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(Date Posted:05/01/2009 03:46:44)
The producers of Lost have presented a model for time travel that they are using in presenting the story so far. There is one exception to the model and that is Desmond, but I will go into that later. It doesn't matter what is possible and what isn't possible - what matters is what the producers have presented to us as what is possible on the TV show.
Whatever Happened, Happened (WHH for short) - was introduced by Daniel and has been explained somewhat by Miles in his conversations with Hurley. And has been supported by every scene and episode of the series.
In WHH time only happens once - regardless of when it is witnessed by different people being in it. If I travel through time in a straight line, 1977 happens after 1976 and so on. If I time travel, 1977 can happen after 2007 for the traveler. If either traveler through time, the day they die only happens on a time that comes after a preceding time. So, since 1977 is after 2007 for a time traveler, it is a time they can die. There is no mind transfer to younger or older travelers in the WHH model. What you do only affects you at the time you do it and becomes a memory after you do it at that time - for example, if you are a time traveler from 2007 and you travel to 1977 and stub your toe, you will not remember stubbing your toe in 2007 because it hasn't happened to you yet. If you are a straight line traveler, and stub your toe in 1977, you will remember it in 2007 because it happened to you 30 years ago when you get to 2007. If a straight line 1977 you is alive in 2007 as a 30 year older version of you, then you cannot die at any time prior to 2007. If a time traveling you jumps from 2007 to 1977, you can die - because it is after the time that you were alive.
There is no multiple iterations or universes or time lines in WHH since everything only happens one time. Time is relative to the person that is traveling through it either straight line or jumping and what can happen to a person and when it can happen depends on how they are traveling through it and what we know about their personal future.
Now if a traveler jumps back in time to a time that they currently also have been through in a straight line, they will share that period of time with their younger self. Whether or not they interact with that younger self is dependent on whether the younger self (barring memory loss) remembers meeting the older self. If they don't, they can't since time only happens once. However, the older self was always in that time. The only way this works, is if all time happens simultaneously - all past, present, and future events happen at the same instant and the traveler is basically stepping from one instant in time to another instant in time.
Now for Desmond, since Desmond was exposed to massive electromagnetism when he turned the failsafe key, he is a Mind Traveler. He is current consciousness is capable of jumping forward or backward through any period in his life and making changes to his actions at that time based on what he currently knows. Do not confuse Desmond's mind traveling capabilities with the other time travelers - when Desmond learns something different in 1996, it changes what he knows in the future.
More later.
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-Brax | 
