Newsletter of Phenomenology

Keeping phenomenologists informed since May 2002

237188

(2003) Synthese 136 (3).

Closed causal loops and the bilking argument

Jenann Ismael

pp. 305-320

The most potentially powerful objection to the possibility oftime travel stems from the fact that it can, under the right conditions, give rise to closedcausal loops, and closed causal loops can be turned into self-defeating causal chains;folks killing their infant selves, setting out to destroy the world before they were born,and the like. It used to be thought that such chains present paradoxes; the receivedwisdom nowadays is that they give rise to physical anomalies in the form of inexplicably correlated events. I argue against the received wisdom. I can find nothing in them that argues against the possibility (even, the probability) of time travel.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1023/A:1025170026539

Full citation:

Ismael, J. (2003). Closed causal loops and the bilking argument. Synthese 136 (3), pp. 305-320.

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