On the Possibility of Time Travel - Lewis - A Series B Series of Times - Essay Writing Assessment Answer

On the Possibility of Time Travel Essay Writing Assessment Answer

Assessment Task:

ESSAY II: On the Possibility of Time Travel?

In “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” (1976), the late philosopher David Lewis developed an intriguing line of argument to the conclusion that time travel is possible, though it certainly does not seem so in our everyday experience. Here we seem to face a paradox: on the one hand, it seems that time travel is possible (in a possible world as characterized by Lewis); on the other hand, it seems that time travel is not possible (in our actual world). What shall we make of this puzzle, a seeming paradox?

Part A

To begin, suppose with Lewis that time travel is possible: how then would it work? Lewis’ argument assumes a distinction between “external time” and “personal time”. Explain this distinction: how is “external” time characterized, and how by contrast is “personal” time characterized, in Lewis’ account? Apply this distinction to a concrete example: a fictional case of time travel, where you travel through time and there is a difference between external time and your “personal” time during your time travel. Lewis writes, “We may liken intervals of external time to distances as the crow flies, and intervals of personal time to distance along a winding path. The time traveller’s life is like a mountain railway. ... ” (2nd page, the bottom of 2nd column). Explain how this analogy applies to the distinction as drawn in your fictional case of time travel.

Part B

 Lewis’ account of possible time travel assumes a basic metaphysical model of the world, according to which: “The world — the time traveller’s world, or ours — is a four- dimensional manifold of events. ... Enduring things are timelike streaks: wholes composed of temporal parts, or stages, located at various times and places.” (1st page, 2nd column.) Suppose you are a time traveller, an “enduring thing”, as in the fictional case described in Part A. Explain Lewis’ model of you during your time travel: you have “temporal parts”, or “stages”, in which different events happen. What happens in these different stages of “you”? How is their location in the time specified, i.e., in external time or in personal time or both? How do the story of you and your journey unfold in time?

Part C

 Recall McTaggart’s distinction between the A-series of time and the B-series of time: see Sorensen’s A Brief History of the Paradox, pp. 184-185 on McTaggart, and compare Sorensen’s observation on Augustine’s theory of time as subjective, pp. 173-176. Consider the case of your time travel as analyzed in Parts A and B. Where does the “present” — what is happening “now” in A-series time — occur in the story of your time travel? Where do events in B-series time occur in the story? How does Lewis’ distinction between “external” time and “personal” time fit into the distinction between A-series time and B-series time? Is a time-traveller’s “personal” time subjective, or is it a different form of objective time? This question is philosophically debatable (!), so your task is to analyze the issue, briefly, and see what you think about the issue.

Critique

 As you reflect on the above ideas about time travel, do you think Lewis’ account successfully shows that time travel is possible? Do you think the distinction between an A- series of times and a B-series of times raises problems for Lewis’ account? In brief, what would you make of Lewis’ account of the possibility of time travel if we bring in the notion of the “present”?

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