Time Lords

I'm still not quite understanding why these things are paradoxes.  It would be a paradox if something changes anywhere along the timeline due to time travel.  The Grandfather paradox is that you can't go back in time and change something that prevents you from being born because then you wouldn't be alive to go back.  But have we had any indication that things have changed?  Why is it that the time travellers killing someone or being instrumental in a baby being born isn't in fact just the way it always happened?  And in fact maybe it's necessary for those things to happen just the way they have in the past in order for the 2004 timeline to exist as it does.  It's all part of one timeline with no changes.  So instead of contradicting future events, the time travellers actions are necessary to future events as we have seen them.

I'm going back to the idea that the island is drawing these people back--we've seen that Charlotte, probably Miles, Dan--they all have island parent connections.  Does anyone among this group that is now in 1977 (Jack, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin, Dan) have knowledge of the purge?  I wonder if by revealing that info--they can't in fact stop it--because that would be a paradox--but they do give people a chance to get their children off the island.  And these children were always saved and grew up and some of them have travelled in time in order to warn their parents which allows them to grow up and travel in time in order to warn their parents...(rinse and repeat)

but when you're saying that "once the paradox exists" you seem to be saying there was a time before the paradox--a time when something else happened.  And then the time traveller arrives, creates the paradox, and "then of course the things that happened HAD to happen that way."  (sorry if this is a misinterpretation)

Also you said "this seems to contradict Dan's assertion that the timelines cannot be changed"--are you saying there was one timeline and then when people from a different time arrive they change it from what it originally was, from what it was supposed to be?

'Cause what I think is happening is that people from a different time arrive and everything is exactly the same as it always was (and will be).  There is no contradiction to Dan's assertion because the timeline remains exactly the way it is (a timeline with loops in which travellers can appear in different times). And in fact to take out one of the loops--if someone prevented the travellers from appearing in a different time--that would actually change the timeline and create a paradox.  For instance, let's just say (and I'm not saying this is a valid speculation--just using it as an example) the baby born to Horace and Amy was Desmond.  Then if you prevent time travel then in fact you've changed the timeline from what it was before because Sawyer and Juliet live in a future in which Desmond existed.

And though Miles kind of argued in terms of a prime directive (don't mess with the natives of this time) I think just by appearing in the past--they're already influencing events in the past--just avoiding contact with other human beings doesn't mean they aren't having a causal impact.

So if to have a causal impact on the past (or whatever time you are travelling in) is paradoxical, then time travel is inherently paradoxical whether one shoots someone, or just wanders around the jungle.  I don't think that's what the show is presenting as a paradox--the fact of time travel itself--but rather changing the timeline as in the example with Des and Sawyer.

"Because Desmond didn't know you when he first came out of there. That means you've never met, which means you can't meet." 

So the one paradox we've seen is Dan talking to Des--which did not happen that way before--and so changed Des at that moment in the future.

I agree that paradoxes aren't allowed--where I disagree is that with timetravel there is an inherent paradox in the timeline.

For instance you are saying that the universe needs to course correct for someone being killed who wasn't supposed to be killed or a baby being born who wasn't supposed to be born.  So in that framework there is a pristine, non-timelooped 1954 (for instance) that exists before the time travellers are even born and that timeline moves linearly forward until 2005 at which point loopiness ensues with one loop going back to 1954 and Locke kills someone who wasn't supposed to be killed.

But if we look at the timeline from a perspective outside--I'm saying there never was a "supposed to be" in which these things didn't happen just this way.   It's no more a paradox for Locke to have killed someone in 1954 than for anyone else that isn't a time traveller to commit an action.  Just as they are meant to be there, he is meant to be there.  So when I say the timeline exists always already as it is--I don't see that as a timeline with inherent paradoxes.

Sawyer sees the scene in which Kate delivers Claire's baby.  He does not speak to her.  Why? because he always existed in this scene (we just never saw him) and in this scene he did not speak to Kate.  Time has always unfolded just like this--the writers in that sense I think are presenting a very highly determined universe, fate is very strongly at work. 

Correcting by forgetting--Desmond seems to have forgotten Daniel until that moment in 2008 when he has the dream.  But I think this is the one anomaly we've seen so far--and it's because this actually has been a change.  It hadn't actually happened before so there was nothing to forget--then it did happen and he remembers, he remembers because it just happened in Dan's time framework.

... I think Dan's outline of "the rules" suggested that there is something like a pristine, completely linear version of the timeline that simply cannot be changed outside of very specific exceptions.  A paradox in this context is very strictly defined as any loop in the timeline whatsoever, no matter when we suspect this loop to have been created (even if it was created when the entire timeline was created).  Dan seems to be suggesting that no such loops exist at all unless created by special circumstances.

Now... if you're arguing that the 1954 and 1974 loops were create by special circumstances, then we're on the same page.  But they're still paradoxes and they still must be explained according to the established rules.  We can't just say they don't break any rules since they were always there, because the only way they can be there at all is if an exception to the rules has been employed (and this holds even if they've been there always... and, when you think about it, if they're permanent then they must have been there always).

Everyone killed so far has been an Other--I think you've got the paradox problem solved if you combine a couple of my ideas from the post below with your idea of phase shifting.

The Others are not jumping in time along with Locke, Sawyer, et al.  They are anchored to the island (possibly through a process of initiation in the temple).  Juliet lost that anchor when she was marked.

Add to the phase shift idea the metaphor of a jukebox--two different records playing out of sync with each other--two timelines.  And then also add in Agent's idea of the Reality Merge.

I think this suggests all kinds of possible answers:

Paradoxes--as far as killing Others.  If you are someone who is living on the Mainland's timeline and you kill someone on the Island's timeline perhaps it doesn't have the same paradoxical effect because you actually haven't changed events on the Mainland timeline and that's the dominant one--the "real" world.  I wonder if the rule Widmore broke in killing Alex was in killing someone still on the Mainland timeline--that she had never actually become an Other?

OK--but more importantly maybe combining those ideas gets us closer to the "big picture" story.

Suppose the central problem that has to be fixed is the phase shift itself.  The island's time line is Dharma--the time line the rest of the world should be on--but something happened to get us out of sync.  I think this event will turn out to have happened in the distant past (although maybe--as in what I added below--the origin of the distant past event is actually the Incident)--the time of the four-toed statue and the temple.  Possibly this split between the rest of the world and the island is alluded to in stories like the lost tribes of Israel and their separation by a pillar of cloud and smoke (the birth of Smokie).  I think Richard will turn out to have come from this period.  Richard became anchored to the island time.  I think his mission has been to try to find someone (or maybe some group) who can bring the two timelines back together (merge the two back together)--someone who exists between Mainland and Island time--and perhaps Ben looked as if he could be this person.

When a ship happened upon one of the windows in which the lines of the two timelines intersected and crashed on the island--survivors were iniated as Rousseau's team was and became Others anchored to the island.  Those who resisted like Rousseau are usually killed to prevent their return to the Mainland where they might disrupt that timeline.  

At some point, Widmore was the leader of the Others.  Instead of trying to heal the rift though, I think he wanted the rift maintained as this allowed off-island precog abilities which he thought he could take advantage of by leaving.  He and a number of Others leave at about the same time--Ellie I think for certain.  And I'm thinking she was married to him.  I don't know if this makes her Penny's mother or not.  But at some point I think the two of them came to a parting of the ways and that Ellie became an advocate for course correction along with Brother Campbell (who I suspect must also have been an Other at some point), while Widmore wants things to remain off course.

A huge change that has been brought about by this group leaving the island is that they have had children--Children who should never have existed in the "real" Mainland timeline.  And the actions taken by these children are rippling out and causing larger and larger discrepancies in what should have been.  These events bleed through to the island in things like the whispers. 

Possibly Ben is acting as Dharma's hitman in correcting for these ripple effect in his missions "off-island" both before and after the O6 departed.  Maybe that's also why he tells Locke to kill Cooper.  Ben can't kill Cooper or the people he got Sayid to kill because they were on his (Ben's) timeline.  But Locke killing Cooper would have been a paradox (Ben knows this and Richard does)--Richard gives Locke Sawyer's file because Sawyer is still Mainland timeline.  Locke is more one of these in-between folks because his father was an Other.

I think Ben kills Locke because Locke is meant to be killed.  I'm thinking that Ben killed Penny too as this would be a mirroring event done to bring Locke's opposing force back to the island as well.

But just as the children of the Others are the source of a potential apocalypse, they may also be the solution.  The beginning of everything has been the initial phase shift.  Everything that has gone on since then, the course corrections, initiations, the Smokie security system--are all ways of dealing with the symptom, but not the original problem.  In order to deal with the original problem you need people who have an in-between existence, who are of both time lines--who walk among us but are not one of us.  That's who the Losties are--the people who have to return things to Dharma--the one true way.

So I think in a way they will turn out to be the true Dharma initiators.  The Dharma Iniative instead being a Widmore/Hanso project to artificially gain the kind of abilities the Others have through being iniated (or attuned) to the island.  Ironically I think Miles will have gained his ability naturally through having been born there while his father was trying to tap into the power artificially.  Then--returning to your point about Horace--I think everything you speculate is correct and is in keeping with the kind of people Dharma recruited--manipulators.  I think in that scenario the two Others had been recruited by Horace and the radios were to signal him when he was to jump in and "rescue" Amy. 

Finally as to who the timelords are and how they will bring about the Reality Merge.

Locke's role--sort of going to my recent post about his element and tarot card--is changing perception.  He's connected to Richard Alpert.  He and Richard are all about changing consciousnesses, changing perceptions, inner change.  Locke brings the O6 back.  The island then would be analogous to mind or spirit (as opposed to the Mainland-real world--external empirical) and Locke is facilitating a change to the inner world by opening the door to the O6 at around the time of the incident.

Desmond's role--man of the world and the pilot.  He has to do the actual mechanical change--moving the wheel.  As Locke is linked to Richard, Des is linked to Dan--the scientist.  Dan may actually be the one who sparks the incident? Both these men (as opposed to Locke/Richard) are motivated by romantic love.  Maybe Dan when we see him sneaking into the Swan with the hood on--he has decided to try and change the future in order to save Charlotte.  So Dan's grief will being about the physical change--the disruption--the incident.  Desmond's grief will bring him back to the island where he will physically change things back.

One more thing about Locke/Desmond as opposing forces: They both receive messages from their counterparts--Richard/Dan that the O6 have to return and that there is great danger.  We've seen Locke's role in this.  Des coming to find Dan's mother seems at this point to be needless?  So was the importance rather to put Des in LA where Ben could get at Penny?  And why would Widmore have led him there if the result was going to be his own daughter's death?

Reality Split: The Incident itself--following Jukin's post about Horace and reminding us of his appearance when he was building the shack (nose-bleedy)>>OK this is very far-fetched, but what if the incident which in some ways is the result of a Widmore funded project to keep the rift and its possibilities under his control, and is further precipitated by Dan's grief is the thing which began the phase-shift in the first place.  Through a time-travel effect it goes back to the past at around the time that Richard originally lived and opens up that original rift.  And Horace building the shack and the fact that he looks like he's been time-travelling--and the fact that he just had a son--Jacob?  And Jacob is out-of-phase? (as I think Agent suggested in the Reality Merge post)

Jukin was also pointing to Horace's namesake Horus, who like the Egyptian goddesses I've been linking up to the statue (and to cats) are connected both to the split between Upper and Lower Egypt and its eventual unification.  That seems like it could be a metaphor for both the phase shift-reality split and bringing things into the one way-reality merge.

Jack--the Shepherd of the people--I don't know exactly what Jack has to do but I think he's going to wind up balancing between the inner world and the external and be the community's leader.  Perhaps he will need to do something that brings the Losties all into the same time period again?