This arose in a question my friend science-fiction author Michael Burstein asked about where the compass that (the slightly) older Richard gave to Locke last week, and Locke gave back to the younger Richard last night in Lost 5.3 - where that compass come from in the first place?
The topic is so interesting and so much fun - if you love time travel, as many of us do - that I thought I'd provide a more detailed response here.
First, here's a complete statement of the impressively paradoxical Loop: (a) Older Richard has a compass, which he recalls receiving when he was younger, from older Locke (older = Locke has the compass). (Or, we can start when Richard receives the compass from Locke - it doesn't matter where/when in the Loop we start). (b) Older Richard also knows that he must give the compass to younger Locke (or, Locke before he received the compass), and Richard even knows where and when, in the jungle, because older Locke presumably told Richard. (c) Older Richard indeed gives the compass to younger Locke in the jungle last week. Locke has now been transformed to older Locke (with the compass). If he succeeds in giving the compass to younger Richard - which of course he does - the Loop is established.
But - back to the question - where did the compass come from in the first place?
One possible way we can explain how the compass got into the Loop is to hypothesize an earlier version of the universe (Compass 1), in which Richard gets the compass from someone other than Locke. When Richard sees Locke in the jungle last week, he gives Locke the compass, not because Richard remembers actually getting the compass from Locke when Richard was younger, but because Richard sees this as a good plan (including giving Locke the impression that Richard already knew about all of this). The instant Locke takes the compass, we're now in Compass 2, and the Loop (which of course also is predicated on Locke surviving long enough to give the compass back to the younger Richard)...
We can tweak with the details, and say, for example, that younger Richard finds himself in possession of a compass at some point, and doesn't how he came to have it (just as we occasionally all find something in our desks that we may not quite recall receiving). We could also hypothesis that, at some point prior to the meeting in jungle, older Richard suddenly remembers older Locke giving him the compass, etc - just as Desmond does Faraday's visit. But the key in all of these explanations about where the compass comes from - other than the vortex of paradox - is that younger Richard gets the compass, at first, from someone other than older Locke, but quickly knows what he must do and say to younger Locke when they meet in the jungle last week...
Any questions? :)
See also: Lost 5.3: The Loops, the Bomb!
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23 comments:
Lets say Richard got the compass in 1900. In 1954, Locke gives him an identical compass that's 50 years older. He now has 2 identical compasses, but only one was created. He probably can't let the two ever touch each other, but he has two. So he would want to give his original compass to Locke when he pulls the bullet out. Know he has just one compass, and it's 50 years older than it should be.
Not difficult.
Ok - but that still doesn't explain how Richard knew to find Locke in the jungle...
The paradox loop, in other words, encompasses more than just the compass...
It's hard to speculate on the original conditions until we see one full play of the timeloop, but I would imagine that the first time through, it barely worked. Richard did not know Locke would meet him in the past, and when Locke saw him in the past, he was nearly unable to convince him that he was from the future and had been to the island. Actually, it's quite possible that the first time through, Locke told him he was from the future but totally failed to convince, perhaps with dire consequences. The second time through, Richard remembers the past encounter and after years of thought, decides that giving Locke the compass is the best course of action. Has the compass come up before? Do we know what it represents for Richard?
Anonymous touched something that I first started pondering after seeing the movie Timerider. For a timeloop to have any effect at all, it must be able to iterate an infinite number of times. Otherwise, things just go back to square one when a slightly different set of circumstances com along that prevent it from continuing. The problem is that physical objects wear out. Ten loops in, and the compass is 500 years old. After one million loops, it's over 50 million years old! I like Anonymous' solution. In that case, the compass is acquired before the loop begins, ages a bit over time, meets its companion from the future, eventually is given to Locke, travels to the past with him, meets its past self, and years later watches that past self watch be given to Locke, while it stays behind and continues existing past the end of the time loop. (Too bad a similar explanation can't work for Timerider.)
Thinking about time travel almost makes my head explode. I try to ignore the paradoxes and just enjoy the show.. haha.
Interesting possibilities, Tvindy.
I guess I'm thinking that the loop only needs to be established, once, and then neither it or anything in it wears out, because the loop is so smooth (and cool) that there's no fiction.
anon2: does that make your head explode a little less? :)
Probably not, because we the viewers are outside observers of the loop...
Hey Paul! Hope all is well.
Do you remember (of course you will) whether or not the compass was one of the objects that Richard put on the table when he was "testing" the young John Locke? I can't recall, but that would have been nice, to have that one be the one he wanted him to pick...but then, Richard knows he can't take Locke right then, because he meets older Locke before he meets kid Locke.
Larry
Hey Larry - good to see you here!
And excellent question about the compass - I'm not sure. I can sort of see it on the table, but that may be wishful thinking. I'll see later tonight if I can a hold of that episode, and report back...
Or, if anyone else knows if Richard took the compass out to show kid Locke, let us know...
Richard did offer a compass as one of the objects on the table that young Locke was supposed to choose.
If you look at screencaps of the two compasses, they are actually slightly different. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be different and if it was a mistake, because they do have many similarities.
If they are the same, maybe that's why Richard left so angrily, because young Locke didn't remember the compass.
Good sleuthing, Tara!
There's no way kid-Locke could have recognized the compass, though - he hadn't seen it yet.
Maybe Richard was angry for another reason - maybe he was frustrated, because he knew that Locke would be crucial to the future of island, but there was nothing Richard could do at that point to protect kid-Locke from the pain that awaited him...
I'm reminded of the reading glasses in Star Trek II. McCoy gives Kirk a pair of reading glasses in the future, and when he pawns them in 1986, Spock asks, "Weren't those a gift from Dr. McCoy?" to which Kirk responds, "They will be again, that's the beauty of it." That led to a lot of people asking where the glasses came from in the first place.
I always assumed that the glasses simply looped around time once. They were invented in the 19th century, existed up until the 23rd century, then went back in time to the 20th century and so doubled on themselves. Somewhere in future history those glasses made it to the 24th century, but Kirk no longer owned them.
Yeah, people took that thing with Kirk's glasses way too seriously. I always saw it as a bit of Kirk humor and possibly a nod to sci-fi fans. He had no reason for thinking those glasses would loop back to him, especially since he had no reason to think that they had ever even been to that particular antique store. Much more likely is that the original glasses were already around in the 20th century in some unknown location. The future version will have its own fate, perhaps altering the future in some mysterious way. Maybe the future glasses somehow ended up causing the death of Tasha Yar, for example.
Paul,
I haven't even read this post yet but I want to see what you say about A theory I read. If Penelopes and Desmond son took Pennys last name , his name would be Charlie Whitmore! That would throw a big wrench into all this. What do you think
Hey Anonymous, I always say I can understand time travel better if I kind of squint my eyes and just watch it from the edge of understanding, once I try to assign to many details it hurts!
I have to believe the compass has a pretty significant connection to someone. (at least quirky and fun if not "aha!") These writers don't do much without intention. I don't think it was Richard going, "hmmmm I need to give him something now to give me in the past, oh look I have some gum, a compass and a marble in my pocket, I guess I'll give him the comnpass"
Are we now thinking that Penelope is her own grandma?
White Girl - good observation about time travel being more comprehensible if you watch it sidewise, from the edge, with your eyes squinting. That's the case with all paradox, including statements such as -
"This statement is a lie" ...
Is it true? If so, it's false. Which means that's it's true that it's a lie, which means it's a lie, so the statement is true, ad infinitum...
Michael and Tvindy - I'm with Tvindy in taking those glasses to a nod and a wink to science fiction fans. That's the trouble with most time travel - provocative glints are flipped like coins before our eyes, but we can't make out what they are, or what's going on. One of the reasons I really love 12 Monkeys is that it takes seriously and follows though on all the paradoxes...
Speaking of 12 Monkeys, this site does an excellent job of thoroughly exploring all the time travel conundrums of that film and concluding that they pretty much all work. (The site has been around unchanged for at least six years, so I wouldn't be surprised if you're already familiar with it.)
well richard gives the compass to locke, locke goes back on time and gives the compass back to richard. so, the compass wasn't build?
I think I did see that site a couple of years ago, Tvindy - I just glanced through it again, and it indeed looks good. (But I'm going to go through it again, next time I see 12 Monkeys - which I have on VHS - and see if I agree with every interpretation).
debaser: no the compass was built somewhere, by someone - that's the part of the paradox - where did the compass come from?
Welcome to Infinite Regress...
so many questions so few answers.
what are the numbers all about?
what was the deal with pushing the button every 108 minutes?
what is the smoke monster? on the beach in one of the frist episodes the Rose says that the sound is familiar?
why is hugo seeing all these dead people?
hmmm i wonder if Jack Shepards first name is really Jacob?
i think the women holding Daniel Farady at gun point is his mother.
i think miles is doctor candels son, first seen as an infant at the beginnig of the season.
best thing about this show, its really cold winter here in michigan, but every wednesday i get lost in the jungle and feel warm.
just my comments.....
"what are the numbers all about?"
I wonder if they are a sort of combination. People who have those numbers in their consciousness are able to reach the island and perhaps access the island's power?
what was the deal with pushing the button every 108 minutes?
Someone said earlier that it may have kept the buried atomic bomb from going off.
what is the smoke monster? on the beach in one of the frist episodes the Rose says that the sound is familiar?
It has all the properties of a cloud of very sophisticated pre-programmed nanobots (probably left over from an ancient civilization). I don't see how it can be anything else (other than the supernatural), but the writers swear there is no nanotech in the story.
why is hugo seeing all these dead people?
It's his special ability. Walt also has a special ability, that was never quite made clear, and it's interesting that the two seemed to share a bond.
hmmm i wonder if Jack Shepards first name is really Jacob?
Interesting. I know the writers originally wanted to have Jack die in the first episode, so that couldn't have been the original plan.
IF anyone has ever played Zelda for N64 there is the same paradox in who created the Song of Storms (you are taught it when you are a child and yet you teach it to the man who taught you it as an adult). Both use time travel simarily.
It can be explained if we think this way.
Originally Alpert has one comppass C1.
In 1950s Locke gives another compass C2 (wich really is an older C1).
Richard has C2 and C1 till the present.
Then he gives C1 to Locke that will become C2 in 1950s.
But I believe we will never know if this is true
What if Locke's double brought the compass, imagine the walk to the plane where he says to Richard, "throw away that rusty old compass, here's a new one", the writers are still free to film that.
The compass now enters and exits in that exchange, no loop left.
However now the 'idea' of compass-passing is in a loop, who thought it up?
Locke nor his double actually tell Richard that he has to pass the compass, not in 1954, and not when he asks him to take out the bullet.
Richard could have thought it up right there starting the idea, Locke's failing to tell him ends the idea.
Guys.. this here is wot is known as an Ontological paradox.. This is situation in time travel when an object is bought back in time and becomes the source for its own creation.. This is where the object loses its origin.. So you cannot predict how richard got the compass and who it belongs to unless u stop the loop..
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