The prospect that somebody we know is actually a time traveller from the future seems quite improbable.

We would never think that our neighbour or the postman is actually from another time zone. In the public eye, time travel is best left to science fiction or radical theoretical physicists. However, this essay will argue that time travel as per the movie 12 Monkeys is logically possible. irstly, the eternalist view of time in 12 Monkeys will be discussed. !econdly, it will be shown that the compossibility and causal loops in the movie are not contradictory. "astly, an ob#ection regarding the definition of temporal parts will be discussed. Eternalism $ternalism is a view of time that argues that the past, present and future are all real. !ome describe time%space as a block with all points on the block e&isting at the same time.' When we e&perience time moving it is merely our consciousness passing through this block. It is like a torch with a spotlight passing through the block. ( This may seem odd at first but the $ternalist claim that arguing otherwise is even less believable. or e&ample, holding onto presentism would entail claiming that )braham "incoln is not real. It would also entail that things are constantly passing into and out of e&istence as every second passes by. urthermore, it means that that we as individuals are also constantly passing in and out of e&istence. The *me+ at t before I wrote this line is no longer e&istent and the me after t has not yet come into e&istence. )nother aspect of $ternalism is the fact that we do not e&ist as separate entities at different t. or e&ample when I am writing this essay at t' and when I am eating later at t(, t' and t( are #ust temporal parts of the same person. "ewis describes it as being a streak throughout the dimension of time. , !o if I lived from '--. to (./., I would be one long temporal streak stretched out across the time from '--. to (./.. )t each different t we may have different spatial bodies but the temporal one is #ust parts of the same. In e&plaining this in terms of time travel, "ewis e&plains that there

'

0ichael 1ea, 2 our 3imensionalism4, in 0ichael "ou& 5 3ean 6immerman 7eds.8, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 79&ford: 9&ford ;niversity <ress, (..,8 p. (=>. ( Ibid, p, (=?. , 3avid "ewis, 2The <arado&es of Time Travel4, 7'->@8 American Philosophical Q arterly vol. ',7(8, p. '=>.

is an internal traveller4s time and an e&ternal time. = Hence when Aole travelled from the future into '--@ he is travelling forward in his own personal time. However, in an e&ternal time frame he is actually travelling backwards. ) little more definition needs to be made regarding e&ternal time. The current physics of time in the theory of relativity specifies that time is only relative to the person in his own frame of reference./ Thus there is no absolute point of time to which we can call the e&ternal time. Instead, we can define e&ternal time as the timeline of a person other than that of the person whose personal timeline we are referring to. To further define $ternalism we can use the B series of time to e&plain it. The B%series is a tenseless series that describes time in terms of *earlier than+ and *later than+.@ !ince present, past and future all are equally real, when we refer to the past we are really meaning the t' that was earlier than t(. This essay will not delve deeply into the tense and tenseless versions of time and so for future purposes we shall merely refer to past, present and future. 12 Monkeys !everal parts of 12 Monkeys alludes itself to an $ternalist position of time. )t one point this conversation occurs: !octor" Are yo #oin# to sa$e s Mr. %ole& 'ames" Ho( am ) #oin# to sa$e yo & This already happened. ) can*t sa$e yo +nobody can. ) am simply tryin# to #ather information to help people in the present trace the path of the $ir s. This is a recurring theme throughout the movie. The past has already happened and cannot be changed.

= /

Ibid. 0ichael 1ea, 3imensionalism, (>.. @ Ibid, p. (/..

)ccording to "ewis, this inability to change the past will be an aspect of $ternalist versions of time if time travel is possible.> He creates an e&ample where Tim wishes to travel into the past to kill his grandfather. He states:
, t the e$ents of a past moment are not s bdi$isible into temporal parts and therefore cannot chan#e. -ither the e$ents of 1.21 timelessly do incl de Tim*s killin# of /randfather, or else they timelessly don*t.0

)dditionally, if the past cannot be changed then there cannot have been an original '--@ where Aole did not time travel there. or if there was an original '--@ and Aole time travelled into it then it would result in the original '--. being changed since the original '--@ had no Aole in it. !imply put, '--@ always had the grown up time travelling Aole in it. )lso, "ewis4 versions of personal and e&ternal time are used in 12 Monkeys as well. In a conversation with 3r. 1ailly the following occurs: 'ames" 1..1 is the past !r 2ailly" 3o, 1..1 is the f t re+this is 1..4. We see that there are two different personal timelines at play here. or 1ailly, '--@ is in the future because that year has yet to occur in her personal timeline. or Aole '--@ is the past because in his personal timeline '--@ has already passed. However, there is an e&ternal timeline which is the timeline of the viewers who knows that '--. and '--@ are the past and (.,/ is the future. Is this type of time travel possible? /randfather Paradox and %ompossibility The Crandfather4s parado& in 12 Monkeys appears in Aole4s attempt to kill 3r. <eters. If Aole kills <eters then there would be no virus and as such Aole
> ?

"ewis, <arado&es, '/.. Ibid.

would not have been sent back in time in the first place. The causal link would be broken and falls back on itself. In such cases, "ewis claims that it is compossible for Aole to kill <eters.- )n e&ample of compossibility is that my throat is thoroughly capable of speaking innish. However, I am not able to speak innish. )s such in one way it is possible for me to speak innish but in another way it is impossible. It is impossible for Aole because it would break the chain of causation that led him there but it is possible for Aole because he has the physical means to kill Aole. Dow it seems that compossibility does not set out two forms of possibility but rather the difference between possibility and actuality. It is physically, metaphysically and logically possible for me to speak innish since my throat can make the sounds, it is possible in some other world that I speak innish and it is not contradictory for me to speak innish. However, the fact that I cannot speak innish does not relate to the possibility but the actualisation of that possibility. Devertheless, compossibility does not entail that actualisation is never possible. or if something cannot be actualised then that is a contradiction that it can be possible. 1ather, compossibility entails that something is possible but as of yet it has not been actualised. If this is the case then compossibility does not make an interesting statement at all. or many things are possible but have not been actualised.. 9ther scholars have argued against compossibility in different ways. Eranas argues that for compossibility to be successful it must rely on a hidden clause that it is not necessarily impossible for Aole to kill <eters. '. or if it must be necessarily impossible for Aole to kill <eters then in all cases it can never be possible for Aole to kill <eters even in the compossible sense. It is impossible that there is any possible world where Aole kills <eters and yet he is still sent back in time for the spreading of the virus by <eters. Thus the actualisation of the killing is a logical impossibility.

Ibid. <eter Eranas, 2Aan I Fill 0yselfG: Time Travel and the 1etrosuicide <arado&4, 7(..-8 Pacific Philosophical Q aterly Eol. -.7=8, p. /('.
'.

)s such, it seems that the innish e&ample is not a good analogy. It is logically possible for me to actually speak innish although I have not currently actualised that possibility for some reason. However, in time travel Aole can physically kill <eters but to actualise it would be a logical impossibility. Time travel seems to be a case where it is a physical possibility for a situation to occur and yet it is logically impossible. ) logician will then say logical possibility trumps physical and as such the hypothetical is not possible. However, all of this does not address the trick up "ewis4 sleeve. He argues that since someone cannot kill his grandfather something will always occur that will prevent him from doing so.'' "et us call this the hand of Cod 7H9C8 doctrine. Dow let it be the case that H9C is always invoked whenever any person tries to create a Crandfather parado&. )s such every person in every time who tries to kill his own father or his self will fail to do so. In that case time travel is possible since H9C will always stop the causal chain from collapsing. )s such, the logical impossibility of Crandfather <arado&es will never be actualised. In such a world, time travel seems to be possible. The problem arises as to an e&planation for H9C. Why is it the case that at anytime H9C will step in and stop a killerG This is merely a lack of an e&planation and shall be addressed alongside causal loops later. %a sal 5oops Aausal loops occur where event B causes event ) which in turn causes event B. or e&ample, 3r. Who at the end of season / is trapped in a prison called the <andorica. Devertheless a future version of the 3octor appears from the future and gives his sonic screwdriver to his companion in order to unlock the <andorica. The 3octor then escapes, goes into the future and sometime later returns to give his companion the screwdriver. However, he is only able to do this because he somehow already came from the future to give his companion the screwdriver. $ldridge%!mith comments that these causal loops 7he calls

''

"ewis, <arado&es, '/.%'/'.

them hypodo&es8 are chains that are grounded in themselves. '( Their causation is grounded in the first cause which thus creates a vicious circle. In 12 Monkeys the causal loop occurs when 3r. 1ailley calls the future and tells them that the '( 0onkeys caused the virus. This call was inspired by Aole telling her about the '( monkeys. However, Aole only knows about the '( monkeys in the first place because scientists in the future hear the call of 3r. 1ailley. They are entirely self%contained and create no contradictions but are viciously circular. )s with the H9C doctrine in compossibility they have no satisfactory e&planation. Dow although 12 Monkeys requires that a causal loop occurs, 0onton has interestingly argued that not all time travel requires causal loops. He asks us to imagine a universe with only one particle in it. ', This particle can travel forward in time, and then backwards without interfering with any other particles. He also gives another e&ample of a many%particle universe. '= Imagine there are particles A and , which e&ist in regions ' and (. A particles can move into , but will be turned into , particles. , particles cannot go back into region '. Imagine then that A is teleported back in time into region ( and as such is turned into a , particle. The , particle cannot go into region ' and as such cannot interact with any of the A particles and hence no causal loop is caused. 5ack of explanations Both H9C and causal loops are logically possible but have no sufficient e&planatory power. Aole is killed before he kills <eter simply because H9C is a fact of life. "ewis comments that it is okay for causal loops to be une&plainable since the Big Bang and Cod both uncaused and une&plainable. '/ Dow if that is the case then the H9C is potentially reasonable even if there is no e&planation for it. Its probability maybe lessened but a lack of e&planation does not rule out
'(

<eter $ldridge%!mith, 2<arado&es and Hypodo&es of Time Travel4 in "loyd Hones 5 <. Aampbell 5 <. Wylie 7eds.8 Art and Time 70elbourne: )ustralian !cholarly <ublishing, (..>8 pp. '>-%?.. ', Bradley 0onton, 2Time Travel Without Aausal "oops4, 7(..>8 Philosophical Q arterly vol. /7(=,8, pp. /@%/?. '= Ibid, p. /-. '/ "ewis, <arado&es, '=-.

the possibility. "ogical possibility is based on contradictions alone and does not require an e&planation for an event. 3ogs that can fly are logically possible since there is no contradiction involved although we may not have an e&planation as to how the dogs suddenly began levitating. Thus the eternalist version of time travel may not seem very satisfactory but it is logically possible. An Objection: Instantaneous Temporal arts This ob#ection is brought up not only because it points out problems in the eternalist version of time travel but also because it forces us to further refine our definitions. $ffingham comments that while eternalists often comment about temporal parts, it has not been defined in a way to successfully allow for time travel.'@ He starts off with !ider4s definitions of instantaneous temporal parts: 7'8 x is an instantaneo s temporal part of y at time t 6df 7i8 x is a part of y9 7ii8 x exists at, b t only at, time t9 7iii8 x o$erlaps e$ery part of y that exists at t.1: 7(8 y is x at time t iff x is an instantaneo s temporal part of y at time t.10 $ffingham then goes on to create two problems which he believes arises from these definitions. He asks us to imagine a scenario where at t', 0arty builds a time machine. )t t(, 0arty sits down and ponders about his time machine. )t t,, a future 0arty steps out of the time machine and looks at 0arty. )t t= 0arty is shocked runs into the time machine. The first problem that is created is what he calls the overlapping problem. '- )t t,, there are two versions of 0arty at the same time. However, these two versions do not have parts in common 7e.g. the same atoms in the hand8. Hence the parts of the
'@ '>

Dikk $ffingham, 2Temporal <arts and Time Travel4, 7(.''8 $rkenntnis vol. >=7(8, p. ((/. Ibid. '? Ibid, p. ((@. 'Ibid.

past version do not overlap with the future version. Hence neither the past nor the future version of 0arty fulfils 7iii8 of !ider4s definition and are both not instantaneous temporal parts of 0arty. This problem appears in 12 Monkeys in the airport scene where the adult Aole and the child Aole are in the same place. Their parts are not the same since one is a fully mature adult male while the other is still a young child. Hence it seems that they too are not temporal instantiations of Aole as a whole which is will be a very odd result. The second problem is regarding a fusion version of past and future 0arty. $ffingham asks us to imagine that past and future 0arty are fused and become a freak%marty.(. This freak%marty is an instantaneous temporal part of 0arty at t,. This freak%marty fulfils all the requirements of !ider4s temporal parts and yet they do not seem to be what people will e&pect a time traveller to be. This is because the freak% marty will have four hands and legs and four eyes as well. He then argues that an eternalist must then show why this freak%marty will not count as an instantaneous temporal part since it is counterintuitive. His article goes on to assess several variations of the instantaneous temporal definition but I shall not consider them as it seems that $ffingham and !ider themselves have messed up the definition. I believe that when !ider talks about parts of y, it should never mean the spatial parts of y. In other words, you cannot define a temporal part by referring to a spatial part. This is the cause of $ffingham4s problems with the atoms of past and future 0arty being different and with a freak%marty being created. This is because for time travel to be possible, time needs to be a dimension that people can travel back and forth through. In physics, a 2vector space has dimension n if it can accommodate a ma&imum of n linearly independent vectors4.(' Thus this means that in a , dimensional world, we can describe all possible directions that I will take with #ust , linearly independent vectors. "inearly independent vectors on the other hand are vectors 7any quantity with magnitude and direction8 where 2it is not possible to write any member or the linearly

(. ('

Ibid, p. ((>. 1amamurti !hankar, Principles of Q ant m Mechanics, 7Dew Iork: <lenum <ress, '--=8, p. /.

independent set in terms of the others4.(( Thus when we take a ( dimensional plane such as the following:

To fully describe the system we need both x and y. 0erely writing the x value of ) does not fully describe its position. However, the x and y values are not able to be written in terms of each other. It would be impossible to write y;values in terms of x and vice%versa. In physics there is a mathematical way to find linearly independent vectors but as philosophers we are not interested in the mathematics of this but rather with understanding their implications. I would argue that in philosophy the meaning of linearly independent vectors is that the vectors are not reducible to each other. By reducible I mean that it cannot be sufficiently describe by the terms of another vector. or e&ample, x cannot be described in terms of y. It cannot be said that x is merely y turned by -. degrees, since the only way the person can turn y in the first place is if the x line e&ists. Thus this is similar to time if it is a = th dimension. It cannot be
((

Ibid, p. =.

described by any of the vectors in , dimensional spaces. Thus parts in !ider4s definition should not mean spatial parts. The problem now is to find a replacement description. The following is not a full e&position into the proper non%spatial definition of temporal parts, since that would be outside the scope of this essay, but rather what I think is a possible description that is compatible with time travel and eternalism. It would be very tempting to equate time with the change of a system. (, or e&ample, a , dimensional system will only point out the location of entities but can never track how that entity changes. Thus change is not reducible to #ust the three vectors in a , dimensional system. The only problem is that change is usually defined as the difference in amounts of a certain quantity over time. Thus this definition would again be circular. Instead I suggest that the = th dimension be interpreted as the ordering of changes in a system. Ahange is not to be interpreted as difference over time, but difference between descriptions of , dimensional systems. !o an ob#ect is at coordinates 7x1, y1, <18 and 7x2, y2, <28 and the =th dimension describes which set is earlier than or later than the other. Thus when you are time travelling, you are merely changing the order of the states of the system. )s such normally if we take the 0arty scenario, it should be at t' 7x1, y1, <18 t( 7x2,y2, <28 t= 7x=,y=,<=8 t>7x>,y>,<>8. However, him travelling into t, means that the order is now t' 7x1,y1,<18 t( 7x2, y2, <=8 t, 77x=,y=,<=8 5 7x>,y>,<>88 t>7 x?,y?,<?8. Dow this has to be translated into !ider4s definition of parts. By this I argue he means the ordered parts. irstly, y is a set of ordered descriptions of changes in the three dimensions. !o 7i8 can be written as x is an ordered part of y. 7iii8 can be written as x overlaps every ordered part of y at t. Dow since time travel has occurred and what happened at t, always happened 7as per eternalism8, the ordered parts of y at t, has always been 77x,,y,, <,8 5 7x=,y=,<=88.(= That is the order of the entity we call 0artyJ that at t, it will be the case that he will be in two different places as o' and o(. )s such 7iii8 is not contradicted when 0arty went through the time machine. In fact, now it is the case that if we claim x at t, as only o' then we have not fulfilled 7iii8 since we have
(,

Kuentin !mith 5 Dathan 9aklander, Time, %han#e and @reedom" An )ntrod ction to Metaphysics, 7"ondon: 1outledge '--/8 pp. ,/%,@. (= "et this be known as o' and o( respectively.

left out half of the ordered part of y which is o(. )s such, to describe all ordered parts in 7iii8 all the past, future or present 0arty4s will have to be described as well.

!onclusion In terms of being logically possible, grandfather parado&es can be evaded by using H9C techniques. Aausal loops on the other hand maybe weird but do not create any contradictions. )dmittedly, there is little to no e&planation of how such improbable scenarios can come about but a lack of e&planation does not render something logically impossible. "astly, if we see the = th dimension as the ordering of the other three then we can resolve the definitional issues of instantaneous temporal parts. 7,=>. words8

"I"#IO$%A &' $ffingham D, 2Temporal <arts and Time Travel4, 7(.''8 $rkenntnis vol. >=7(8, p. ((/%(=.. $ldridge%!mith <, 2<arado&es and Hypodo&es of Time Travel4 in "loyd Hones 5 <. Aampbell 5 <. Wylie 7eds.8 Art and Time 70elbourne: )ustralian !cholarly <ublishing, (..>8 "ewis 3, 2The <arado&es of Time Travel4, 7'->@8 American Philosophical Q arterly vol. ',7(8, pp. '=/%'/(. 0onton B, 2Time Travel Without Aausal "oops4, 7(..>8 Philosophical Q arterly vol. /- 7(=,8, pp. /=%@>. 1ea 0, 2 our 3imensionalism4, in 0ichael "ou& 5 3ean 6immerman 7eds.8, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, 79&ford: 9&ford ;niversity <ress, (..,8 !hankar 1, Principles of Q ant m Mechanics, 7Dew Iork: <lenum <ress, '--=8 !mith K 5 9aklander D, Time, %han#e and @reedom" An )ntrod ction to Metaphysics, 7"ondon: 1outledge '--/8 Eranas <, 2Aan I Fill 0yselfG: Time Travel and the 1etrosuicide <arado&4, 7(..-8 Pacific Philosophical Q aterly Eol. -.7=8, p. /(.%/,=.