Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Iris Marion Young, John M. Cooper and David Lewis

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3 ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
9666 It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis]
     Full Idea: It is hard to believe that any philosopher means it when they say the future is unreal. If anyone is right that there is no future, that moment is their last, and it is the end of everything.
     From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.2)
     A reaction: A bit simplistic. I might say 'there will be a future time, but it doesn't exist now'. That's the peculiar thing about time. If I say New York doesn't exist, then clearly I can't visit it. The London 2012 Olympic Stadium is going to exist.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / j. Time travel
23019 The interesting time travel is when personal and external time come apart [Lewis, by Baron/Miller]
     Full Idea: Lewis says a journey only counts as interesting time travel if there is a disparity between personal time and external time. …It is also necessary that the person at the beginning of the journey is the same as the person at the end of the journey.
     From: report of David Lewis (The paradoxes of time travel [1976]) by Baron,S/Miller,K - Intro to the Philosophy of Time
     A reaction: Other cases would presumably be the whole of time accelerating or slowing, or going into reverse.
23021 Lewis said it might just be that travellers to the past can't kill their grandfathers [Lewis, by Baron/Miller]
     Full Idea: Lewis denied that the grandfather paradox makes time travel impossible. Time travel does not entail that it is possible to kill your grandfather. Maybe the traveller fails in their attempt every time they try to do it.
     From: report of David Lewis (The paradoxes of time travel [1976]) by Baron,S/Miller,K - Intro to the Philosophy of Time 8.2
     A reaction: The problem with this answer is that killing the grandfather is only an extreme case of making any change in the past which ripples forward into the present. Virtually all changes by the time traveller would be impossible (though not contradictory).