Time-Travel: The Ever-Changing View Of Time

The idea of time-travel is very interesting and many have attempted to find way in which it can be done. Before thinking about time-travel however, time itself must be defined. Is it all readily set out with everything existing simultaneously, or is it simply an ever-changing present moment and nothing more? It must also be said that the past and the future are very different concepts, despite appearing similar. Because of this, time-travel to the past and the future must be considered differently also. There are many ways to look at time. One of them is the view that time is an infinite stream of present moments. This view is called presentism and goes hand in hand with the A-theory, in which the present moment is given special status, and expressions such as ‘a week ago’, ‘last year’, and ‘tomorrow’ that only have …show more content…
In contrast, B-theory, or block theory, is the view that time is already completely laid out, much like space is. B-theorists believe that the present, as well as the past and the future, all exist simultaneously in a single block of reality, and the feeling of time being fluid and moving forward is just an illusion. A-theory is supported by philosophers such as logician Arthur Prior, who used the example of a headache to refute the block theory. When someone has a headache, eventually it must go away. If block theorists are correct then the headache never actually goes away, but that is impossible. This ties in with Aristotle’s view on the nature of time. He described it as a constantly fleeting present moment that lies between past and future moments, which don’t actually exist by themselves but are simply ways to refer to moments other than the now in relation to the now. He said that time comes into focus when a conscious mind is aware of two instants of time: now…and now. Because between every two instants of time there is a gap where there can always be another