The Art of Time Travel: A Bigger Picture

Abstract

In his contribution to the second part of this special issue, Storrs McCall criticizes the solution to his puzzle that we put forward in the first part of the issue. In this paper, we expand on our solution and defend it from his objections. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________In discussing (in Bourne and Caddick Bourne (2016)) McCall's puzzle of the artist who copies his paintings from their reproductions, and before proposing four responses to this particular puzzle, we raise the example of a different, more familiar puzzle, involving a causal loop where a time traveller builds a time machine based on plans they deliver, using the time machine, to their younger self. McCall (2017) focusses on this example, and his response to our paper falls into two parts: an objection to the construction of the case involving plans for a time machine, and a restatement of his assertion that the case of the paintings introduces a special puzzle concerning artistic creativity which has not been solved.

Artefacts from tomorrow: Future dilemmas of the parahistorian

“…The parts of the loop are explicable, the whole of it is not",(Lewis, 1976, p. 149). For aesthetic problems posed by causal-loop artworks, see the exchange McCall (2010),Bourne and Caddick Bourne (2016),McCall (2017) and CaddickBourne and Bourne (2017), plus McAllister (2020).10 "Time travel appears to allow knowledge to flow from the future to the past and back, in a self-consistent loop, without anyone or anything ever having to grapple with the corresponding problems. What is philosophically objectionable here is not that knowledge-bearing artifacts are carried into the past-it is the 'free lunch' element.…”

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

“…See, for instance, [1,3,14]. There is an ongoing debate about whether aesthetic value comes from nothing with regards to an artwork caught in a (time travel) loop: see [32][33][34]. CEN loops are not limited to time travel scenarios, see for instance [35] (p. 58).…”