We’ll have to wait and see how old Charlotte was when Faraday told her never to return.

Desmond is a “wildcard” and thus is outside the Rules of LOST Time-Travel.

Rousseau doesn’t recognize Jin from 16yrs ago, because she is crazy as a loon.

Richard does recognize Locke (in 2004) from the very start. I think he uses Locke’s ability to walk as his justification to Locke as to why he is special, even though Alpert knows the real reason and that is because he knows Locke will have to travel-back to the past (1950s) at some point in the future (at that point in the story).

Daniel doesn’t remember meeting Desmond (in 1996) because, at that point in time, Dan’s memory is swiss-cheese.

Charlotte doesn’t remember Daniel from her on-Island childhood because she doesn’t remember most of that childhood.

Ben saying that “Widmore changed the Rules”, is based on his belief that Widmore killed Alex, but Widmore found a loophole (by using Keamy to actually commit the murder) … This is the same loophole Ben used when he sent Goodwin on his mission to infiltrate the Tailies.

So possibly now Ben is out to try to right the wrong that Widmore set into motion by Alex’s death?

It has clearly been established I think that you can’t change the past. So everything that our Losties are doing has actually happened in the past. I think the excuse for Rousseau is that she is crazy.

The only exception is Desmond. Why? Who knows, but it has been made clear that Desmond’s time travel is different and the rules don’t apply to him.

So there you have it. You don’t need to read more into it than that.

In my head I think of it as Possibilities Universe.

SO the time-slipping events that one person does or does not remember could actually be interactions with different reflections – timelines if you must.

Of course, folks. The great thing about fiction is you can make up or combine theories, never have to justify a thing. The writer only has to sit back with a knowing smiles at your confused questions because you have been sucked into his false reality based on the universal logos we all share and believe, faith-like, that the writer has an answer.

And of course, there is no answer. IT’s fiction.

Imagine holding a book in your hands that represents the entire timeline of our story from chronological start to finish. Then, imagine taking a straight pin to the back page and slowly pushing it through towards the front of the book until the tip reaches, say, page 25. Only at the moment that the point arrives there are the events on that page altered. We experience time as the unfolding of events as we read the book from front to back. Since the pin has not begun it’s journey as we read past page 25 to the end of the book, we “remember” the events of page 25 in one fashion only. Only later, when the “happening” of the pin reaching through to page 25 occurs on the timeline as we experience it are we able to “remember” or conceive of those events differently.

One of the most brilliant achievements of the writers has been their ability to keep these seemingly convoluted twists of time consistent even as our shifting perspective forces us to reexamine events and wonder whether a paradox has been established by “past” circumstances being changed by “future” ones. Faraday doesn’t recognize Desmond by the helicopter because the shifts in consciousness that will lead Desmond to Oxford in 1996 haven’t “happened” yet. Charlotte and Faraday don’t recognize each other when they board the freighter for the island because future Faraday hasn’t yet traveled into her past to deliver his fateful warning. She only “remembers” him when HER consciousness, set adrift by timeshifts, travels to her own past and sees Faraday there. Rousseau can’t recognize Jin when she meets the Lostaways at their beach camp because the freighter explosion and timeshifts that set him adrift to be discovered by the Beseixdouze life raft haven’t yet occurred.

Crazy. Brilliant. Confounding. Consistent. THAT’S why I love this show.

Jimzip

Of course, the biggest reason everyone is so confused is “What about Desmond?” Exactly. Take him out. He is above the rules. It is impossible to explain everyone else and Desmond with one unifying theory. Desmond is different for a few reasons.

Summarized: MasterDan05 jumps in time to 2001-2004 and talks to Des. MasterDes08 remembers. There is a discontinuity that I can’t explain either from a narrative perspective or a time-mechanics perspective.