Ontological Paradox - Research Paper Example

Ontological Paradox: Changing the Past Many people would love to be given a second short at past events so that they might reverse some of the decisions that brought them to current positions. Such fantasies lead to the contemplation of different possible pasts that could have brought a person to the present state. This will also influence the different possible futures that one’s life could take with the full knowledge that these possibilities were not their pasts and will not be their futures. This creates a situation such as that in the Myth of Er from the “Republic” by Plato where one has the ability to choose from the multiple patterns of lives with the chance of being embedded in one of the possible past-future pairs (Santas 39). The possibility of breaking out of limitations of only being able to exist in the present has led to many depictions of possible situations where human beings are able to freely move through the past present and future. Obsession with changing the past has not been limited to popular culture but has also featured in academic field such as physics and philosophy. This essay argues against the notion presented by some physicists and philosophers that one can travel back into the past to change based on the inconsistencies of time travelling. In this kind of fantasies, many tend to perceive an instrument such as special machine that will facilitate the backward time travel, think of a special machine which will enable man disappear from one place and time and reappear at a past time in a different or same place. There is a philosophical line of thought based on the existence of what is called a closed timelike curves (CTCs) discovered by philosophers and physicists working on time travel. CTCs are “curves in space and time” which provide “possible paths of bodies” to move through various universes. The model containing CTCs was discovered by Kurt GGdel in the 1940s and was believed to be models of the Einstein field equations (Seaman and Ssler 141). Based on model, Godel makes a theoretical assumption that it is possible for one to travel and come back at the exact time and place by making a round trip on a rocket ship in a suitably wide curve. This means that the object will get back to its past to the exact moment when it commenced the journey. The argument presented by Godel is based on the belief by some philosophers and physicists that the past, present and future equally real. These views on past, present and future represent the ideas of externalists group of theorists who argue that there was no objective ontological difference among the three in the same way that objective ontological difference among far, there and here does not exist. The world is therefore thought as being extended in time as it is in space making it possible to traverse the past present and future when one travels along the CTCs. Others have argued for the existence of a destination for time travel to be possible based on the line of thought that for the journey to take place, past or future has to be real. However, Dowe (442–445) dismisses this idea noting that a definite destination does not have to exist at the time of departure but can only exist at the time of arrival. The model developed by Godel has seen other physicist develop their own version of general theory of relativity containing CTCs. The CTCs models for time travel did not generated great interests from physicists, but have in recent years led to questions regarding whether it is possible to produce CTCs in universes where they do not exist. Although physicists such as Morris and Thorne have invested in the development of machines, which according to them, might make it possible to travel into the past; these efforts have been met with widespread criticism (Gott 274). The result of this is that no one in this universe has been able to develop a practical scheme for backward time travel even when there is no evidence that such a system cannot be produced. One sure aspect of the literature on time travel is that is that most of the considerations that have been made reflect largely some logical or conceptual incoherence in the very idea of travelling back into the past. This conceptual incoherence is for instance evidence in the assertion that by travelling in a space ship or in what some advocates of general theory of relativity call CTCs, “one could travel into one’s past” (Read 54). This ability if possible would lead into multiple logical problems if one was able to change their history. An example is the situation where one is able to go back in the past and kill their parent before being born with some physicists trying to explain this occurrence by claiming that such paradoxes could be avoided through the modification of the concept of free will. However, others have argued in favour of what is called the “chronology protection conjecture” which claims the laws of physics does not allow CTCs from appearing and that the action taken by the person travelling back in time should not contradict what actually happened in that past. Based on these facts, the laws of nature do not have to make it impossible for the logical incoherence to occur since it is already impossible for the actual world to instantiate conflicting situations (Bardon and Dyke 307). The fantasy concerning time travel is based on the notion that one could be able to go back into the past to change history in unlimited ways by for instance killing infamous persons in different wars or to prevent the plagues of the middle Ages. However, this creates another level of objection to the backward time analogy since it will implies travelling back in time will enable one change the past. To change the past in this manner will mean that something that did not happened in fact happen and the other way round. This will create an inconsistency where an occurrence that did not happen at a particular point in time and place in the past, happen in the same past. This creates a contradiction that makes backward time travel impossible. The impossibility of backward time travel according to Barrow is because there must not exist a state whereby “undoing or changing the past” results in the existence of “two pasts” (206). Barrow explains the two pasts as the one which exists without any intervention and one that has been transformed through going back into the past and changing certain aspects of it. Another objection to the backward time travelling notion is based on the work by David Albert’s which asserted that if time is perfectly symmetrical playing a video depicting real life events will still make sense even when played backwards. This notion is supported by real life event where actions have an order of occurrence where for instance it is makes more sense for a glass to fall into pieces than the reversed occurrence where the pieces assemble themselves into a glass. The second law of thermodynamics negate the chance that travel into the past is possible based on the assumption that the entropy of an isolated system increase with time but does not decrease therefore the difference between moving forward and backward in time, and therefore ensures that time is directional (Albert 77). Further support to the fact that time cannot go backwards is explained based on the theories of time. According to the tensed theory views about time, there exist three levels on which events are ordered. This involves the past, present and future where the motion of occurrence is such that the present moves towards the future. On the other hand the tenseless theory of time postulates that events are organized based on different series of temporal positions through irreflexive and transitive relations which are thought to be asymmetric. In this case, irreflexive implies an is a position in time which comes before or precedes the other while transitive relation between events implies that whose position in time comes after or follows another. (Kim, Sosa and Rosenkrantz 175) These two theories further support the idea that events and object are asymmetrical which therefore implies they only follow a forward direction from one to another. The theories of time therefore imply one cannot begin from the future and physically move backwards in time. Causality relations can also be used to disapprove the notion of travelling back in time based on the belief that two events whose occurrence is dependent must take place in a predetermined manner. This can for instance be explained by having two events namely, event A and event B where it can said that event A causes event B when the two always occur together and in that order. This creates a relationship where based on the necessity of a causal order where the chronological relationship of A and B becomes precise in such a way that the happening of event A directly implies that B has a higher probability of happening afterwards. In this relation event A becomes the cause while event B is the effect. The chronological relationship resonates with the conventions of time asymmetry where there is no chance that causes will herald effects since it is the effects, which always precede causes. This further helps develop the conviction that time flows forward due to the causality relationships being specific and directional. If travelling back into the past was possible, there will not be a consistent relationship between cause and effect creating a situation where a phenomenon will take place before the necessary conditions and reasons that favour the occurrence of such phenomenon have been realised. This therefore creates impossibility in time moving backwards as disapproved by the causal-effect framework. Disapproval of backward movement in time can also be made when one assumes that both backward causation and forward causation are possible. Accepting the existence of backward causality will create a situation where it becomes impossible in some cases to determine which event caused the other. Such a situation creates what has been termed as a “causal loop” (Fales 105). This can also be explained based on the assumption that event C causes event E to occur meaning that event E becomes the effect of event C. Suárez (12) uses the “bilking argument” to explain the impossibility of backward travel. Proponents of the bilking argument postulates that if event C causes an earlier event E, then there must be a situation which event C occurs in cases in where E is yet to take place while also stopping event C from happening in situations where event B has occurred. When this is successful event E will happen even in situations where event C does not occur while event C also happens without event E tasking place. This will ultimately imply that event C is no longer the cause of event E. However, when the attempt to change this sequence of events based on the proposition in the bilking argument fails which means event C cannot be prevented when Event E has taken place and event C not brought about when E has not occurred it can be concluded that event E causes event C and the reverse is not true. Proponents of backward causation claim the existence of a causal loop do not have precise explanation why this should happen but base the belief of this occurrence on the fact that everyone accepts that God, the decay of a tritium atom, the Big Bang, or the endless past of the universe is inexplicable and uncaused. Theorists arguing for this backward causality assert that if these explanations of the origin and existence of the universe are possible the existence of an inexplicable causal loops that occur in the time travel can also be possible. However, this further creates an inconsistency since the probable existence of a causal loop in travelling to the past does not necessarily justify backward causation. This is because the traveller’s personal time always reflects a forward causal order. This is because if travelling Back in time was possible; the traveller will not have the knowledge of where and when he is going to travel in the future personal time (Fales 105). Discrepancy in time also makes time traveling whether backwards or forward an impossible undertaking. Smith highlights the impossibility of time travelling based on time discrepancy giving the example of a time traveller is born in 1964; in 2014 they depart on a journey through time; the journey lasts one year; they arrive in 1984” (156). The author notes that this is impossibility due to what he calls “straightforward contradictions”. Such a scenario becomes impossible since the time traveller has to cover thirty years of his personal time in a one-year journey, which takes him to 51 years old and 21 years after he is born. Such situations make time travel impossible due to the difficulty that exists in trying to reconcile the different times involved in travel. This essay has explored the notion of time travel based on the possibility that a person can travel back in time and affect or change an occurrence that happened in history. The idea of time travel has been argued based on the ideas of philosophers and physicists who have put forward a number of research that support the possibility of travelling in the past or in future time. This is largely based on the work by those who argue in favour of closed time like curves, which are thought to be present evidence that support the possibility of going back into the past. This has led to the perception that it is possible to make time machines that will be able to traverse time therefore taking people into their past where they can temper with history where they could for instance avert a future war or plague and other countless historical occurrences. However, there exists literature that disapproves the possibility of going back into the future based on a number of scientific and logical evidence. The ability of going to the past and change some aspects of one’s history becomes conceptually incoherence where for instance one has to go back the past and kill their parents. The asymmetry of time also makes travelling into the past impossible since events can only move into the future and not backwards into the past as demonstrated by logically occurring events such as the falling of a glass into pieces are good example of how it is impossible for events to occur in a backward motion. Additionally, causality relations negate the ability to travel into the past due to the existence of cause-effect relationships in occurrences. It has been argued that events can only be logical when the relationship is maintained with the cause occurring before the effect while the opposite will imply what happens first is either the cause or is not related to the preceding event. This in addition to the causal loop make backward time travelling impossible as the order of events will be disrupted by such an occurrence. Works Cited Albert, David Z. Time and chance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Bardon, Adrian, and Heather Dyke, eds. A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print. Barrow, John D. Impossibility: The limits of science and the science of limits. New York: Random House, 1999. Print. Dowe, Phil. “The Case for Time Travel.” Philosophy 75 (2000): 441–451. Fales, Evan. Causation and universals. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. Gott, J. R. (2002). Time travel in Einsteins universe: the physical possibilities of travel through time. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kim, Jaegwon, Ernest Sosa, and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, eds. A companion to metaphysics. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. Print. Read, Rupert. A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2012. Print. Santas, Gerasimos, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Platos Republic. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print. Seaman, Bill, and Otto R. Ssler. Neosentience: The Benevolence Engine. Intellect Books, 2011. Print. Smith, Nicholas JJ. "The problems of backward time travel." Endeavour 22.4 (1998): 156-158. Suárez, Mauricio, and Mauricio Suâarez, eds. Probabilities, causes and propensities in physics. No. 347. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2011. Print. Read More