maybe if Charlie would've died, the group would not've split up and happened along another parachute hanging from a tree... :shrug:

Also, My questioned Desmond's "i've saved your life 3 times" to charlie, Im assuming he's counting the time when he turned the key in the hatch, or am I forgetting something...

Lightning
Would have drowned trying to save Claire
Would have drowned trying to get bird for Claire

I'm telling you guys, it has nothing to do with Charlie actually dying, just Desmond being willing to allow him to die.

Which hopefully will put to rest the ridiculous "Desmond changed the time stream and Rose & Bernard transformed into Nikki & Paulo" rumor.

I can't wait to see Rose and Bernard getting physical.

I'm just glad we finally got the origin of "Brother" It was way better then the tattoo origin.

Honestly, I loved this episode, but I've loved pretty much the whole season so what do I know.

Is that for real? Sometimes I'm glad that I don't have much time to follow Lost threads on the internet. People are crazy... :p

Meh....Hot chicks and nice bodies on television are a dime a dozen. So Kate being hot doesnt make up for the fact that she is one of the most annoying characters on television. Its too bad Juliet just didnt kill her.

Kate seems to only have one pair of bra and panties ! they were the same ones she showed off in Season 1 ! even with washing they must be gettiing smelly and worn out.

BTW i want charlie killed asap

She was going back as a prisoner and camping out a lot before that. Not sure she'd have much luggage to start with.

Maybe she'd be better off without them then.;)

Kate. :drool: :lol: at Sawyer's mix-tape.

As for the rest, I find Desmond and Charlie (and their backstories) to be incredibly boring.

I've seen this described on other boards as an example of Schrodinger's Cat. I've never really understand the point of the thought experiment, but here is someone else's quote describing how it might fit the situation:

Here is a link to Wiki article on Schrodinger's Cat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

Catch 22
 

Didn't read the entire thread, but the title of this episode settles that Desmond was screwed either way. If Charlie lives, then he does not meet Penny, if Charlie dies, he meets Penny.

But that doesn't seem the same as the situation in the Lost episode.
With the Cat--the Cat is in the box no matter what, and it's either alive or dead--the past doesn't have to change for either scenario to occur. (For that thought experiment to make sense here, it seems to me that nstead of the cat being alive or dead, 50% chance of each, it would be that either there's a 50% chance of it being a cat that had been placed in the box, and a 50% chance of it being a dog)
Whether the person they find is Penny or not...depends on whether it was Penny or someone else who set out looking for Charlie in that helicopter before Desmond even had the visions in the first place...and that person had already crashed and was in that same position before Desmond made the decision to save Charlie...so this all seems a bit silly...I hope the show isn't seriously suggesting that it would have been Penny if he hadn't saved Charlie; I just think Desmond thinks it would have been. His visions didn't actually show him finding Penny on the island, right? Just the picture of them, and then finding someone in the tree like they did? (I can't remember) Because in that case, nothing happened contrary to his vision other than Charlie not dying.

so, what did the pulling of the cable have to do with it? could the cable pull have contributed to the crash of the copter?

Yeah, I really don't buy into it either, but I thought some people smarter than me might be able to make more of it.

This is a quote from the Wiki article that may make more sense: "In other words, when the box is opened, the universe (or at least the part of the universe containing the observer and cat) is split into two separate universes, one containing an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, one containing an observer looking at a box with a live cat."

Keep in mind that Desmond's visions did contradict each other. His visions had Charlie helping with the parachute (supposedly after the arrow incident). Charlie, in essence, was dead and alive at the same time. Desmond might be looking into a future of two different universes. Basically Desmond had to choose which universe to go with. He choose the universe that had a living Charlie and a non-Penny, as opposed to a dead Charlie with Penny.

Saving Charlie didn't directly cause Penny to not be there. It just so happened that the "universe" with a living Charlie did not include Penny being in the tree.

I personally hate this parallel universe/alternate time-line crap, but it does make you think.

I totally thought they were new last week as well. Glad to see they didn't screw up that badly and apparently we all have crappy memories.

Believe it or not, yeah it's real.

I figure what happened is that R&B hadn't appeared on the show for a long time, and someone on a message board somewhere presented this "theory" as a joke to explain their absense. Someone else read it and took it seriously and from there it spread through the Lost forums like wildfire.

Even if the theory wasn't so goofy, there's plenty of evidence that R&B and N&P were all on the island at the same time (N&P accompanied Locke & Sayid into to Pearl Hatch sometime in Season 2, and Bernard appeared in the Season 2 finale).

I'm not totally sure that's what they're going for although they seem to be insinuating it.

Of course the whole Shrodinger Cat thing is used to explain Quantum states, and specifically DOESN'T scale to actual Cats (i.e. in real life the Cat is either alive or dead, not both, but a quantum particle specifically is in multiple states/universes until observed [at least in current quantum theory]). The person in the tree cannot be Penny and the other girl. It is always the other girl whether Desmond saves Charlie or not. The whole concept was just really confusing for people which was why Shrodinger came up with the cat analogy in the first place. It makes a handy way of explaining the idea.

I just think they want Desmond to believe Charlie's life/death will effect the outcome.

Amen, brother.

No, but they really didn't give us a good look at her.

What part of Desmonds flashback actually showed that Penny was the one caught in the tree? I do not recall that he ever actually saw that she was the survivor in his vision; if it did I really missed it then... I think he just assumed it would be her.

Actually, the title doesn't indicate that at all. If the situation were a catch-22, it would be impossible for him to meet Penny no matter what he did. The term catch-22 doesn't mean you have to pick between two things that you want/don't want to happen.