Duality

[mmeshinski]

I am completely convinced now. Jacob and the MIB are the same person. Its the Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hide Scenario.

He will not let himself unleash his own evil unto the world. Its the duality of man that is at stake here. Jacob is using everyone who comes to the island, to prove that he is not the only one capable of change. He is proving that there is still hope for humanity. That one has choice over his own inner evil, his inner demon. His, MAN IN BLACK.


On a side note. Te bloody little kid. Is Jacob. Its at this point in JAcobs life, when he realizes that the can not kill himself. He can bannish the evil from his body, but He can not kill himself. He must have attempted it, which is where the blood came from.

[blop]

I'm still not fully convinced on this, but it seems much more likely now. I like the last part of your theory too.

Also, this goes very literally with what the Man in Black said: "he stole my body" or something along those lines.

[spinaltumor]

Two souls, one body is an idea I like more if they are to be one and the same in any way.

[warrick123]

i dont know, i feel like id be really disappointed if this is how it panned out. no really definitive good person, just two sides of the same person...

[freestyl321]

This theory is based on NON physical properties, such as a soul or split personalities. If they are the same...

Then why as Jacob burns in the foot of the statue is their ash? This is basic physics. Matter comes from matter. This ash cannot come from no where. We then see Illana pick it up and put it in a sac. In which then Miles takes a reading from it and confirms that Ben killed Jacob.

MIB is a physical entity, as he reaps havoc on the temple. We cannot have TWO physical entities as one perished.

This is a physics problem... not a question of whether one could possibly have two souls.

Given how much detail they pay on such little things in this show with (given the number of them) relatively few prop errors. I think that it's deliberate.

MIB and Jacob cannot be the same person. They are physically TWO different entities.

[ManFromTallahassee]

Mar 23, 2010 21:54:31 GMT -5 spinaltumor said:

Two souls, one body is an idea I like more if they are to be one and the same in any way.

That's the only way it could work I think, because, technically speaking, if a person had two souls, they could conceivably inhabit two bodies at the same time.

Mini crackpot theory: Adding to that, IF this theory is true, it makes me wonder if Jacob and MiB are twins. Remember he told Richard "He took my body."

[mmeshinski]

ok freestyl321.. physics coming into the quetion here.. how exactly do u explain man turning into a cloud of black smoke? its lost.. anything is possible.

[danthew]

Mar 24, 2010 14:16:38 GMT -5 freestyl321 said:

This theory is based on NON physical properties, such as a soul or split personalities. If they are the same...

Then why as Jacob burns in the foot of the statue is their ash? This is basic physics. Matter comes from matter. This ash cannot come from no where. We then see Illana pick it up and put it in a sac. In which then Miles takes a reading from it and confirms that Ben killed Jacob.

MIB is a physical entity, as he reaps havoc on the temple. We cannot have TWO physical entities as one perished.

This is a physics problem... not a question of whether one could possibly have two souls.

Given how much detail they pay on such little things in this show with (given the number of them) relatively few prop errors. I think that it's deliberate.

MIB and Jacob cannot be the same person. They are physically TWO different entities.

There's some dodgy use of physics here, not quite sure what you're getting at. I don't see any laws of physics being broken here (I do degree level physics, I know what I'm talking about). Though Lost has sort of broken them before (technically their time travel breaks the law of conservation of mass) and it almost sounds as if you are getting at the same idea.

As far as I can make out you are saying that if Jacob and MIL both started in the same body they they can't both they have separate bodies as that would involve creating matter. - There are two ways around this: the first is that MIL or Jacob simply occupied a pre-existing body. ie they started in Jacob's body, MIL was kicked out and inhabited the friendly neighbourhood Smoke Monster. The other way around it uses Einstein's most famous equation, E=mc^2. In English this equation means mass and energy are the same thing. This concept is used in nuclear reactors and bombs to turn mass into energy but it works the other way round too, energy can turn into mass. Thus when MIL was kicked out of Jacob's body he used lots of energy to create mass that became Smokey. (This is the same explanation I use for the time travel).

But that's all far too technical for them to explicitly state on the show, either they will mention it in passing "When I was kicked out I was forced to possess the Black Smoke" or they'll leave it for us to infer.

Sorry if that's a bit long and rambling, I easily get carried away with physics...

[freestyl321]

Sorry that things weren't clear the first time around... lets try this.

"The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed from one state to another."

Given the Theory of Relativity, energy and matter are tied together, basically it's all energy, we can understand that matter cannot either be created or destroyed, but can be transformed from one state to another.

We know that MIB is empirical. It must be a physical being. It has physical interactions with others as it kills, both on the Black Rock and at the Temple. We see MIB give water to and unlock Richards chains as well as give him the dagger. Locke hits Claire and carries Richard Alpert in the jungle this season. Thus, MIB as either human form in Locke or MIB, or in the form of Smokie, has a physical presence.

We don't see this type of interaction with Jacob until he's on the beach with Richard Alpert. He hits and kicks Richard multiple times and then drags him into the ocean. Jacob is also empirical; he has physical being.

According to the duality idea, if they are the same person a la Jack's Fight Club-esque theory, what were seeing is the same person in different forms. We just don't know it yet.

The problem comes in season 6. Specifically when we see Jacob die. There are physical ashes that Illana takes. Emperical properties that can not be just created out of nothing given our rules of physics. So we know that Jacob was a physical being.

We know for certain that these ashes are Jacobs because Miles reads them. His ability, as he makes it clear, is only possible if he has the remains of the person he is trying to read.

If Illana has the remains of Jacob in her little pouch, and MIB has physical being with his band of dark Others then how could they be the same person?

MIB did not inhabit Locke's body, we know this because the writers went out of there way to show up Locke's body on the beach, dead, multiple times. They even show MIB as Locke walk past it as they pan by his feet showing that there are two Lockes. The original man who is dead, and MIB who is alive and well.

MIB and Jacob are NOT the same person, never have been.

[freestyl321]

Sure... there are all kinds of weird things going on. I can't explain the Black Smoke other then exactly what Dogan said. It's evil incarnate, we've never seen that before. There are no physics rules for that.

How do we explain Desmond's astro-projections through separate realities? Or his cognition about the future with Charlie. How do we explain Miles ability to speak to the dead, or how Hurley sees dead people, or how Walt was summoning and killing birds in room 29?

We don't see an explanation of an island with a donkey wheel either right now.

But what we DO see is that the writers try to explain everything through science where it's possible. This was Faraday's role. To help show that time travel isn't impossible. They seem grounded in science on this show when it's possible. Dharma was all about it.

MIB and Jacob are some kind of higher beings, or have been given these "powers". Perhaps physics doesn't apply to them.

But in the end, given general science and physics as the leading principles, I believe that they'll be two separate people this whole time.

[danthew]

I think you are thinking of them being the same person in a different way to most of us. You are thinking Fight Club/ Jekyll and Hyde esque duality, where the same body takes on two personalities. You are then seeing Jacob and MIL's two separate bodies and drawing the conclusion that they are two completely separate people. I, and I assume many other people, think of it differently. We think it started Jekyll and Hyde esque but then one of the personalities completely took over their body, forcing the other to leave. A la Horcruxes in Harry Potter, the soul has to occupy something or it can't survive. So MIL uses his powers to make Smokey/possesses the pre-existing Smokey.
So they started in one body but then Jacob stole that body forcing MIL to find a new one.

[freestyl321]

Thats an interesting take. Given J&Js podcast, I was assuming Jack's Fight Club-esque Jekyl and Hide rather then two souls one body and one over taking the other. The Harry Potter reference also makes sense. Thanks for the reference points danthew.

If we're to be looking at it in that sense I would assume that it could happen, I guess I just don't buy that a soul would create Smokie. I would think that a soul would jump from entity to entity. MIB didn't inhabit Locke's body, he took his form. This makes me think that Smokie was always it's own entity and that he periodically takes on new forms based on the memories of those he scans.