The Myth Of Passage-Argumentative Analysis

Often times, science fiction presents views of time travel that are inconsistent with the philosophical notions of time travel. Although A and B theory as well as Growing Block Theory are highly debated, for a science fiction film to gain philosophical credibility it must commit fully to one of these. I maintain that the time travel presented in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is consistent with B theory as presented by D.C Williams and directly follows David Lewis’ notion of time travel. In The Myth of Passage, D.C. Williams explains time as a four Dimensional manifold. He asserts that this manifold is comprised of a three dimensional spread of space and one dimension of time. He characterizes this spread as a “spatiotemporal …show more content…
External time, he suggests is “time itself”. For example, the external time between the years 2000 and 2014 is an interval of 14 years. Personal time on the other hand is a more practical and self-concerned concept. Therefore, in using personal time one is justified in using temporal language such as past, present, and future. This is the way that people commonly express themselves in everyday life saying that a particular event occurred in the past or another event may potentially occur in the future. Personal time, as Lewis explains it is the time by “one’s own wrist watch”. This is the way that time actually “feels” for a normal person or a time traveler. In making this distinction, Lewis essentially sets the stage for time travel as a possibility. He explains that this occurs when a person’s external time and personal time do not match up. Typically, in everyday life personal and external time are the same however this is not the case for time travelers. For example, if a time traveler wished to travel to 1964 his external time would be 50 years, however it would not actually take him 50 years to travel to this time. It may perhaps only take him an hour (his wristwatch only having experienced an hour lapse) or so depending on his time machine, and the length of his journey. Since the duration of these trips do not match up, our time traveler has …show more content…
Again, it appears that they are changing the past but in reality, Buckbeak never died. The sound that they believed to be the executioner killing Buckbeack was in reality the sound of his axe smashing a pumpkin. During their time travel Harry and Hermoine do not necessarily change anything. Instead, the happenings that they create were present at all times both before and after their time travel. They merely gain insight on what exactly caused these happenings. This concept of time travel brings to mind Lewis’ explanation of the causal