Time travel and changing the past: (Or how to kill yourself and live to tell the tale)

Ratio 16 (1):16–32 (2003)
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Abstract

According to the prevailing sentiment, changing the past is logically impossible. The prevailing sentiment is wrong. In this paper, I argue that the claim that changing the past entails a contradiction ultimately rests upon an empirical assumption, and so the conclusion that changing the past is logically impossible is to be resisted. I then present and discuss a model of time which drops the empirical assumption and coherently models changing the past. Finally, I defend the model, and changing the past, against objections

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original Goddu, G. C. (2004) "Time Travel and Changing the Past: (Or How to Kill Yourself and Live to Tell the Tale)". Ratio 16(1):16-32

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G. C. Goddu
University of Richmond

Citations of this work

Backwards Causation in Social Institutions.Kenneth Silver - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (5):1973-1991.
Time Travel and the Open Future.Kristie Miller - 2005 - Disputatio 1 (19):223 - 232.
Paradoxes of Time Travel to the Future.Sara Bernstein - 2022 - In Helen Beebee & A. R. J. Fisher (eds.), Perspectives on the Philosophy of David K. Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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