LOST Explained

Now that LOST has concluded its six season run, we are left with nearly as many unanswered questions as we started with. The final episode promised a ‘big reveal’ but didn’t deliver one as thorough as many fans would have liked. Nonetheless, Christian Shephard’s speech in the final ten minutes was as close as we will get—and with it we can reason backwards to explain many, if not all, of the mysteries of LOST. Christian’s speech was one of those rare moments of revelation on LOST and will be considered truthful in its entirety. As we know, the characters on LOST are frequently dishonest or misinformed when they explain events—so to the extent that anything they have said conflicts with Christian’s speech (either explicitly or implicitly), Christian’s speech will control. Other character’s statements can be used to expand and explain it but never contradict it.

So what exactly did Christian tell us? (1) The afterlife exists and (2) Jack’s life and the people in the church were real. The Island could have been explained scientifically, or as a dream, or as an illusion perpetrated by a tiny slug—but Christian told us that at the core of the mystery was the afterlife. You could argue this only explains the sideways timeline universe, but if the sideways timeline universe has no bearing on the main universe—why show it at all? The main timeline also regularly depicts life after death in the forms of countless ghosts and whispers who talk to the characters.

How exactly does the afterlife work in the LOST universe? The line between real world and the afterlife is blurred, if not non-existent. A place that seems real can be supernatural (see: the sideways timeline) or a place that seems supernatural can be real (the island). Death is a gradual process—souls transition from reality to an illusion thereof to heaven. They don't always move forwards and different people take different routes. The Island is an early step towards death, and roughly akin to purgatory. What the island does, like purgatory, is keep people from returning to their old life or moving on to the next one. We’ve seen how it keeps them from leaving in countless ways: it conceals its location; it prevents ships from sailing out, etc. And even if someone does escape (like the Oceanic Six) it will call them back--like a moth to a flame, Jack and Michael and Locke cannot resist being drawn back to the island even after they 'escape' it. The only people it lets come and go are the ones it knows will return (see Jacob, Ben, Richard).

How does the island prevent people from moving to the next life? It keeps their flesh alive. It heals the infirm (see Rose’s cancer). It can revive the dead (See Sayid). It keeps people from aging (see Jacob & Richard). It provides food and water (see the DHARMA drops and Christian leading Jack to water). And if people aren’t cooperating, it prevents them from committing suicide (See Jack, Richard, Locke, etc.). Despite many people referring to the island’s “rules” (like those governing the Ben/Widmore or Jacob/Smokey conflict), the only rule that seems to be inviolable and independently enforced is the prohibition on suicide.

But most of all, the island provides distractions—it manufactures conflicts and mysteries to keep people attached to their mortal lives. All the polar bears, buttons to press, magic numbers or huge birds that screech “HURLEY,” are simply there to divert people’s attention like a magician’s slight of hand. The stakes are often high (pressing the button and fighting Smokey were to “prevent the destruction of the world”), although it’s unlikely the Island could deliver on its threats. But the island will say whatever is needed to keep people on it, engaged in its drama. Perhaps this is most evident in some of its longest residents. The island kept Jacob busy for two millennia as a ‘guardian’ before he passed on. It kept Desmond in the Swan pressing a button for three years. Who knows how long it kept Hurley and Ben there? The island can trap people in more direct ways too: like the Smoke Monster, who could neither die nor leave, and Michael, whose soul is “stuck on the island.” Despite Jacob and the Smoke Monster being seen as the highest authorities on the island, they are just some of its victims.

I will go a step further and say that I do not believe that the Losties died on Oceanic 815. Although the island is where the dead go, the living can go there too. Like Orpheus traveling to the Underworld to see his deceased wife Eurydice, the land of the dead is not necessarily closed to the living. This is supported by Christian’s statement that all the people in the church were real and with each other during the most important time in their lives. If the Losties did not survive Oceanic 815, they would have never met Desmond, Penny & Ben--who were in the church. However, this point is immaterial as the bulk of the theory works either way.

Animal Suicide

Readings: "The Nature of Suicide" - Endeavor via Mind Hacks: Do Animals Commit Suicide

Can animals commit suicide? Do they have the capacity for the range of emotions, thought, and behavior that the commonsense notion of suicide requires? The above reading details several historical accounts in which animals seem to deliberately terminate their own existence, some records of which were written millennia ago. People as early as Aristotle have described animals engaging in behaviors (sometimes repeatedly after failed attempts) that resulted in their death. Aristotle's account mentions a horse that leaped off a cliff to its death after it discovered that it was duped to mating with its mother. The paper notes of other such accounts made in the 1800's; for example, a dog that repeatedly jumped into waters and submerged itself; a cat that strangled itself after the death of its kittens; dogs that would starve to death waiting at the grave of their masters.

But how are we to determine whether animals are capable of something as complex as suicide? Is it even possible? While I can't answer these questions, I am lead to believe that, for of 2 main reasons, that animals are simply not capable of it; at least not with the knowledge we currently have at hand. The first of these reasons pertains to the ideas underlying the notion of suicide and how several animals that seemingly engages in suicidal acts simply do not meet the necessary criteria for suicide. The second (and in my opinion, the more important) reason deals with the level of understanding and comprehension that seems to be necessary for a suicidal act and whether such levels can be found outside human cognition.

The examples in the paper are easy to mislabel as suicidal acts. The paper even mentions a (fabled?) story of an animal as simple as a scorpion that stung itself on the back when surrounded by a ring of fire. But I believe that using the word "suicide" to describe such actions is, even if only mildly so, a mistake. The word suicide, as I believe most people will agree, suggests that self-destruct behaviors are planned and intentionally executed with the purpose of terminating one's own existence. The breadth of that statement is rather wide and its constituent elements are many. First, intentions are a requisite to suicide, and intentions in turn require an awareness of the relationship between their actions and consequences.

There are several examples (these are not mentioned in the reading) in which the organisms engage in self-destruct behaviors (or rather, have self-destruct mechanisms) that we would clearly not label as suicide. Take, for example, the giant octopus (reference: BBC's Life series) that ceases to feed once it lays its eggs in order to protect and nurture its eggs. The octopus is biologically designed to release self-destruct hormones soon after it completes its reproductive process. However, my intuition tells me that the octopus is not committing suicide, but only that it was "mechanically" designed to self-destruct. By this, I mean to say that the self-destruct mechanisms are independent of conscious thought (a requisite for the act of suicide) and absent of any intentions (lest you say the act of reproducing entails the act of suicide, which would then require that the organism is cognizant of the fact that reproduction and death are one in the same; not likely in my opinion). Also, consider another organism: the Japanese foliage spider whose young often feed off of the mother (quite literally) before leaving their nests. Would you say that the mother committed suicide by allowing herself to be devoured by her young? Or is this merely an evolutionary mechanism to promote the survival of her offspring? It seems clear, to me anyway, that it's not suicide as they simply do not have the capacity for it (though, to be clear, that is not to say that they don't have the capacity to self-destruct).

Note: The octopus is especially interesting, as they have proved to be highly intelligent organisms. They have been found to be extremely adept at manipulating their environments: something that many consider a hallmark of intelligence. They even distinguish between HD and SD TV's (or rather, they are not fooled by SD TV's).

But the second reason, I think, is a much more compelling one. In the case of suicide, not only must an organism be capable of having intentions behind their behaviors, it must also be capable of understanding the consequences of their behaviors; namely, they must comprehend that the goal of their actions is to terminate their very own existence. For this, I think, a sense of self is necessary. Such a concept is difficult to articulate, so I'm simply going by my own intuitions on the matter. Some animals may have this, such as dolphins and certain primates. And the only scientific test of such a sense that I know if is the mirror test, and while it's far from a perfect test that reveals whether an animal has a sense of self, only a few animals can pass this test.

Chiasmus

"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country" - President J.F.K.

"Fuck the state pen, fuck ho's at Penn State" - Notorious B.I.G.

Chiasmus is a literary technique for structuring sentences in which two or more clauses are switched. Chiasmus are memorable and tend to stick in the listener's head. They are often employed for non-nonsense advice and folk sayings, like "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" and "what counts isn't the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog."

The structure of chiasmus is A B B A. Although usually the letters correspond to words, they can also refer to sounds as in "I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." Chaismus can also be achieved by reversing the meaning of clauses without changing the word order as in "never kiss a fool or let a kiss fool you."

Why are we Alive?

Any man has the capacity to end his life. Yet few do. So the answer to "why are we alive?" is relatively simple: because we choose to live. Explaining why we choose to live is more complicated. In Thoughts on the Nature of Intelligence, I suggested that the universe is guiding us towards a certain direction. The rules of survival of the fittest favor the strong over weak, the intelligent over stupid. But even more dramatically, survival of the fittest favors beings that want to survive over suicidal ones.

The continuation of life is in some respects inevitable. Even if a species decided that life was miserable and devoid of meaning and chose to kill itself, it would be replaced by a species that did not feel that way (or was incapable of suicide). Our predisposition to prefer life over death is something of a biological illusion, a necessary corollary of the rules of nature. Nature does not fill our lives with joy or meaning, it only provides a biological command to stay alive. It does not give us a purpose but instructs us to survive without one.

Most creatures lack the intelligence to meaningfully consider the point of their existences. Mice scurry about, satisfying one hunger after another--never contemplating why they do what they do. Socrates wrote, "the unexamined life is not worth living.” I do not know if he is right. I refrain from passing judgment on the quality of life of your average field mouse. I only know that nature does not distinguish between the unexamined and examined life as sharply as Socrates.

Thoughts on the Nature of Intelligence

It is easy to conceive of a universe without anything. A universe without matter or space or time. This might not fit our definition of a universe at all, this great singular nothingness might be the absence of a universe. Some scientists believe that before the Big Bang, the universe was like this. They also believe that billions of years from now, our universe will be like this again.

However today we have a universe that is quite unlike this. Our universe, by luck or design, is full of matter. And once you have a universe full of matter, it is inevitable that things will happen to it. Survival of the fittest is used to explain the evolution of life--but its principles could be applied to inanimate life as well. Atoms that bond with each other to form molecules may be more likely to endure than solitary atoms. Particularly strong molecule configurations are more likely to form and endure than weaker ones. Eventually you will have planets and stars, brimming with oceans and rocks. The rules of physics inevitably favor some configurations of matter over others. In this sense, the universe itself guides inanimate matter into order.

The line between the animate and inanimate is not always clear. In many ways, a tree might have more in common with a rock than a primate. If we try and imagine a tree's thought process, we imagine like a rock it has none. The crucial difference between the two is that a tree is able to react to its environment in a way a rock cannot. The tree grows toward sunlight. It will store water in a drought. On some very basic level, the tree seems to have a brain. Or at least some internal process guiding it one way and not another.

I could argue that a mountain is guided in a similiar way. Like a tree that 'grows' towards the sun, a mountain might build up on the side away from the wind. But life is fundamentally different from the inanimate--and it becomes more obvious with more sophisticated forms of life (like mammals). That crucial difference is intelligence.

Intelligence allows configurations of matter to actively participate in their own survival. It seems inevitable that our universe favors intelligent life. In the war of survival of the fittest, an object that can stand up and move away from danger (say a tsunami) will do better than a stationary one. Likewise an object that can dig into the earth to stay put in a good place (like a tree's roots) will do better than one that floats around with every breeze.

The universe favors the strong to the weak, the enduring to the fleeting. The rules of physics are a powerful engine which guides development in certain ways. That engine guides all things towards a certain order: it produces solar systems and star, which produce life, which in turn has produced intelligence.

Godfellas

Guernica

Picasso's Guernica depicts the bombing of the Basque town by the same name by German planes causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths during the Spanish Civil War. The year is 1937 and World War II is looming in the horizon. Picasso shows us the chaos of the attack. Guernica is about the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war and a call for peace.

Technically, Guernica is a triumph of cubist linework. All the figures blend into eachother. Finding where one ends and the next begin adds much complexity to this painting. Searching for answers is a theme of this work reflected in the content of the painting. For the sake of highlighting the composition, I have colored in the figures to identify them.


On the far left in orange is a bull. In the center in red is a horse. On top, in yellow, is a sun/eye/lightbulb. The remaining six figures are all people in various states of unrest. The man in green on the bottom is dead. On the left, the pink woman clutches a dead infant (in blue). On the right we see a burning building and a person trapped inside it (the light green figure). Two people (in purple and blue) look on in curiosity and horror.

The purple person on top showcase Picasso's abstract minimalist style. Only the face and arm are shown but it is enough for someone to recognize him as a person. Picasso only gives our brain the bare minimum we need to register figures. He conceals as much as he reveal with every line. His impossible geometry hides many secrets. The horse, which initially appears to be trampling the man, has in fact been injured and we can see it collapsing on its right knee. The dead green man is a casualty of armed conflict--he holds a broken sword in his right hand (highlighted in yellow). Despite Guernia depicting war, it carries a powerful non-violence message. Hidden in the background flies a dove (between the bull and horse).

Reflections on Moral Luck

This is a follow up to Moral Luck

I find the idea of Moral Luck both compelling and flawed. It is a central to our moral system that people are accountable for intents and not results. It is oft said that the difference between attempted murder and murder is ‘bad aim.’ The moral value of an action (say, throwing a penny off the empire state building) is equal regardless of whether the penny hits just concrete or kills a person. For unintended harms like this, it helps to consider the moral value of the action as a statistical average of possible outcomes.

It is necessary to separate one’s moral standing form the public perception of one’s moral standing. The difference between the penny dropper who kills someone and the one who doesn’t is the same as the murderer who gets caught and the one who doesn't—both their moral standings are tarnished. Likewise the attempted murderer, the successful murderer and the murderer who go undetected are all equally culpable. Man’s limited powers of observation means that our perceptions of others’ culpabilities will never fully capture a God’s eye view.

But the problem of Moral Luck goes deeper than this. David Enoch writes, “While we should all feel bad for the fate of the injured pedestrian, you [as an agent of the accident], it seems, should feel that extra bit of agent-regret.” If I hit someone with the penny, I now have an obligation to apologize, compensate them, etc. or I am immoral whereas the man who didn’t hit anyone can do nothing and be no more morally culpable.

In writing on moral luck, Thomas Nagel identified three varieties of it: (1) resultant moral luck, (2) circumstantial moral luck and (3) constitutive moral luck. Resultant moral luck concerns the consequences of actions. Both penny droppers were affected by resultant moral luck in that a particular action turned out two different ways: in one situation, a person appeared below; in the other, one did not. Circumstantial moral luck concerns the surroundings of the moral agent. Consider Nazi followers in Hitler's Germany. They are worthy of moral blame for committing morally reprehensible deeds or failing to oppose them. But, if those people had been moved to another country in 1929, away from the coming hostilities, it is quite possible that they would have led very different lives, and we could not assign the same amount of moral blame to them. Constitutive moral luck concerns the personal character of a moral agent. It refers to the role that education, upbringing, genes and other largely uncontrollable influences shape personality. For example, moral blame is assigned to an individual for being extremely selfish, even though that selfishness is due at least in part to external environmental effects.

In my mind, Enoch’s account of agent-regret can simply be seen as an example of circumstantial moral luck. Enoch himself provided an example of circumstantial moral luck creating different obligations for otherwise similar situated people: consider two people who would not give a dime to charity, one lives in a poor community, the other lives in an affluent one. One has a duty to give and fails; the other never encounters such a duty. You could also say that whether someone was or wasn't under the penny is circumstantial. If we are to vanquish moral luck, our theory must be durable enough to explain all three varieties of the phenomenon.

Circumstance plays a large role in assessing culpability. Consider two judges who would both accept a bribe: one is never offered a bribe and retires 'uncorrupt' whereas the other constantly accepts bribes. To push ‘luck’ out of our moral system, we must say both are equally culpable. But for this to be so, culpability cannot be based on their actions or even their results—it's must be because of their underlying predisposition. There is a special significance to bad decisions produced by underlying character flaws. There's an important temporal element here: one cannot look at predispositions over a lifetime, you can only consider a snapshot and determine what moral failings it demonstrates. Theoretically, anyone who "if they were a judge, would accept a bribe" is as guilty as the judge who actually does.

However, whenever we push moral luck out of one part of the system, it just seems to pop up somewhere else. Once we're looking at snapshots of predispositions, we must consider constitutive moral luck. Whatever predisposition one has is just luck of the draw. Their predisposition is just a single point on a distribution of possible moral attitudes. I could say that people are responsible for their predispositions; certainly the law asks people to change their predispositions on occasion . However this feel unsatisfactory, as holding one accountable for their predisposition is tantamount to holding them liable for being born a certain way or to certain parents.

Since we've already established that predispositions change over time, perhaps morality lays in guiding how one’s predisposition changes. However, by the same token, isn’t that 'guidance' guided by one’s predisposition? We are treading close to a nature/nurture debate, which is a debate that morality doesn’t exist in, because one is not 'responsible' for either their nature or their nurture. For now, let us just say that it is possible that there is enough ‘wiggle room’ in the process of shaping our evolving predispositions that classical, luck-free morality might continue to exist.