Richard Alpert visits little John

Igs wrote:At the Purge, Richard looks much like he does today -- clean, cropped hair, etc. Yet, the Richard you describe seeing young Ben has longer hair, more unkempt, etc. Yet, if we go with time-travel as the explanation, we have to believe that these two Richards are actually one person. Why? Because then the Richard in the woods is actually Richard from the future -- in this case, they should look identical, shouldn't they.

Well Igs, as astute as you say my observation was, yours was 'astuter' (if that is a word). Good point and well said.

If the solution is that Richard ages slowly, why does Richard look older in the 1950s when he visits John, to how old he looks in the 1970/80s when he talks to Ben?

wtfsignmeup wrote:If the solution is that Richard ages slowly, why does Richard look older in the 1950s when he visits John, to how old he looks in the 1970/80s when he visits Ben?

The one reason I can think of, silly as it may seem, is that in the 1950's people tended to have an "older", more mature appearance than in more recent years. Many people nowadays, seem to age more gracefully, maintaining a much more youthful appearance. It's all I got, so I hope you won't beat me too hard!

Maybe thats it dab..... Or Richards time travelling

Very good point WTF. I am with you. Time travelling it is.

If 'Island time' and 'real time' are running parallel with each other (which I think they are, barring the anomalous inconsistency with transference from one to the other) then that allows for plenty of time for Richard to change his appearance.

Locke is born: Richard is clean-cut.

Young Ben meets Richard in jungle: He has long hair.

Richard could have grown that hair very easily by spending his entire time living on the Island, 'going native', fighting the fight against Dharma instead of pursuing potential recruits in the 'real world' for the role of Island chief.

So AC, I wonder why it is that Ben ages, from a little boy to a man, but at the same time Richard doesn't age much.

Just curious?

AC, I do see your and dabs point that it could simply be a change of appearance. I'll see if i can find some screencaps to post and decide if Richard appears to be looking different ages in those scenes because to my mind, Richard was made up to look a bit younger in TMBTC.

OK, Im on board the ageless train, although that doesn't rule out time travel.

I feel I need to point out that he wont look any older or younger to any degree facially, unless aging make up is applied during filming which I dont think it has been....and it only takes a few months to grow your hair (unless its a wig haha)!!!

I think we are suposed to assume he has time travelled and thats the answer I'm sticking with

Hey all,

While I think the time-travel point for Richard Alpert is interesting (SBP, WTF, Irocz), I'm not sure if Richard visiting Locke and Ben via "time-travel" has me convinced.

One, why would Richard go "back in time" to observe the leadership qualities of Ben and Locke while they were leaders on the island.

Isn't it significantly easier to examine one's leadership qualities by studying how they lead in the present then going back in time and asking odd questions to the child-version of that person.

Two, if you do think it's time travel, I think this raises another set of paradoxes to resolve. Whereas believing his apparent agelessness is the result of, say, life-extension treatment, avoids any such time-travel paradoxes.

Three, I don't think we have yet seen that anyone has such control over time-travel that they can selectively choose when and where they will appear in the past/future. We have seen (i) consciousness time-travel; (ii) time-distortion on the island; (iii) and see one person get moved in space-time (Ben) only after turning the wheel. All these things have something in common -- people aren't controlling their "time-travel".

Now, there are hints this might be the case (the bunny, the message). But I am waiting a bit longer before I make that total jump.

Four, Richard Alpert (at the time of the Purge) also looks the same as he does now. Since this was 30 something years ago and he still looks the same, this raises another time-travel issue. Either he was time-traveling again here at the time of the purge, or he does truly have a slow-aging or ageless quality about him. Thinking he was also time-traveling during the Purge starts to get a little too far afield for me. (i.e. does Adult Richard Alpert see his younger self during the Purge? -- another paradox issue)

I just worry about getting caught up in time-travel to the exclusion of other interesting ideas.

I mean -- we have this idea of life-extension treatments being performed by Dharma. Then we have a gentlemen who never seems to age. IMHO, This seems like both a simple and interesting explanation.

WTF,

To your point, I would be more in line with Dabs...he seems older in the 60's scene b/c he is dressed professionally as opposed to the native look he has in the 70's. It's the style here that I think creates this impression not his actual looks.

Also, wtf, it still doesn't resolve the initial problem I raised. For Richard to look like hippy Richard to Ben, he had to look like hippy Richard at whatever point in the future he time-traveled from. Yet, we never see Richard look like this after his encounter with young Ben. In fact, we know from the Purge forward -- he has never looked like this (at least when we have seen him).

So when was he time-traveling from? I can't figure this out so I am not yet convinced he time-traveled (in these cases).

As mentioned above, I am also confused why Richard is time-traveling to determine things he already knows (will Locke/Ben be the island's leader, etc.). And if his reason for visiting is that they are bad leaders, why doesn't he do anything to prevent that from happening?

These questions make me look to something else -- i.e. life-extension treatments -- which have significantly less complications. Then again, I will be the first to post a picture of the beer I owe you if (when?) it turns out you are right.

Good stuff Igs. Sounds like a future debate club topic. I'm 50/50 on this one right now. There is good support for both sides.

Great points Igs. I can't find any holes in your arguments for now

One small hole is that the Dharma initiative was founded in the early 1970s and didn't begin conducting experiments on the island until that time, and yet we see Richard hasn't aged for the past 20 to 30 years in the seventies when he meets young Ben..so his lack of aging isn't likely to be due to experiments.
If Richards' agelessness or slow aging is because he is a native it makes me wonder under whose authority he was scouting for the future island leaders in the 50s. There's obviously still a lot of back story to be told.
I know the Lost Experience discusses life extension but we don't see much of that on the show.