Man, whoever the casting director of this show is,
they do a good job on picking CREEPY AS ALL GET OUT WIERDO'S.
Eathan Rom was awesome, now we got Desomond. Look at them eyes, it gives me a creep fest right here, right now, like he is looking right through the computer.
Desmond
Played by: Henry Ian Cusick
Appears in: Man of Science, Man of Faith
Desmond first appears in a flashback with Jack, who is running in the same stadium as Desmond. He was planning on becoming a doctor but did not make it all the way. During the flashback, he stated that he plans for a "race around the world". On the island, Desmond resides inside the hatch; his furnishings and uniform carry a logo based on Bagua, and appear to carry the name DHARMA [1].
The bagua (Chinese: 八卦; pinyin: bā guŕ; Wade-Giles: pa kua; literally "eight trigrams", Korean 한국어: 팔괘 is a fundamental philosophical concept in ancient China. It is an octagonal diagram with eight trigrams on each side. The concept of bagua is applied not only to Chinese Taoist thought and the I Ching, but is also used in other domains of Chinese culture, such as fengshui, martial arts , navigation, etc.
There are two possible sources of bagua:
The first is from traditional Yin and Yang philosophy. The interrelationships of this philosophy were described by Fuxi in the following way: "Taiji comes from the void, four phenomena come from Taiji, Bagua comes from four phenomena, the sixty-four gua come from Bagua" (“无极生有极, 有极是太极, 太极生两仪, 即阴阳; 两仪生四象: 即少阳、太阳、少阴、太阴, 四象演八卦, 八八六十四卦”).
Another philosophical discription of the source is the following: "When the world began, there were heaven and earth. Heaven mated with the earth and give birth to everything in the world. Heaven is Qian-gua, and the Earth is Kuan-gua. The remaining six gua, are their sons and daughters".
Dharma (sanskrit, roughly law or way) is the way of the higher Truths. Beings that live in harmony with Dharma supposedly proceed quicker towards personal liberation (also called moksha or nirvana), a concept central in eastern religions .
It is difficult to provide a single concise definition for Dharma (life fails to convey its connoted complexity). The word has a long and varied history and complex set of meanings and interpretations. Certain Westerners and Orientalists have proposed a number of possible translations, from "justice" to "religion", however these definitions have evolved with their associated usage in Western culture.
"Dharma" derives from the verbal root dhri, which simply means "manner of being." The term must therefore be understood in its original (i.e. metaphysical) context, that of a conformity to a divine or creative principle at work in an individual and in nature. It represents the individual's internal law, to which obedience must be given if that individual life is to live in accordance with a Divine Will. This is what Hindus consider the sole or primary purpose of life. It explains how justice finds its place among the many modern definitions of the word dharma.
Rene Guenon, father of the 20th century school of Perennial Philosophy, defines it as such:
It [dharma] is, so to speak, the essential nature of a being, comprising the sum of its particular qualities or characteristics, and determining, by virtue of the tendencies or dispositions it implies, the manner in which this being will conduct itself, either in a general way or in relation to each particular circumstance. The same idea may be applied, not only to a single being, but also to an organized collectivity, to a species, to all the beings included in a cosmic cycle or state of existence, or even to the whole order of the Universe; it then, at one level or another, signifies conformity with the essential nature of beings… (from Guenon's "Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines")
What if this island is really just a ride at an amusement park in Australia that erases their short term memory and makes them believe they're in this terrible situation, when in reality they're jacked into some kind of arcade matrix. And when they wake up (die) their memories are resored and they can watch the rest of the gang going through hell for who-knows-how-long until they finally die or wake up. And if they want they can jack back into the game, but their memory is erased again (like Claire's).
Like a cheap Vanilla Sky plot. Mixed With The Matrix. And Sphere. And Total Recall.
Perfecto!
Please pardon my pseudo-intellectuaphilisophicalismysiticality.
09-23-2005 10:25 PM
is a fundamental philosophical concept in ancient China. It is an octagonal diagram with eight trigrams on each side. The concept of bagua is applied not only to Chinese Taoist thought and the I Ching, but is also used in other domains of Chinese culture, such as fengshui, martial arts , navigation, etc.
