Author’s Introduction- Presentists believe that only presently existing things exist. In a Newtonian framework of three spatial dimensions, for example, presentists would say that all that exists is a three-dimensional spatial manifold, and the events in that manifold change with time.
- Eternalists, by contrast, believe that past, present, and future things all exist. In the Newtonian framework, eternalists believe in a four-dimensional space-time manifold, where events are scattered throughout this four-dimensional 'block universe'.
- It is often thought that presentism is incompatible with time travel1. William Godfrey-Smith (1980: 722), for example, says that 'the metaphysical picture which underlies time travel3 talk is that of the block universe.
- In an informal survey of philosophers, the predominant answer to my question 'Is presentism compatible with time travel4?' was 'No'. Simon Keller and Michael Nelson (2001: 334) also report that this is the common view.
- I will argue that this common view is incorrect. Specifically, I will argue that presentism is compatible with some stories that involve closed timelike curves, and that some of these stories are time-travel stories.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2:
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2019
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)