I hope this helps more than confuses.

It's a good start to helping.  It clears up the first person aspect of everything, but in that same scenerio, if you went back to 1920 and then two years later made a major breakthrough because of your knowledge of the future, was it you that invented it in the first place?

But Captian shadoweyes (alpert) knows...DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN! LOL

That part makes sense to me.  The part that doesn't make sense is not remembering you were there in the first place.  If you already lived a particular portion of your life and you go back in time, you can make the same decisions easily because you already make them; but how do you make the same decisions if the time period they are in is a time when they either weren't born yet, were in diapers, or were toddlers through the traditional flow of time.  Did the flow of time "know" they were going to go back in time and thus put their decisions in place making the present happen or what?

I think it's wrong to say "this stuff has already happened" without disclosing whose "already" we are talking about - the world, or the Losties?

Think of this like relative motion.  When you are driving down the highway, it is common to say you are going 65 miles per hour.  This is only true if your point of reference is some point on Earth.  If your point of reference is the sun, you would be going much faster due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis and its revolution around the sun.  Much the same, to say "this stuff has already happened" is only correct if we are using the Earth or people who are moving through time "normally" as a point of reference.  If we use the Losties, it's only now happening.

I am 25 years old.  In 365 days (from my perspective), I will be 26, agreed?  Now, that doesn't necessarily mean on April 3, 2010 I will be 26, because what if I go back to 1920 between now and then?  Then, I would turn 26 in 1920.  Anything I did in 1920 would have already happened for the world, and I could probably actually read about it in 2009 if it was noteworthy enough.  But since it happened to me when I was 26, it would not have happened for me yet.

I think the best thing to do in this case is to not worry about what year it is.  Think of each person's age as their own personal timeline.  If it hasn't happened yet on that timeline, it hasn't yet happened for that person.

I hope this helps more than confuses.

 When you travel back in time you can not create a new path of footprints or even divert the current path a diffrent direction. All you can do is simply take the same path and step on top of the current footprints. Thus not changing anything.

That part makes sense to me.  The part that doesn't make sense is not remembering you were there in the first place.  If you already lived a particular portion of your life and you go back in time, you can make the same decisions easily because you already make them; but how do you make the same decisions if the time period they are in is a time when they either weren't born yet, were in diapers, or were toddlers through the traditional flow of time.  Did the flow of time "know" they were going to go back in time and thus put their decisions in place making the present happen or what?

I think I just popped a vessel in my brain trying to over analyse this.

I too read a book in my younger days that discussed time travel. In this book it compared time to a sandy desert with one set of footprints going thru it. When you travel back in time you can not create a new path of footprints or even divert the current path a diffrent direction. All you can do is simply take the same path and step on top of the current footprints. Thus not changing anything.

Agreed. We just have to remember that they always were, we just didn't know it. 

That's the part that confuses me.  I think of time like a string.  When pulled tight it has a definite flow from a starting point to an ending point.  Time travel involves making that string a ball where each point in time connects.  (I don't remember which book or movie I adapted this idea of time from, so I apoligize for the theft of ideas)  If that is anywhere close to the truth, at what point in this show did the character's ball of string get messed to where time already had them on the island before they had a congnizant memory of such?

 Agreed. We just have to remember that they always were, we just didn't know it.

But Captian shadoweyes (alpert) knows...DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN!

Kate, "LaFluer," and Juliet are just as responsible as Sayid and Jack for creating Ben. They saved him when they could have let him die knowing what he becomes. Heck, even Jin has some responsibility. He brought him in.

Agreed. We just have to remember that they always were, we just didn't know it.

Eric did you ever watch wrestling as a kid ? As Gorilla Monsoon would say " He should have hooked the leg "

One of my Monsoon faves:  "The Bushwhackers are living proof that the Three Stooges had children" 

Kate, "LaFluer," and Juliet are just as responsible as Sayid and Jack for creating Ben. They saved him when they could have let him die knowing what he becomes. Heck, even Jin has some responsibility. He brought him in.