Lost - The Orientation
October 6, 2005 - Television
So on Lost last night, we got some answers, but even more questions. The infamous hatch leads to electromagnetic research station 3, "The Swan", which is part of The Dharma Initiative, started by a couple of professors from Michigan, and founded by The Hanso Foundation. But what is the Dharma Initiative? What was the incident of which the orientation film spoke? What happens if nobody enters The Numbers and presses execute? Is it really saving the world, or is it just a psychological experiment to see how long someone will go on doing it? And if this is station 3 of 6, are the other stations nearby?
It seems like The Others are not affiliated with the men on the boat who kidnapped Walt. It seems like The Others are a violent group on the island, and that somehow Anna Lucia either joined them after crashing on the island, or else was someone affiliated with them before even having gotten on the plane, which would imply that the crash was planned and thus that the survivors were indeed brought there for a reason. But which is true?
Jack thinks that the "Quarantine" labeling was put there as a ruse to keep Desmond in his hole for so many years. And indeed, it seems that Kelvin (before he died) did tell Desmond that there was some kind of disease on the island. And it would seem completely like a ruse were it not for the fact that Russo (the French woman) said her shipmates got sick. Another mystery. In any event, after having entered the code and pressed the button once, now the survivors are committed and bound to continue doing so indefinately.
All over the blogosphere this morning you'll find reference to TheHansoFoundation.org, which is clearly a site about Lost. The Hanso Foundation's projects are listed as:
The Hanso Life-Extension Project
The Hanso Foundation Electromagnetic Research Initiative
The Hanso Quest for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
The Hanso Mathematical Forecasting Initiative
The Hanso Cryogenics Development Imperative
The Hanso Juxtapositional Eugenics Development Institute
The Hanso Accelerated Remote Viewing Training Facility
Dharma Initiative (hidden dead link)
This links together a number of things. The Electromagnetic Research Initiative obviously is what this station was directly involved with. Mathematical Forecasting Initiative sounds like it relates to The Numbers. And Remote Viewing is likely what the guys on the boat wanted Walt (and maybe Claire's baby) for.
Someone somewhere online reversed what Shannon's dripping zombie Walt said and put it online. Sounds like "Don't push the button. The button is bad." Gives us something to think about, doesn't it?
You may have noticed that when the shark attacked Sawyer and Michael on the raft, it had a tattoo that matched the symbol that appeared on the shaft. But look more closely - the symbol on Desmond's uniform and on the walls has a swan in the center. The symbol on the shark does not. Could the shark have been from another branch of The Hanso Foundation?
Other tidbits: Could these electroagnetics have screwed up the plane's navigation systems and crashed it? Are The Numbers GPS Coordinates? Did the fact that Russo changed that repeating broadcast fourteen years ago from The Numbers to a French distress call somehow cause those who should have replaced Kelvin and Desmond to never show up? And will Jin really speak English next week, or was that just another vision like when Shannon saw Walt?
Anyway, the thing that popped off the screen at me was the reference to B.F. Skinner. The name is instantly recognizible to any psych major . . . or professional trainer (which is what I am - or was, at any rate). Skinner was the king of the behaviorial psychologists.
The classical "Skinner Box" experiment demonstrates "operant behavior" and goes something like this:
You have a rat in a cage. The cage is the Skinner Box. The box has a pedal that, when pressed, causes a mechanism to release a foot pellet into the cage. The rat is running around the cage when he accidentally presses the bar and a food pellet falls into the cage. The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet. In a little while, the rat is peddling away at the bar, hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage.
A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.
So, think of typing a number when a clock counts down. Presto! Operant behavior.
Someone else can have a bash at the rest. Start with the bust shown in the film.