This paper argues that the most famous objection to backward time travel can carry no weight. In its classic form, the objection is that backward time travel entails the occurrence of impossible things, such as auto-infanticide—and hence is itself impossible. David Lewis has rebutted the classic version of the objection: auto-infanticide is prevented by coincidences, such as time travellers slipping on banana peels as they attempt to murder their younger selves. I focus on Paul Horwich's more recent version of the objection, according to which backward time travel entails not impossible things, but improbable ones—such as the string of slips on banana peels that would be required to stop a determined auto-infanticidal maniac from murdering her younger self—and hence is itself highly improbable. I argue that backward time travel does not entail unusual numbers of coincidences; and that, even if it did, that would not render its occurrence unlikely.

Bananas Enough for Time Travel

Preface Introduction PART I: The Errors of Atheism Chapter 1: Analyzing Atheism Chapter 2: The Errors of Atheism Chapter 3: Dawkins' Godless Delusion Chapter 4: The New Agnosticism PART II: Grounding God Chapter 5: Naturalizing Theism Chapter 6: Liberating Theism Chapter 7: Is Hybrid Minimalist Theism Plausible? Conclusion Bibliography Index.

The Errors of Atheism

There is widespread agreement, even among those who accept the possibility of backward causation, that it is impossible to change the past. I argue that this agreement corresponds to a relatively uninteresting understanding of what changing the past amounts to. In one sense it is indeed impossible to change the past: in no possible world is an action performed which makes the past in that world different from the past in that world. In another sense, however, it may be possible to change the past: maybe in some possible world an action is performed which makes the past in that world different from the actual past. I argue that those who accept the possibility of backward causation are committed to accepting the possibility that the past changes in the latter sense.

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Do Cry Over Spilt Milk: Possibly You Can Change the Past

If (backward) time travel is possible, presumably so is my shooting my younger self (YS); then apparently I can kill him – I can commit retrosuicide. But if I were to kill him I would not exist to shoot him, so how can I kill him? The standard solution to this paradox understands ability as compossibility with the relevant facts and points to an equivocation about which facts are relevant: my killing YS is compossible with his proximity but not with his survival, so I can kill him if facts like his survival are irrelevant but I cannot if they are relevant. I identify a lacuna in this solution, namely its reliance without argument on the hidden assumption that my killing YS is possible: if it is impossible, it is not compossible with anything. I argue that this lacuna is important, and I sketch a different solution to the paradox.

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Can i kill my younger self? time travel and the retrosuicide paradox

Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel

Understanding Time Travel

Reasoning in a “primitive” society

Skinner's values

L'A. traite du principe anthropique et cherche a montrer que l'argument, de type teleologique, echoue a etablir l'existence de Dieu car il est logiquement incoherent.

Gilbert Fulmer

Papers

Understanding Time Travel

Reasoning in a “primitive” society

Skinner's values

A fatal logical flaw in anthropic principle design arguments

The concept of the supernatural