Backwards Time Travel and Backwards Causation

Research Article
Open access

Backwards Time Travel and Backwards Causation

Zhao Guo 1*
  • 1 California University of Berkeley, Berkeley, CA,USA    
  • *corresponding author guozhao07@berkeley.edu
CHR Vol.4
ISSN (Print): 2753-7072
ISSN (Online): 2753-7064
ISBN (Print): 978-1-915371-31-7
ISBN (Online): 978-1-915371-32-4

Abstract

Is it possible to travel back in time? Objections against backwards time travel frequently focus on the impossibility of changing the past. However, there is a deeper problem for backwards time travel. It seems that if backwards time travel were possible, the time traveler could causally affect the past, even if she could not alter the past. Is it possible to causally affect the past? David Lewis famously argues that backwards causation is possible as long as we understand causal dependence in terms of counterfactual dependence rather than temporal precedence. In this paper, I argue that this Lewisian line of reasoning is untenable. Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation faces the so-called ‘problem of effects’. To solve this problem, he either has to reintroduce temporal precedence back into the definition of causation or stipulate that the closest possible world needs to be historically the same as the actual one. Either way, the possibility of backwards causation is immediately ruled out.

Keywords:

time travel, philosophy of time, causation, counterfactuals, David Lewis

Guo,Z. (2023). Backwards Time Travel and Backwards Causation. Communications in Humanities Research,4,541-544.
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References

[1]. Lewis, D. (1976). “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”, his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986,pp.73-74.

[2]. Mellor, D. H. (1998). Real Time II. London: Routledge.

[3]. Hume, D. (2007) A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4]. Lewis, D. (1973). “Causation”, in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986,pp.166-171

Cite this article

Guo,Z. (2023). Backwards Time Travel and Backwards Causation. Communications in Humanities Research,4,541-544.

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About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies (ICIHCS 2022), Part 2

ISBN：978-1-915371-31-7(Print) / 978-1-915371-32-4(Online)
Editor：Faraz Ali Bughio, David T. Mitchell
Conference website: https://www.icihcs.org/
Conference date: 18 December 2022
Series: Communications in Humanities Research
Volume number: Vol.4
ISSN：2753-7064(Print) / 2753-7072(Online)

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References

[1]. Lewis, D. (1976). “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”, his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986,pp.73-74.

[2]. Mellor, D. H. (1998). Real Time II. London: Routledge.

[3]. Hume, D. (2007) A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4]. Lewis, D. (1973). “Causation”, in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986,pp.166-171

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