Year: 2019
Type: preprint
Abstract: In this essay, I argue that certain classic time travel scenarios (e.g. a person travelling back into their recent past) are very improbable. This is, I argue, because the greater the disagreement between that which a scenario’s records imply happen during some period, and that which its dispositions imply happen during that same period, the more improbable the scenario is. I argue that the classic backwards time travel scenarios almost invariably involve systems and spacetime structures such that this disagreement is serious. In the course of defending these conclusions, I provide a precise definition of time travel scenarios, and engage in detailed discussion of the role objective chance and spacetime structure plays in determining the probability of the events (and specifically ‘coincidences’) required by time travel scenarios.
Author: Jack B. Johnson
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3047713283