Meteorology and Parapsychology, an open ended question.

The DI is known to be studying Meteorology, Psychology, Parapsychology, Zoology, Electromagnetism and Utopian Sociology.

We have seen Psychology, Zoology, some Utopian Sociology and gads of Electromagnetism, but what about Meteorology and Parapsychology? Could there be two more stations out there designed in accordance with these two?

Here is a list of stations with what they dealt with:

1) Swan: Electromagnetism
2) Pearl: Psychology
3) Hydra: Zoology
4) Orchid: ??? Seems to be Electromagnetism as well.
5) Flame/Staff/Barracks/Looking Glass/Arrow: All seemed to be necessary needs to running an Island Research Facility.

Unless one of those mentioned in #4 or #5 are for more than they have let on... shouldn't there be at least 2 more stations? We haven't ever heard of anything being done with Meteorology at all and as for Parapsychology, I would assume that Walt is a good candidate for that study and he was locked up in Room 23 in the Hydra. Other than dead people, Walt is the only one who showed up somewhere where he shouldn't have been.... unless you count Harper seeking out Juliet in "The Other Woman," but I have a feeling she walked there... she was pretty wet for appearing from nowhere, however, she is a psychologist and the closest thing we have to parapsychology is psychology.

I, personally, don't have a clue what they could do with Meteorology (or do I?) and as for Parapsychology... well... I have some ideas, but not too terribly much to base them on. I would imagine that parapsychology could easily tie in with electromagnetism because Desmond demonstrated some psychic abilities after a good ole dose of electromagnetism. Perhaps the Orchid is the home base to our parapsychology department on the island? I suppose, from doing my own research, that Meteorology is also affected by electromagnetism. No major storms or typhoons have hit the island (no wind) and ocean currents have a lot to do with weather patterns... notice how the ocean's currents have abruptly shifted and took out the first beach camp in the matter of like.. two days because of the strange tides?

These are some random ideas I wanted to throw out there to see what you guys think about those two subjects that have been vastly forgotten by the writers. What do you think will happen with them and do you think they are relatively important?

I think that we see the results of what the DI experiments on meteorology were, it is the controlling of the weather. The only person who notices the predictable weather patterns is Locke. He is able to say quite accurately when the rain will stop. My guess is that he realises that the weather on the island is different to weather patterns off the island. My guess is that he has observed that when it rains it rains for the exact same finite period of time, everytime.

My guess is the weather controlling station is probably on the other island, but how they actually control rainfall is a mystery. I guess, and it is only a guess is that there really is some type of dome (force field) than covers the island and some of the remaining ocean. And that is is this dome that actually prevents normal rainfall entering and this dome that causes light entering through it to scatter differently as Faraday observed.

So under this strange dome it may be necessary to create artificial rain. If you can do that then you would be one of the world's wealthiest people, but let us imagine that someone has been able to do this on the small scale of the island!

So I think that The DI have been successful in their meteorolical experiments.

I think that your "dome" is in fact the electromagnetic field that surrounds the island. It diverts the storms and real rain. I didn't take into consideration the idea about how Locke knows when it will rain or how the rain just starts and stops randomly.... that, my friend, is something that I have to look into. Really though, the fact that they control rain, if in fact they do, doesn't really shed a whole lot of light on the whole reasoning behind it. There has to be more.

Well I think that it ties in with the idea of Utopian Sociology. One of the most famous theories was put forward by Abraham Maslow.

Maslow has set up a hierarchy of five levels of basic needs. Beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist. These include needs for understanding, esthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs. In the levels of the five basic needs, the person does not feel the second need until the demands of the first have been satisfied, nor the third until the second has been satisfied, and so on. Maslow's basic needs are as follows:

Physiological Needs

These are biological needs. They consist of needs for oxygen, food, water, and a relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person's search for satisfaction.

Safety Needs

When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as widespread rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.

Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness

When the needs for safety and for physiological well-being are satisfied, the next class of needs for love, affection and belongingness can emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.

Needs for Esteem

When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless.

Needs for Self-Actualization

When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualization activated. Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.

In order to create a utopian world one needs to ensure all the basic needs are met and water is one of the most critical. If you can accurately control rainfall, you can then have successful harvests all the time and this predictability helps create a utopian paradise.

I find the idea of weather control on the island an interesting one.

I don't think the DI could control weather, they probably were just studying the unual weather patterns of the island. Jacob probably controls the weather.

After all, if the DI could control weather, they could control all of human civilization.

Monsoon heading towards India...not anymore, the DI just stopped it.

Drought in an agricultureal region...not anymore, The DI made it rain.

Another hurricane heading towards New Orleans...nope, DI moved it back out to sea.

A country not wanting to go along with the DI plan to save the world... too bad, the DI just shut off the water to your country. No more rain until you join up with the plan.

Weather control would be the ultimate in controlling civilization and if the DI had it they would have used it.

I think it more likely that the Orchid Station was more of a physics research station.

And I can pretty much bet that we will see as many stations as the writers need to create to tell the Lost story. There could be a hundred of them for all we know.

Stitch- Ok. Yeah, that is about all I have to say is Ok. It sounds good to me, haha. What about Parapsychology then smart guy?

Starbuck- I think that all the stations aren't what they seem. The Pearl was meant to be a psychological project watching the Swan, when in reality it was the Pearl that was being tested. The Arrow, do you really think it is just a stockroom for supplies? I doubt it. But I agree, I think there are more stations out there.... not too many because then the thrill of stations is pretty lame... The Tempest really didn't do a whole lot for me when they showed it.... however, I have a feeling the Tempest is more along the lines of Meteorology based on the name "Tempest" which is a reference to the book and the storm that crashed the ship.

As for controlling weather, I wouldn't actually put it past the DI. They did figure out after all how to teleport a whole island.

JWLost wrote:
As for controlling weather, I wouldn't actually put it past the DI. They did figure out after all how to teleport a whole island.

I don't think it was the DI that figured out how to teleport the island.

See this for my theory about that:
https://losties.darkbb.com/hall-of-fame-f12/wow-frozen-wheels-and-the-black-rockhow-they-tie-together-winner-june-2008-t536.htm

More likely to me that DI was investigating the anomoly but had no real idea as to it's power or capabilities.

StitchExp626 wrote:My guess is that he has observed that when it rains it rains for the exact same finite period of time, everytime.

During my visit to Chichen Itza, the guide checked the time and told us to enter a palapa (here you can find --exactly-- what I'm talking about). I didn't understand why should we waste our time when we were in the middle of such a wonderful archeological site, but I followed him all the same.

As soon as we were inside the palapa, rain started to pour. I thought we had been very lucky, but our guide told us we'd have to wait for an hour. I thought he was joking but... exactly an hour later, rain stopped. Abruptly. As if someone had turned the tap. Our guide smirked, then explained it had something to do with --I understood-- monsoons. I learned to get undercover from 5pm to 6pm during my Mexico trip, and that didn't fail a single time.

What I mean is, I doubt very much Mexico --or any other country, for that matter-- has such a control over weather...

Ha, I heard of that too, so Stitch... I want a rebuttal! LoL. I still think that there is a possibility that meteorology hasn't been covered on the show just yet, but I think Stitch could be on to something because the writers have made a point to question Locke's predictions of the weather on several occasions.