This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. References in the most recent episode (3.13) have supported my theory. Ben speaks about a magic box, this matches what I’ve thought for a while. Here’s what I think. The anomaly on the Island has an effect similar to the Star Trek episode Shore Leave where anything you think comes to life.
That’s my theory. Dreams, memories and fantasies are made real by the island. And that explains many of the mysteries.
So, Walt reads a comic about a polar bear, and soon a polar bear turns up on the island.
Kate has memories of a horse she once loved, and the horse turns up on the Island.
The numbers don’t actually mean anything at all. They just happen to be the numbers that won the lottery, and mean no more than any other numbers that win lotteries. But Hurley is crazy, and thinks they mean something. So the island creates a hatch to give them meaning.
Some of the main characters don’t actually exist, they are creations of the island. The Others needed a spinal surgeon, and they got one. Big coincidence, I don’t think. They also have every detail of Jack’s life on record. I think he’s a character in a novel, brought to life by the Island. Ben was born on the island and has spent his entire life there. He’s not real either, the difference is that he knows it, while Jack doesn’t. Locke’s dad, seen at the end of the episode is also an Island creation. Ben says he came out of the magic box.
It’s a good theory, but while it explains how it doesn’t really explain why. I mean, why have the island set up to resemble some sort of freaky psychosocial experiment?
If everything they thought about–dreams, memories, fantasies–came true, I have a feeling the experiences would be way more chaotic and unconnected. The weird stuff is weird, but (so far) it seems to have a very specific purpose behind the weird.
Sounds as plausable as anything else. I would only note that in Shore Leave there were aliens beneath the planet’s surface who were physically manufacturing the manifestations of the crew’s desires.
This article, fifth pargraph. That is not to say that they haven’t written themselves into a box already and will break that promise whenever they see fit.
I think you’re on to something, but the box (island) doesn’t *create * things. It causes them to happen. The Others needs certain people to come to the Island, and the box arranges for them to be on a plane that crashes there.
I’m reading a book called “To Say Nothing of the Dog.” In it, time travelers find they can’t go to certain places and times where their pressence would cause an anomaly. Instead, events are arranged in such a way that they can’t interfere. In that book, the workings of the system aren’t magical. They just happen to maintain the integrity of the system.
I would also guess that the device works better/differently for different people. Children may be especially able to use it since they have active imaginations. Others with intense feelings about certain things, like John, may be effective, too.
This guy is pretty insistent on the manifestation theory. His recap of the latest ep is here (I think you have to click "read theory). Spoilers and guesses abound on that site, so be careful if you want to avoid that.
Okay, but “logical” does not mean the same as “non-magical” or even “plausible”
Well, The Others told Jack they have every detail of his life. My theory: they have a novel about a fictional doctor named Jack Sheppard. The Island created him as a real person. And Jack’s flashbacks are incidents from the novel.