SID: 25647359
Time Travel and Backwards Causation This is a paper about time travel; namely, time travel to the past. On the surface, the concept seems saturated in contradictions and inevitable paradoxes, including backwards causation, the grandfather paradox, or time moving in two ways inconsistent with each other. Much of the confusion and contradictions regarding time travel have led many to conclude that time travel is impossible. I’m going to argue that some of these arguments claiming time travel is impossible can be worked out when we clearly define what we’re talking about. For example, backwards time travel involves an arrival that occurs after getting in the time machine as well as earlier than. This seems incoherent, but when we establish the difference between “personal time” and “external time”, it becomes clearer that we’re saying, “for time travel to occur, personal time must change at a different rate than the external time”. Then it’s coherent to say a time traveler arrives after she leaves on her personal time, but arrives before she has left in external time. It merely sounds contradictory, but it is not necessarily. …show more content…
Thus backwards causation is a matter involving external time, and less so personal time. This is why we say events in the future cause events in the past, because we are referencing external time. However, on personal time, events from the past (starting time travel) caused events in the future (arriving in the past). In backwards time travel, what is earlier in personal time is later in external time. The distinctions between external time and personal time help to resolve some contradictions that
Time Travel and Backwards Causation This is a paper about time travel; namely, time travel to the past. On the surface, the concept seems saturated in contradictions and inevitable paradoxes, including backwards causation, the grandfather paradox, or time moving in two ways inconsistent with each other. Much of the confusion and contradictions regarding time travel have led many to conclude that time travel is impossible. I’m going to argue that some of these arguments claiming time travel is impossible can be worked out when we clearly define what we’re talking about. For example, backwards time travel involves an arrival that occurs after getting in the time machine as well as earlier than. This seems incoherent, but when we establish the difference between “personal time” and “external time”, it becomes clearer that we’re saying, “for time travel to occur, personal time must change at a different rate than the external time”. Then it’s coherent to say a time traveler arrives after she leaves on her personal time, but arrives before she has left in external time. It merely sounds contradictory, but it is not necessarily. …show more content…
Thus backwards causation is a matter involving external time, and less so personal time. This is why we say events in the future cause events in the past, because we are referencing external time. However, on personal time, events from the past (starting time travel) caused events in the future (arriving in the past). In backwards time travel, what is earlier in personal time is later in external time. The distinctions between external time and personal time help to resolve some contradictions that