Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility
There are various arguments for the metaphysical impossibility of time travel. Is it impossible because objects could then be in two places at once? Or is it impossible because some objects could bring about their own existence? In this book, Nikk Effingham contends that no such argument is sound and that time travel is metaphysically possible. His main focus is on the Grandfather Paradox: the position that time travel is impossible because someone could not go back in time and kill their own grandfather before he met their grandmother. In such a case, Effingham argues that the time traveller would have the ability to do the impossible (so they could kill their grandfather) even though those impossibilities will never come about (so they won't kill their grandfather). He then explores the ramifications of this view, discussing issues in probability and decision theory. The book ends by laying out the dangers of time travel and why, even though no time machines currently exist, we should pay extra special care ensuring that nothing, no matter how small or microscopic, ever travels in time.
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Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility
There are various arguments for the metaphysical impossibility of time travel. Is it impossible because objects could then be in two places at once? Or is it impossible because some objects could bring about their own existence? In this book, Nikk Effingham contends that no such argument is sound and that time travel is metaphysically possible. His main focus is on the Grandfather Paradox: the position that time travel is impossible because someone could not go back in time and kill their own grandfather before he met their grandmother. In such a case, Effingham argues that the time traveller would have the ability to do the impossible (so they could kill their grandfather) even though those impossibilities will never come about (so they won't kill their grandfather). He then explores the ramifications of this view, discussing issues in probability and decision theory. The book ends by laying out the dangers of time travel and why, even though no time machines currently exist, we should pay extra special care ensuring that nothing, no matter how small or microscopic, ever travels in time.
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Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility

Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility

by Nikk Effingham
Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility
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Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility

Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility

by Nikk Effingham

Overview

There are various arguments for the metaphysical impossibility of time travel. Is it impossible because objects could then be in two places at once? Or is it impossible because some objects could bring about their own existence? In this book, Nikk Effingham contends that no such argument is sound and that time travel is metaphysically possible. His main focus is on the Grandfather Paradox: the position that time travel is impossible because someone could not go back in time and kill their own grandfather before he met their grandmother. In such a case, Effingham argues that the time traveller would have the ability to do the impossible (so they could kill their grandfather) even though those impossibilities will never come about (so they won't kill their grandfather). He then explores the ramifications of this view, discussing issues in probability and decision theory. The book ends by laying out the dangers of time travel and why, even though no time machines currently exist, we should pay extra special care ensuring that nothing, no matter how small or microscopic, ever travels in time.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780198842507
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 05/10/2020
Pages: 260
Product dimensions: 9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nikk Effingham, University of Birmingham

Nikk Effingham is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham. He received his doctorate from the University of Leeds and has previously worked at the University of Glasgow. His areas of research include metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of science. Other than time travel, he has also written papers on supersubstantivalism, composition, and perdurantism.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Modes of Time Travel2. The Self Visitation Paradox3. The Time Discrepancy Paradox4. The Double Occupancy Problem5. The Bootstrapping Paradox6. Changing the Past7. The Grandfather Paradox8. Constrict Theories9. Inconsistency Theories10. Incapacity Theory11. Impossibility Theory12. Probability13. Decision Theory14. The Tourist Paradox
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Related Subjects

Philosophy
Major Branches of Philosophical Study
Metaphysics
Philosophy
Major Branches of Philosophical Study
Metaphysics

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