The Terminator Paradox

In the film, The Terminator directed by James Cameron, an artificial intelligence called Skynet, dominates the future world and attempts to destroy all human life, causing a war between machine and human. On the verge of defeat in 2029, Skynet sends a “Terminator” back to the year 1984 to kill Sarah Conner, in order to wipe out the existence of John Connor, who is the leader of the human Resistance. To prevent the murder, John Connor sends one of his soldiers, Kyle Reese, back in time to protect his mother. Whenever time travel is brought up in science fiction there are bound to be paradoxes, if not thought out well. According to Philosophers, Ted Sider and David Lewis, time travel is not that logically impossible as we play it out to be. Since, paradoxes are the reason that time travel is impossible, the only way to give insight on that time travel is conceptually possible is through closely examining the paradoxes that are presented. Though its not easy, paradox-free time travel stories can be told (sider, 58). Through the views of the Sider and Lewis, one can assess the consistency of time travel in the terminator. The film is consistent according to their understanding on how the following paradoxes are inconsistent through reverse causation/backward causation, causal loop, and the grandfather paradox. …show more content…
All events up until that point are perceived as the “normal” order of events, from past to future. The word normal is explained later on through personal and external time. In the timeline the terminator is the first one to be sent back, then Kyle. At this point, in order for Kyle and the Terminator to be sent to the past and to fulfill the their missions, they must require future knowledge and apply it to their past. But if one goes back in time, then how can one remember the future events in the past to fulfill their