'Lost': What the Island 'Saw'

So explain how Igor is relevant to Team Sawyer/John Locke separation.
Think this through. Sawyer was lowering Locke down a well. Then came a time flash, and Sawyer was sent to a time in which the hole for the well had not yet been dug. If Locke had traveled with Team Sawyer, then Baldie would have been killed instantly, as he would have materialized within solid ground. Now, Lost established that you could die while time traveling; see: Charlotte. But John Locke's death would have produced a paradox, and the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle couldn't let that happen. Hence, Locke got booted back to his present — to the time of the off-its-axle Frozen Donkey Wheel.

Okay, a couple questions. First: How would Locke's death at that point in Island history have produced paradox?
Because John Locke had obligations to history that he had not yet fulfilled — specifically, he had to die in order to be the catalyst for Jack to travel back in time and produce his portion of Dharma-era Island history and specifically the Ben Linus Problem.

You just gave me a headache with that one sentence.
I'll explain more as we forge ahead.

My second question is more philosophical. In order for the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle thing to work, this ''rule of order'' or ''regulating agency'' would have to have omniscient knowledge and creative powers. It would have to have, like, real intelligence. It would have to be like...well, God.
So what you're saying is that the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle sounds less like serious science and more like speculative theology — more supernatural than naturalistic. It's kind of like this video demonstrating a comparable idea known as Maxwell's Demon, in which a deck of mixed-up playing cards is effortlessly restored to order by a pair of tricky hands (and tricky editing). But in a wholly naturalistic universe, there are no tricky hands (and no tricky editing). Right?

Exactly.
It's a good point. And it's one reason why many other eggheads have a problem with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle (and with Maxwell's Demon). It's basically magic. Still, as you will see when we move up the Island time line to the Charlie Must Die story in season 3, Lost clearly embraced this principle long before the season 5 time-travel season. Moreover, I would also say that what makes the Novikov Self-Consistency scientifically problematic also makes it thematically attractive to Lost, because it feeds into the show's philosophical conflict between faith and reason. I'll have more to say about all that in Part Four of this theory.

NEXT: Now about that pie...