Lost makes you think, posing questions about life, love, survival, transformation, destiny and happenstance in virtually every episode. That’s the focus of Lost and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), a collection of 21 thought-provoking yet reader-friendly essays that explore the many references to philosophy in the popular ABC series. Is it meaningful that two of the show’s characters, John Locke and Desmond Hume, share the surnames of two of humankind’s greatest philosophers – or merely a coincidence? We spoke with the book’s editor, Sharon Kaye, associate professor of philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland.

The Wave: Why does Lost appeal to you?
Sharon Kaye: There’s a great deal of thought to the show – that’s why some people come away frustrated at the end of an episode. They say, “I had these questions from last week that I’d hoped would be answered, but they’re not answered, and now we have even more questions!”

It’s very parallel to what happens in philosophy. Philosophy starts with a question, which leads to another, and another, and before you know it, you’re in a quagmire of questions. That can be frustrating at first, but what you learn is that, ultimately, life is full of questions, and it’s the questioning, the search, that becomes meaningful.

TW: Provided we don’t end up stuck down in the hatch.
SK: [Laughs] Yes... that’s one place I wouldn’t want to be!

TW: Give us an example of how the book examines philosophy through Lost.
SK: There’s a puzzle called the Birthday Paradox that philosophers like to discuss. Suppose you’re in a room with 23 people. What are the chances two of those people will share the same birthday? Most people think it’s pretty improbable, but in fact, and this is mathematically true, there is a 50/50 chance two people in that room will have the same birthday.

This Birthday Paradox is featured in one of the essays in the book, because Lost often explores the problem of coincidence versus fate.... We have these people who have never met before, thrown together by apparent happenstance – but as the episodes unfold, we see how their lives all intersected in interesting ways. Now, one of the great mysteries of the show is whether these intersections are significant or not. Some believe there is some kind of fate that brought these people together; others believe it’s a cosmic coincidence. That question itself is a metaphor for our own lives, and the coincidences we run into: are they significant, do they tell us there is some bigger picture, some meaningful story that is being told, or is it in fact like the Birthday Paradox, where we want to apply significance to it, but in fact it’s really just a flip of the coin.

TW: Jack would say it’s the latter, Locke would say the former.
SK: Exactly.

TW: What’s your goal for the book?
SK: Mainly it’s to enjoy and celebrate the show, and to celebrate philosophy. But I also think it’s important to provide people with quality pastimes to spend their free time with. Free time is such a valuable thing these days, and we don’t have much of it. We’re busy, busy, busy, and when we do have a few hours here or there, we want to use it doing something really valuable. So I see this book as one way to spend a few hours of precious free time that is uplifting, enjoyable, memorable, and perhaps even contribute to our development as human beings.

Green Machine
Making the air cleaner, two wheels at a time.

What’s green, goes 65 miles per hour, and costs only 40 cents to fill? No, not a frog on steroids with an eating disorder. It’s the Vectrix electric Maxi-Scooter.

The makers of the Vectrix are banking on the idea that urbanites want to transform getting from A to B from a dirty, time-consuming chore into a journey that is economical, pollution-free and fun.

The Vectrix differs from gas-powered scooters in all the right ways. Designed by former aerospace engineers, it achieves extended range and high performance through weight reduction, digital circuitry, low aerodynamic drag, and minimal friction. The scooter consists of relatively few parts (250, versus 2,500 for a gas scooter), resulting in reduced production costs and minimal maintenance. And, the Vectrix is fast, topping out at 62mph, going from zero to 50 in 6.8 seconds. Along with speed, it has the ability to travel up to 68 miles on a single charge. (An empty battery takes about two hours to charge in any regular outlet.) The Vectrix scooter is the only 100- percent-electric, zero-emissions vehicle of any kind approved for highway use by the California Department of Transportation.

There’s not much more a rider could ask for when it comes to economy and ease of operation. First, the Vectrix is extremely inexpensive to run – electricity is one-tenth the cost of gasoline. Along with the money saved at the pump, another great cost-cutter is the likelihood of the forthcoming legislation, on both state and federal levels, that will grant operators of zero-emissions vehicles big rebates and tax breaks. Second, unlike other electrics, the Vectrix practically drives itself. There’s no clutch to bother those whose attention to the road is compromised by shifting gears, and operators can stop and go with one hand. A simple twist of the throttle backwards to go, and a twist forwards to stop.

Construction of the two-wheeled clean machine is a global endeavor. Parts come from Italy, Hong Kong and Santa Rosa, Calif., and are assembled at a plant in Poland. The corporate and testing ends of the business are handled in Newport, R.I. and New Bedford, Mass., respectively.

The Vectrix has already made a splash in the narrow streets of Europe, but it is available only in limited US markets, the Bay Area among them. Jeff Qvale of British Motors, the only Bay Area dealership to carry the scooter, says of the Vectrix, “This is a beginning, and a necessary [one] for the environment. Vectrix was the first company to put out a marketable, useable, practical product. Electric is coming, and the Vectrix is a great starting point.”


See for yourself at Vetrix California, 901 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco (415) 776-7700 www.vetrixcalifornia.com. Scooters start at $11,850, and they deliver.

Hollywood Video
A new documentary shows how turning videogames into movies is all in the game.

Videogames are prime source material for motion pictures today (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Hitman), but it wasn’t always that way. For years they were considered the “Antichrist” by film executives. Even after Hollywood came on board, it took a few clunkers (Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter) before filmmakers realized what made a good videogame adaptation, and what didn’t.

The relationship between movies and videogames is the subject of Hollywood and Gaming, a new hour-long documentary that airs this month on Starz. Featuring commentary from over 30 leading film and gaming professionals – including Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts (EA) in Redwood City, EA general manager Neil Young, and San Francisco’s Jamil Moledina of Game Directors Conference – it’s a fun look at how both industries have played off each other over the past 25 years.

“Videogames are like the bestselling books of the new generation,” says film director Uwe Boll (BloodRayne), one of many genre filmmakers who appear in Gaming. “It makes sense to bring them to the big screen.” That may be true. But it takes more than just a hot property to make a successful videogame adaptation – it also takes an understanding of what made the game successful in the first place.

That’s why the movies of game-designer-turned-director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat) are considered the best of their kind. As Moledina notes in Gaming, Anderson “knew that you can’t just simply carbon-copy the game – you have to understand the theme and philosophy of the game.” Anderson’s Mortal Kombat represents a milestone in the history of the genre: the first movie based on a game to do well at the box office while also appealing to gamers.

The distinct visual style of 300, one of the top grossing films of 2007, is the latest example of videogames’ influence on movies. But as Gaming also notes, the videogame industry owes much of its success to adapting strategies from movies. Nintendo founder Shigeru Miyamoto took a classic movie storyline – ordinary guy tries to rescue a beautiful damsel in distress – and turned it into Super Mario. That not only got Hollywood interested in games again in the late ’80s (after Atari’s E.T.: The Game debacle), but marketed Mario to people who didn’t necessarily frequent video arcades.

Videogames then borrowed Hollywood techniques, like red-carpet openings and celebrity endorsements, to market games like Lara Croft. Then there’s Hawkins, who built EA’s fortunes around licensing. By turning the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, not to mention NFL football and Major League Baseball, into interactive games, EA turns fans of these genres from mere spectators into participants with a bonafide say in the outcome.

Hollywood and Gaming on Starz airs throughout December. For times and dates, check your cable or satellite listings or go to www.starz.com.