LOST : push the button?

LOST is a television drama, an odd mixture of The Prisoner, Twilight Zone, and a dash of Gilligan’s Island. And I’m hooked on it.

It has the required drama of people loving, fighting, bonding and dying. But Season 2 did something unusual. The central plotline that underscored the entire season from beginning to end was a relatively simple decision: whether or not you push a button. Or more accurately, whether or not you DON’T push The Button. All you have to rely on is Faith and Reason. Faith without Truth and Reason without Facts.

Here’s a fast overview for those who have no idea what this show is about. A plane leaving Sydney Australia crashes somewhere isolated in the south Pacific. Over forty people survive on an island which, they quickly discover, has a creepy surreal edge to it. Others have been abandoned here years ago. Strange things happen. People disappear. And of course, people have sex and people die.

In the beginning of Season 2, they enter an underground hatch and discover an industrial fortress buried under the jungle. There’s a modern washing machine, a vintage record collection and turntable, a ton of food supplies, guns, and other treats. After a month of fruit and grime, what can be better than chocolate and Patsy Cline? But perhaps the most strange of all, they discover a Scottish man who every 108 minutes must enter a comically old computer room and push a button. He must type 4 8 15 16 23 42 on an early 1970s computer and push Execute. He calls it, “pushing the button … to save the world,” but has no idea how or why this works.

The Tired Oracle has been there for three years, pushing the button for unknown reasons, and discovers the new people. The Tired Oracle sees a fresh crew of button pushers and escapes, elated. That leaves our heroes to decide whether or not to believe him. Do you push the button? Do you stop?

Overview over. Doesn’t that make sense?

The Button is nearly a character on the show. It’s an entity. It’s a thing that holds sway on our heroes and divides them. The button has believers and detractors, a Man of Faith and a Man of Science. The Man of Faith believes it his destiny to be the caretaker of The Button. The Man of Science sees no reason to believe, but logic tells him it’s better to wait, learn and see. He defers to the Man of Faith and waits, and waits, and eventually becomes Man of Habit. As the season progresses, the Man of Habit becomes the Man of Whatever and the Man of Faith becomes the Man of Doubt. At the same time, a priest enters and becomes Man of Bigger Faith. He takes over pushing The Button.

The end of the season sees the predictable showdown between the Man of Doubt and the Man of Bigger Faith. Who will prevail? The Man of Bigger Faith has had visions that he must keep pushing The Button. The Man of Doubt is convinced it is all a lie. The Man of Whatever gave up a long time ago. In the end, the Tired Oracle returns to join the Man of Doubt, who locks out the Man of Bigger Faith. They wait to see what happens when you stop pushing the button. The 108 minutes elapse and they don’t push it. Wrong decision. The industrial fortress begins to collapse and they must resort to blowing the whole thing up. End of season. We have no idea who survives.

Who was correct, Faith or Science? Do we trust Technology? Should we doubt it? Do we blindly follow the path set out before us, do we question it and try another path, or do we trust the original path as long as we do our homework and refine the story as necessary? Or am I babbling because it’s before dawn?

In the end, the correct answer was Faith in Science. Absolute faith never works because it offers no flexibility when change inevitably occurs. Absolute science never works because it reduces problems to bits and pieces, losing the big picture and any sense of consequences. Absolutes lead to an unequivocal Yes or No. As usual, the answer is in between. It’s not whether or not you push the button. It’s stopping to ask yourself, what does the button actually do? Do the research, put it in context of the greater good and make the wise, hard decision.

All that from a TV show?

And there’s the dawn.