Inconsistencies Redux or Reality DJs not Temporal Ones

The "Inconsistencies" thread that Jukin started mostly stayed on the topic of Charlotte's age (which turned out to be a production error).

But certainly there are many other inconsistencies to address.  I know I'm not great at remembering these things so I'll list just a few that I remember being discussed and maybe other people can add in others.

One was the change in picture frames in the house where Miles did his ghostbusting.

I think there's a difference between the picture as we see it being posed in 1977 and the picture Christian shows Sun of the Dharma group.

(Interesting possible clue here may be the picture taken of Hurley and Dave--the picture has no "Dave"--drawing attention to subjective perspectives in how things are seen.)

Charlie said he couldn't swim.  Then he had a flashback of learning to swim just when he needed to know how to swim to be the hero.

No one seems to notice inconsistencies in the O6 stories.

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This is pretty much a repeat of things I've said in other places but let me just add in the information of Ben being taken into the Temple and losing his "innocence" and what that might mean.

I've often wondered if the flashbacks were really just narrative devices.  At one point I was thinking of moments in time being beside each other and causality working both forwards and backwards (retrocausality).  Instead I now think it might be something along these lines.  Linear time is really a function of consciousness.  Stephen Hawking, among others, posits that Imaginary time has no linearity and that this is probably closer to what time is objectively as opposed to our subjective experience (seen through consciousness).  So there really is no such thing as going "back" nor could change occur by either going back or forward.  All moments in time already are.

So that seems a fairly deterministic view.  But on the other hand there is also the idea from physics that our consciouness is shaping our reality.  Observation creates the thing being observed--ala Schroedinger's cat and the uncertainty principle.

"Only fools are enslaved by time and space."

What if the Temple, then, is the place in which people lose their foolishness? 

Our temples--sometimes symbolically seen as the seat of consciousness--when the consciousness is raised it is not just that we are then no longer enslaved by time--skipping around as the Losties have done this season--but by both space and time--by reality.  In fact the skipping around they have done it could be argued is not a freeing from time at all--whatever happened happened.  It is only through whatever mind expansion happens in the temple (Forbidden Planet) that they gain control (so Sawyer's remark about being in control in this episode is to be taken ironically).  But control only as agents of the island.  The island is a hub in which other realities can be manifest.  And some of this power has been utilized by those on the island without them even knowing it (Charlie bringing in a different reality in which he learned to swim).  Those born on the island carry some of that power away with them (Miles).  And perhaps the reason why conceiving on the island cannot come to fruition (maybe only after the release of more of this island power after the incident) is because there are eventually two consciousnesses in one body.

Agents of the island lose their innocence--and perhaps the cost for entering the temple is that they either die or are about to die.  The island gives them a reality in which they live, but only as long as they act for the island.  So we've seen the island keep people alive to serve it and then allow them to die.  Individual life or death seems meaningless from the island's perspective (because in different realities both are true).  The innocence that is lost is the innocence of having this reality be significant, of having the lives of those around you mean something.

And what do the agents of the island do?  Do they make sure that this power never results in any significant change, any significant manifestation of one reality into another?  In that way, rather than applied to time, are they course correctors?  For instance, making sure that if someone's destiny is to be a killer that he does not escape that destiny?

And then what happens if someone acquires this power, but not through the Temple--a free agent (Desmond)?

One more note about constants--if raised consciousness ignores historical time--then two consciousnesses which are constant to each other will be constant along their own lifelines--which explains the Des-Dan communication.

(just adding in one minor "relative" thought--was thinking about why Des is Dan's constant--and the speculation that Mrs. H is Dan's mother.  I'd been thinking that Widmore is Dan's father and there seems to be a suggestion that Ellie and Charles are together in 1977.  They clearly aren't in 2008. So got me thinking about the possibility that Richard and Ellie might be Desmond's parents; he and Dan half-brothers.  Oh--and a question raised by that--in 1954 Ellie and Charles are taking orders from Richard--so what happened by the time 1977 rolls around?)