new point on the over all course of the line. Like you can go back and make a little prep-speech to your mom about the inevitability of random accidents

Nevertheless, if one wants to think a little further, a line is made up of points, so would not adding a new point amount to changing it anyways?

Some movies with related issues:

In Terminator, Kyle Reese comes from the future and impregnates Sarah Connor with the leader to be born and then dies in that present time he traveled to; although he's strangely the best friend of the young leader Connor in the future who is the one that sends Kyle back in the first place. So future-changing time travel was the case with this one.

With Back to the Future though, and I might be wrong about this, the adventures of Marty and Doc are additional events to the past already happened; they don't attempt to undo or intervene with what has already happened in the future.

Although not about time travel per se, Groundhog Day might be another movie with relevance (spoilers ahead). There the weather guy (Bill Murray) finds himself trapped in the same exact day running the same exact way over and over as he waits to report the groundhog's seasonal debut. First depressed then intrigued, he attempts to make happen the perfect day for him and his love interest (fellow reporter) by studying her ways every day and acting accordingly the next day. He breaks the vicious circle by going through the past with new additions and changes everyday, though what has happened happens the same way every time, and remains unaltered despite his numerous trials. There, of course, neither the character nor the audience meets with the future beforehand, so the general feel is that future won't arrive unless you make it happen.

I think Daniel meant the same thing Desmond meant when he told Charlie he was going to die. You may change the way it happens but it will eventually happen. Also, the reason why Daniel did not "remember" that he wrote Desmond is his constant is because it did not happen prior to the island/freighter conversation. Desmond is living in two times simultaneously. If he found his constant then the flash back will stop. But he has to find that constant so every flash back starts a new page in history. So Daniel would not remember until Desmond "wrote history".

good points Aljoe07. Especially the one about Desmond living in two times simultaneously.. It's a suggestion with subtleties rather than the crude and painful imagining of time travel as jumping from one time to another (the often neglected question with that is of course, the question of spatiality; of different times as well as of Des' body.)

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Originally Posted by Aljoe07

I think Daniel meant the same thing Desmond meant when he told Charlie he was going to die. You may change the way it happens but it will eventually happen. Also, the reason why Daniel did not "remember" that he wrote Desmond is his constant is because it did not happen prior to the island/freighter conversation. Desmond is living in two times simultaneously. If he found his constant then the flash back will stop. But he has to find that constant so every flash back starts a new page in history. So Daniel would not remember until Desmond "wrote history".

So maybe the scenes we have seen of the "future" as Jack rather normal (in Hurley's flashforward) and Jack as an addict flying all over the world 9 in ihs) are maybe not one continous future- but different futures. All though I think maybe the producers may have mentioned something saying this isn't it- that you can't go back and change what you know will already happen- but I am not sure.

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I think Daniel meant the same thing Desmond meant when he told Charlie he was going to die. You may change the way it happens but it will eventually happen.

This was what Mrs. Hawking was telling Desmond as well. Her role was to "help fate" keep Desmond in the same direction while he re-lives his life. Even she says that "fate has a funny way of correcting the universe" - she is the embodiment of that very statement. Although I am beginning to think that you can change the future and Mrs. Hawking's purpose is to prevent people from knowing that.

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Desmond is living in two times simultaneously.

Excellent point. Rather than think of Desmond going back in time, I think it is more like he is jumping back and forth between two parallel-running timelines.

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Originally Posted by BeefJello

When Des first talked to Penny on the freighter you could kind of see a light go on inside his head - where he was finally grounded to the future (his new present time) and he remembered everything. I think the message in Daniels book wasn't there prior to Des' visit to Daniel. So...when Daniel finally read the message it was like a link to that new past and then it was his awakening to what had previously happened. Once he read the message he recalled the new events of the past as if they had happened all along. It was his link. I don't know if that makes sense, but it was just my gut feeling on what happened when he read that Des was his constant.

I like this explanation makes sence to me

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Originally Posted by LOSTOLIO

So maybe the scenes we have seen of the "future" as Jack rather normal (in Hurley's flashforward) and Jack as an addict flying all over the world 9 in ihs) are maybe not one continous future- but different futures. All though I think maybe the producers may have mentioned something saying this isn't it- that you can't go back and change what you know will already happen- but I am not sure.

that would be very interesting actually. I like this idea.

I took Faraday as saying, you can't change something that hasn't happened yet. For something to change, it must take form/happen first.
This time traveling conciousness thing makes my brain hurt...

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Originally Posted by BeefJello

I had this epiphany where I thought Ben's man on the boat was Sayid. I still can't explain it exactly, but I have this weird feeling that it will make sense. I think Ben has a better handle on this time stuff. He can go off island for a year and come back to the island and it would have only been a week. So, can he go get Sayid (rescued, O6 Sayid) and send him to the boat somehow using different coordinates? Does ben have that much control? I don't know. Anyone have a better explanation or am I just crazy? Both?

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Edit: Okay, now I know I'm just crazy...sorry. If Sayid was the man on the boat (future Sayid or otherwise) the crew would have recognized him. Oops...just over thinking things and then under thinking things. Oh, well. I guess I'm in the Michael is the man on the boat camp. Although, this is a discussion for another thread anyway...

Starting a new thread...

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FATE: 1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4. a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
5. death, destruction, or ruin.
6. the Fates, Classical Mythology. the three goddesses of destiny, known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae.
–verb (used with object) 7. to predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine (used in the passive): a person who was fated to be the savior of the country.

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FREE WILL: –noun 1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision: You took on the responsibility of your own free will.
2. Philosophy. the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.

I think this argument is going to come down to these two beliefs - fate vs. free will. The fatalists of the show (Mrs. Hawking) think that you cannot change the future. It would be interesting to make a list of who are the fatalists of the island and who are the free-willers. I wonder if this will ultimately determine who the O6 are?