scholarly journals Establishing Backward Causation on Empirical Grounds: An Interventionist Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-138
Author(s):  
Alexander Gebharter ◽  
Dennis Graemer ◽  
Frenzis H. Scheffels
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Ryan Wasserman

Chapter 5 surveys the various causal paradoxes of time travel. Section 1 introduces the concept of a causal loop and reviews some of the standard arguments against backward causation. Sections 2 focuses on the bootstrapping paradox, and the question of whether or not time travel allows for self-caused events. Section 3 addresses the ex nihilo paradox, and the question of whether or not time travel allows for uncaused events. Section 4 looks at the restoration paradox, and the question of how to understand the life cycle of an object in a causal loop. Section 5 considers D. H. Mellor’s frequency-based argument against causal loops. Section 6 discusses Michael Tooley’s counterfactual-based argument against backward causation.



Mind ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol XCIV (374) ◽  
pp. 210-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER FORREST
Keyword(s):  


Analysis ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Tooley
Keyword(s):  


2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-185
Author(s):  
David B. Hershenov ◽  
Keyword(s):  


1977 ◽  
Vol 74 (8) ◽  
pp. 475-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolf Grünbaum ◽  
Allen I. Janis ◽  


1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Nerlich

Might something I do now make something have happened earlier? This paper is about an argument which concludes that I might. Some arguments ([3], [27]) about “backward causation” conclude that the world could have been the kind of place in which actions make things have happened earlier. The present argument says that it is that kind of place: that we actually are continually doing things that really make earlier things have happened. The argument is not new (see e.g. [31]). It sees temporal direction as logically independent of any direction which necessary and sufficient conditions may have and it sees causal direction as properly deriving from the latter. Thus the directions of time and of making things happen need not coincide and, as it turns out, do not actually coincide in fact. There are examples of events which are sufficient, in a suitably rich sense, for the occurrence of earlier events; hence they make the earlier events happen. My purpose in this paper is to lend support to the argument by filling in some details which ‘backward sufficient conditions’ may lay claim to.



2019 ◽  
pp. 121-136
Author(s):  
Jan Faye
Keyword(s):  


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