scholarly journals Does Artistic Value Pose a Special Problem for Time Travel Theories?

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
James W McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Special Problem ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Causal Loop ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status

Abstract Michael Dummett and Storrs McCall have claimed that time travel scenarios in which an artist copies an artwork from a reproduction of it that has been sent from the future introduce a causal loop of a new kind: one involving artistic value. They have suggested that this poses a hitherto unacknowledged challenge to time travel theories. I argue that their conclusion depends on some unstated essentialist assumptions about metaphysics of art and the status of representations. By relaxing these assumptions, I show that Dummett and McCall’s scenarios contain no causal loop involving artistic value, and thus pose no new problem for time travel theories.

scholarly journals Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Stephanie Rennick
Keyword(s):  
Time Travel ◽  
Philosophy Of Time ◽  
Causal Loop ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Self ◽  
Beliefs About The Future ◽  
Theoretical Cost

Causal loops are a recurring feature in the philosophy of time travel, where it is generally agreed that they are logically possible but may come with a theoretical cost. This paper introduces an unfamiliar set of causal loop cases involving knowledge or beliefs about the future: self-fulfilling prophecy loops (SFP loops). I show how and when such loops arise and consider their relationship to more familiar causal loops.

Adaptations of Time Travel Narratives in Japanese Multimedia: Nurturing Eudaimonia across Time and Space

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Ae Lee
Keyword(s):  
Travel Narratives ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
The Future ◽  
Live Action

To displace a character in time is to depict a character who becomes acutely conscious of his or her status as other, as she or he strives to comprehend and interact with a culture whose mentality is both familiar and different in obvious and subtle ways. Two main types of time travel pose a philosophical distinction between visiting the past with knowledge of the future and trying to inhabit the future with past cultural knowledge, but in either case the unpredictable impact a time traveller may have on another society is always a prominent theme. At the core of Japanese time travel narratives is a contrast between self-interested and eudaimonic life styles as these are reflected by the time traveller's activities. Eudaimonia is a ‘flourishing life’, a life focused on what is valuable for human beings and the grounding of that value in altruistic concern for others. In a study of multimodal narratives belonging to two sets – adaptations of Tsutsui Yasutaka's young adult novella The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Yamazaki Mari's manga series Thermae Romae – this article examines how time travel narratives in anime and live action film affirm that eudaimonic living is always a core value to be nurtured.

An archaeological analysis to trace the emergence and transformation of qualified physical education teachers in Singapore primary schools

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Ho Jin Chung ◽  
Muhammad Sufri ◽  
Chee Keng John Wang
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Physical Education Teachers ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Archaeology Of Knowledge ◽  
Archaeological Analysis ◽  
Key Events ◽  
Underlying Processes

This study explored the underlying processes associated with the policy of increasing qualified physical education teachers (QPETs) in Singapore primary schools. Data were collected from the National Archives of Singapore, Newslink, NewpaperSG and documents. An ‘archaeological analysis’ by Foucault (1972) was used to trace the discursive conditions which enabled and facilitated the policy. Three distinct elements were borrowed from ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language’, namely: the status – as reflected in the positions of individuals influencing the PE policies and initiatives; the institutional sites – as in the locations of the decisions being exercised, and; the situation – identified by the key events leading to the decision to increase QPETs in primary schools. The conclusions based on the analysis of these elements offer a clearer understanding of the various contributions to the adoption of the policy and serve to provide an insightful lens to policymakers who might seek to redesign the future shape of Physical Education.

Graphic design practice of an image for the Chinese character for "鼓 Drum"

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
POHSUN WANG
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Learning Design ◽  
Design Practice ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Times

Basic shape is one of the most important components of the learning design process. Using Western design thinking to understand shape, color and composition layout and attempting to reinterpret the application of traditional calligraphy from a design point of view—whether it is the expression of form or the meaning of content—are both important aspects of design thinking. The writing patterns of traditional calligraphy and the design creation of modern experiments may have different biases. If the artistic value of "the brush and ink of the time" is compared to the science and technology of innovation as the main appeal, the expressiveness of the traditional writing mode is obviously difficult to achieve. Using science and technology as an option for design creation is a difficult way to proceed; however, technology, ideas and thinking can still be in sync with the cultural issues of an entire era. This is also the test of the times to which contemporary creations are subjected. There are infinite possibilities for development, and it is worthwhile to explore these possibilities together with artistic aspirants. On the other hand, if we follow the well-beaten path of the status quo, the creativity of traditional calligraphic art will wither, it will deviate from the larger environment of the era in which it operates, and it will inevitably be neglected and pushed out by other art categories. The design and creation process uses the traditional calligraphy characters and drums as the theme, assisted by digital tools in the creation, and finally transforms the traditional calligraphy visual form into an expression of the art of science and technology.

Mental time travel? A neurocognitive model of event simulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Rose Addis
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Simulation System ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Event Representation ◽  
Conceptual Information ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
General Capacity

Mental time travel (MTT) is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: (1) acts on the same information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; (2) is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two (cf. predictive coding); and (3) is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this simulation system, enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present.

Causal Paradoxes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Wasserman
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Causal Loop ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Backward Causation

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.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

On the Other Side of Time

2019 ◽  
pp. 609-627
Author(s):  
Erik Steinskog
Keyword(s):  
Time Travel ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Sun Ra ◽  
Political Stance ◽  
The Future

A musical imagining of the future and an exposition of a challenge to the normative historical discourse are the subjects of Erik Steinskog’s chapter on Afrofuturism. These topics are dealt with through a discussion of “blackness” and a theoretical discourse that addresses the musical style and polemical and political stance of afrofuturist musicians such as Sun Ra and others following in his path. Steinskog suggests that afrofuturist music is a form of sonic time travel that intertwines the modalities of time represented by notions of past, present, and future, his argument being that reimaginations, reinterpretations, and revisions of a normative past are represented in the technology and music of the black future.

Faith as Taking the Risk

1968 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyatt T. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
The City

“Then Elisha said to those people who were assembled in the main square, in the midst of a terrible famine, with the Syrian army at the gate: ‘In about twenty-four hours you will be able to buy a measure of fine flour for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel.’ And the captain upon whose arm the king leaned looked at him and spoke in derision: ‘Ha! What's God going to do? Open up a hole in the sky and pour out food upon all of these hungry people?’ And Elisha turned to him and said: ‘You have a big mouth. You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat thereof.’ And there were four lepers sitting at the entering in of the gate of Samaria, and they held a conversation amongst themselves that had to do with what the future might hold for them. And they said one to another: ‘What good is it for us to sit here until we die? If we go into the city, there is a famine there, and we shall die. If we sit here, if we maintain the status quo, if we hold what we've got, we shall die also. Come on, let us go out to meet the Syrian hosts, let's try something that we never tried before, and perhaps we shall be taken prisoners of war, and, if so, at least we'll survive. And if not, what have we got to lose?’” (II Kings 7: 1–20; the “Walker” translation).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document