THE TEMPORAL EPISTEMIC ANOMALY
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 pe...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidade Estadual de Campinas
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| Series: | Manuscrito |
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| Online Access: | http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-60452018000300001&lng=en&tlng=en |
| Summary: | 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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| ISSN: | 2317-630X |