The temporal epistemic anomaly

Manuscrito 41 (3):1-28 (2018)
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Abstract

It is not uncommon in time travel stories to find that the mechanism by which the time travel is achieved is not invented. A time traveller could journey to his/her own past and give the designs of the time travel machine to his/her earlier self as s/he was given the designs as a younger person. These designs never get thought up by anyone. Such a situation would conflict with the usual conception of the acquisition of knowledge. This situation is called the Temporal Epistemic Anomaly and would arise if knowledge is gained at a time prior to the information in question being transmitted but is not discovered or invented at any time. This article examines the implications of information propagating around a causal chain that is closed in time (which is required to create the Anomaly) and whether this information need have a specific origin point.

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Peter J. Riggs
Australian National University

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References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David K. Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Bananas enough for time travel.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):363-389.
Time travel without causal loops.Bradley Monton - 2009 - Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234):54-67.

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