Non-linear Time = Non-linear Self
There's been quite a bit of confusion surrounding Desmond's experience in episode 4.5. One thing we need to establish is that when 1996-Des showed up in the story, 2004-Des vanished. But this really shouldn't have been so surprising, since in "Flashes Before Your Eyes" when 2004-Des found himself on the floor in his flat covered with paint, 1995-Des also, apparently, was gone.
What I think the writers are trying to demonstrate here is how experiencing non-linear time would LOOK to us who live in a very linear time-stream. When you think about it, our subjective experience of time is really measured by how we observe our selves changing from one moment to the next. So, with every moment in time that exists independent of all of the others there is a version of our "self" that exists for that moment independent of all of the others. So... imagine moments of time aren't on a line, but all jumbled up inside a bag. If we pick moments at random from the bag, and sometimes we'll pick "past" moments and sometimes we'll pick "future" moments, then we're also picking "past" selves or "future" selves at random.
Now, I think something else the writers are trying to say is that our linear experience of time IS completely subjective. So you can imagine this "bag of moments" I've described as existing completely in human minds. Therefore, "time travel" can really only BE "in consciousness", but it isn't just a matter of moving from one moment to another. It also involves moving from one self to another... or moving one self "out of the way" in favor of another. Whichever self "wins" when a "jump" is made, that self is regarded as traveling forward or backwards in time relative to the self's "normal" timeframe. So in "Flashes" we say Desmond traveled back. In 4.5 we say 1996 Desmond traveled forward.
All of this points to how time-bound the self really is. We couldn't have a concept of self without a concept of time. But if time is completely relative and LINEAR time is merely a subjective experience, then "self" is also fluid and non-linear in spite of how we experience it.
Get out ot the loop ;-)
What does Des remember?
What does Des remember
Oh Yeah...
When Des sees Penny outside the stadium they talk about the fact that she's supposed to be getting married and she asks him what he's running from---the whole conversation doesn't seem to go well. And yet she doesn't marry the guy and Des seems happy when he sees Jack. So I think when they see each other Des again remembers something from 2004--I don't know if he consciously conveys that to her and we don't see it or as his Constant she somehow gets that--but however it happens I think the fact of the 2004 phonecall enters into the end of that conversation and influences Penny not to go through with the marriage, and Des to be optimistic when he sees Jack. And the phrase--I'm sure it comes from that too, so yeah I agree, there has to be value.
The time travel blackouts--do you think that's what happened to Jack on the plane?
Wait... was the bleacher
Wait... was the bleacher scene before 1996?
What do you mean... why he ended up in the jungle?
Bleacher Scene
Think that was supposed to be in 2001. Same year as the boat race.
I don't think the blackout is why Jack wound up in the jungle--cause I don't think the mind travel affects where you are as you don't physically travel, but I'm wondering if his blackout is a sign that he did mind travel at the moment of the crash.
Bleacher scene
Ah, I see what you're saying. Unlike everyone else, Jack was unconscious after the crash. Oooh, and Locke was too, wasn't he? He "woke up" and wiggled his toes, and then was amazed that he COULD wiggle his toes...
OK, the reason I was wondering what year the bleacher scene took place is because Desmond wrote an infinite amount of letters to Penny when he was in prison (in which Mr. Widmore kept from her). And in the scene with Penny and Desmond at the bleachers, he tells her he'll be back in a year for her.
So my question is why would Des write letters to Penny and tell her he'd be back in a year if in the past he told Penny he wouldn't call her for 8 years?
Bleacher Scene
Bleacher scene
Hmmm... if *I* were the writers, I would have USED the bleacher scene to COMPLIMENT his time traveling. To where if one were to go back and rewatch, it would beautifully play out in relation to when he told Penny in 1996 he wouldn't call her for 8 years... except, we wouldn't see the art of it until we saw The Constant. Otherwise, it kinda renders it meaningless doesn't it? Eh, it's probably best I don't write the show, but I'm jus sayin'.
I think you're right... it would be easy for the writers to play with "time travel" if one of the side effects are memory problems.
Constants-Whispers-Ghosts
I'm kind of combining your point about the displacement of one self in time by another with what Agent said below about people's connections to each other and the subjective effect (nice analogy to Quantum Leap) to think about the Whispers and the "Ghosts" (or visions).
A lot of the characters have talismans that seem to represent what might be their constants (the photo of Nadia, the toy plane, Sawyer's letter)--so that got me thinking about who the Constants might be for the other characters--for Sawyer I think that constant would be the Real Sawyer. But of course he didn't know the true identity of the Real Sawyer until recently.
If other characters besides Desmond are unstuck in time what happens to those displaced selves? Could the island be functioning sort of like the waiting room in Quantum Leap--because of the huge electromagnetic force there drawing those selves to it? Then something like Frank Duckett's voice--is it Duckett? Or is it a memory from the Sawyer self at that moment in time in which he mistakenly kills Duckett? And has that self become unstuck in time and been drawn to the island because any moment connecting with Sawyer's constant--the Real Sawyer--is one in which time-self displacement is most likely to occur?
My guess is that Christian is Jack's constant, Ben's mother is his, and Boone was Shannon's. Any other voices/visions that we could connect up in this way?
And if that's true--I think Miles is not so much a ghost whisperer but a version of a course corrector. Instead of dealing with events, he deals with selves--somehow eliminating the ones that have gotten "lost." I wonder with Naomi--as she died violently and seemed to die once and then come back--are those all signs that different selves got trapped?
Re: Constants-Whispers-Ghosts
People's relation to things is important somehow in considering constants and factions
We brought this up a little bit when we were discussing Duality on the
The Grey Matter of the Island: Alpert and Abbadon
It seems like it relates to how the minds subjectively perceive these things or people.
Things are not really solidified until they are perceived.
And then they become important.
So what about the Missing Lost Items - Where are they now?
Ok... this is getting weird. We're getting into the question of potential duplicates and what form they take here.
Wow... was the Kate that was so hell bent on finding her airplane a "future Kate" desperate to find her "constant"... I mean, which parts of the flashbacks were her jumping with knowledge of the record skipping events she's caught up in right now? Which Kate is off the island?
Nice
I don't really think each character needs a constant in the same manner as Desmond (not sure if that's what you're implying). It just doesn't seem to be the REAL thing, like Desmond has experienced, you know? But it doesn't negate the fact that the characters do need some type of similarity, a familiarance in their lives on and off the island... and with the examples you provide and I know there's alot more that can be used, it seems as though if one loses it's constant, it can be detrimental.
Is it just a coincidence that both Jack and Minkoswki "need to get back" (among other people using the same line)?
Claire is Aaron's constant? Or IS it Kate?
Constants
Constants
Well, I agree there is a connection... so be it a lesser impact than that of Des, or totally different. But that's what I'm saying, it seems as though this could apply to each character even before the electromagnetism (purple sky effect) was released, right?
I think in a general sense, they all have "pseudo-constants"... er sumthin'...
Constants
Constants
Right, he'd end up on a ferris wheel like Minkowski. 
Yes, the constants do precede the purple sky - I guess I'm not sure the effect the purple light had on Eloise is the same effect of the purple light on the island (I think this was suggested in the "enhanced version", though). But whether or not it effects everyone on the island, like Desmond... I don't know. If it doesn't, Desmond's vulnerability was higher than anyone else because he was right there when the force was released, thus his flashes (and underpants, hehe 
).
But the use of "constants' within each characters life is very prominent. Same analogy I thinks.
Great explanation
I totally get what you are saying about the 2004 Desmond in 1995 and the 1996 Desmond in 2004. Get IT!
And I see what you are saying about the concept of self being time-bound. But could you explain what you mean by time being relative and Linear time being subjective and the self being "fluid" and non-linear... I'm not sure I get that part. Thanks.
Re: Great explanation
Well, the self is bound to linear time. Because we have a sense of who we once were and who we can become, we also have a sense of who we ARE at any given point in time. But if linear time is an illusion, so is the sense that we ARE some specific self at a fixed point in time. Each one of us is actually an infinite number of selves, each one as unique as the moment to which it's bound.
Let me put it this way...
Within each moment is recorded every moment that preceded it. Take a snapshot of my room and every object in it tells a story of where it came from, and if all those stories are told eventually the narrative will encompass the entire history of the universe. However, also in that moment is recorded every possible future event, because based on the photograph we can pick out a finite number of OTHER photographs that would qualify as representing "the next moment after this one".
Likewise your present-moment "self" has encoded within it your entire past and all of your prospective futures. That is, all the selves that you've ever been or will ever be are inside you right now. The past selves aren't lost and the future selves aren't non-existent. It's all in you now, so you're not really bound by time... or your "self"... as much as you might believe you are.
Hmmmm
OK prof what you're saying makes sense, but only as it effects you individually. Assuming for the moment that we as individuals do in fact have choices in our life, and that the people we see around us are real and they too have the freedom to choose their actions and the results of those actions. Then as a person moves between events, either forward or backwards, they would place them into the proper sequence within their mind to create the linear understanding we now possess. If I understand what you're saying then this makes sense to me but only on an individual "Decartesian" basis. If I am the only thinking and therefore "real" beinging in existence then the puzzle is solved and I can jump around without detriment. But if other beings are also real then what happens to the other people you come in contact with during any single event?
This idea takes the "Grandfather Paradox" to extremes because every person you come into contact with now becomes a radical that has to be dealt with. For example if events are "nodes" with all participants having their own conduit to that event from a future or past event, the image would look very much like a spider web (or the internet if you prefer). So 2004 Desmond followed a conduit to 1996 and met Mr. Widmore in the men's room where he learned Penny's address. Mr. Widmore may have reached that node from somewhere in the future or the past. What if at that point, he refused to give Desmond the information and Desmond killed him? That obviously impacts Widmore's future but it also means that Desmond never would have met him in 2001 and would never have been told that he wasn't good enough for Penny and he would never have entered the race - because there would be no race. The events may occur in a non-linear fashion but there would still need to be consequences and results from the actions that occur. Otherwise there really is no freedom at all, and all actions are predetermined and we are simply pawns to fate as Locke has suggested.
Causality
I think one philosophical argument would be that causality itself is tied to out subjective and linear experience of time. If events do not in fact happen one after the other which is the way we perceive them, then to talk about everything being predetermined vs. freedom of choice/will in a way doesn't make sense anymore. But I don't find that a completely satisfying answer.
Thinking of events in time in the context of quantum physics helps me imagine the way our choices are still necessary. According to the uncertainty principle you can't know both location and momentum of a particle, and in fact I don't thinka particle can have both those qualities at the same time--that is a determined location and determined momentum. The location can be plotted as to where it is more/less likely to be (probability wave)--when the location is determined, the wave collapses and then the momentum becomes inversely unknown--that is with infinite possibility. So I think those two qualities are roughly equivalent to space and time--location a measurement of space and momentum a measurement of movement through time. We are always moving through both, and as we make choices we collapse the probable to the definite. A snapshot would be like measuring particle location--a frozen moment in time--therefore infinite and undetermined probabilities shooting out from that moment. So the snapshot contains all those possible futures. But in fact that's really not possible I don't think--we are always moving ahead in time so the possibilities are more limited.
What I can't quite conceptualize is what it would be like if we could actually perceive time as always already having happened--which I think would be the equivalent of knowing momentum. Does this make any sense? I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it myself.
Re; Causality
Jaz I get the point of your comment regarding the spinning particles and the uncertainty principle as you're relating it to this. Very nice connection by the way. But a couple of things you said that I'm not following...
If events do not in fact happen one after the other which is the way we perceive them, then to talk about everything being predetermined vs. freedom of choice/will in a way doesn't make sense anymore.
I'm not sure why this would be the case. If I am forced to act in a certain way, why would it matter if it occurs in the present or the past or the future? Isn't my action predetermined regardless?
Getting back to the Uncertainty Principle, what you're saying makes sense in the forward moving time line. But I may not be understanding everything clearly because you said --we are always moving ahead in time so the possibilities are more limited. I'm not quite sure why "we are always moving forward" instead of simply replacing ideas in our mind to fill in our linear understanding.
We've seen that Desmond and Mrs. Hawking (and perhaps others - Dan? Miles? ProfOzone?) who are able to move forward and backward through time. If someone were to go backwards, then doesn't that require that the possibilities that were available at one time still remain intact? If not then we get back to the idea of fate I think, where all options are removed and you have a "choice" of one.
Re: Causality
What I'm trying to say about if events don't actually happen sequentially is that sequence is an essential part of causality. A has to come before B in time for A causes B to make sense. But if there's no sequence then there's no causality.
The "moving forward" I just meant that time is always passing from our perspective--just by being alive we are time travelling into the future.. Wasn't sure what you meant by saying that we simply replace ideas in our mind.
As to moving backwards in time and having to have the possibilities available at that past moment--I see at least two possibilities:
1) they aren't actually changing the past--it is fated to be one particular way. So Des didn't change the past by going to get Penny's number--that always happened. But anytime he mind travels, he's going to suffer memory loss afterwards, so he doesn't remember this trip to Penny's apartment. Maybe that's why he got court-martialled--He was unable to explain his absence from barracks.
2) Dan didn't actually say they couldn't change the past. So maybe they do need to change the past for the future to happen the way it's supposed to. And the way it's supposed to is that Des needs to make that call. And the people like Des., Ms. Hawking, they are keeping the way "things are supposed to be" on track--and if they fail....kabloooie! world comes to an end.
OK.
Meet Mrs. Cake...
... here, and you will have a glimpse of how it is... ;-)
Oh, re "what it would be like if we could actually perceive time as always already having happened"
Random thoughts...
This reminds me a little bit of the show "Quantum Leap" - only instead of jumping into other people - you would only be able to jump into yourself.
When he'd leap he'd jump into someone else's body for the time being until he fixed a problem that was going on with them at that point in time in order to bring about the future that he remembered, actually.
The show was a tad bit contrived in areas as they had to create a "holding cell" for the people that were taken over by this scientist guy... that part to me didn't seem plausible.
But as far as time travel goes - with Lost having it tied to the person's subjective perception of themselves was brilliant - IMO
So - it's true the stuff Jaz has been saying - that something is really not solidified as "reality" until it is observed. But when you have some characters bound to linear time and others not - well a lot of strange stuff is going to happen. Picture frames changing from wood to metal, pictures of people with one color of shirt and a different color in the other - but remembered as the same subject matter and time.
I'm wondering of the show is a bit "Quantum Leap" in the way by having the time that is picked from the bag - is a time where something needs "fixed" in your own timeline. The Universe "course correcting" so to speak.
So you have all this subjective disorientation in weirdness - and THEN consider that when you choose to follow a specific reality outside of the linear timeline - it IS going to change what was subjectively real to the people who are bound to linear time. However, this would not be changing the past technically - because linearly, this decision/action was made before the present point in time that we as t.v. viewers are watching. The characters would simply accept things as "how this really happened." Future timelines as perceived from present linear reality are also not really changed as they really haven't happened yet.
The eccentricities of people being outside of linear time would be perceived as someone "being crazy".... which would include people who claim to see ghosts or people who shouldn't be there, houses moving and so on.
The people closest to those with the non linear time would see the effects of their converging realities and the inconsistencies that would create in a much more dramatic fashion then someone far removed from the situation. (This is subjective as well, but a "collective subjective"). I think this is why relationships are a big deal on this show - how people are connected.
This thought
"So you have all this subjective disorientation in weirdness - and THEN consider that when you choose to follow a specific reality outside of the linear timeline - it IS going to change what was subjectively real to the people who are bound to linear time. However, this would not be changing the past technically - because linearly, this decision/action was made before the present point in time that we as t.v. viewers are watching. The characters would simply accept things as "how this really happened." Future timelines as perceived from present linear reality are also not really changed as they really haven't happened yet." - Agent
Just curious... this is an example of Asimov's The Red Queen's Race, correct?
Grr!! I wish I had more time right now to concentrate on everything said here - I've been dying to make sense of all of this.
I'd say it is
The main point about "The Red Queen's Race", in my opinion, is this: maybe there are many time-lines but, once you're in one of them, it won't change.
* * * WARNING: "RED QUEEN'S RACE" SPOILERS BELOW * * *
If Dr. Tywood hadn't send the chemistry textbook back in time... Greeks wouldn't have developed the idea of atom so early in History. If Greeks hadn't started thinking about chemistry so early in History... chemistry wouldn't have been so advanced by 20th Century. So Dr. Tywood wouldn't be able to send the book back in time.
But.
Would Dr. Tywood exist if History, from so early in time, had been actually changed? Well, everyone seems to think he wouldn't. Oh, neither it would the rest of Mankind as they knew it, but that's peanuts. ;-)
But.
Given Dr. Tywodd existed... then he sending the textbook back in time was necessary. The past had to be changed for the future stay the same...
* * * OK, END OF SPOILERS * * *
(Just highlight the above blank space, if you're curious...)
Asimov's The Red Queen's Race
... yikes. Actually - I have not had the time yet myself to read that yet.
I'm not sure if it relates or not - sorry!
One man's past is another man's future
Prof, I think you mentioned this problem to me in Daniel's pronouncement that you can not change the future (and saying nothing about whether you can change the past)--which is the relativity of past-present-future. So if we say Des can't change what happens in 2004 because that's his future--that's only the future for 1996 Des and not for 2004 Des. I guess the way the writers are getting around that is that characters can change their past in relation to which self they are (1996 Des can change anything before 1996) but not the future in relation to which self they are. Does that work? Or does it not work because of the issues Jukin was raising below of having more than one person impacted by someone's actions. So 1996 Des changes the past--but by doing so isn't he changing someone else's future (someone who is from even earlier in time)?
Ooooo made myself dizzy.....