Logical Contradictions Of Time Travel

In this essay, I will discuss the possible logical contradictions time travel can create were it possible in every other sense. I will also discuss possible solutions to these contradictions in an attempt to retain that time travel is logically possible.

First, we must determine what is meant by time and time travel. Time travelling, defined by David Lewis is as follows “Any traveler departs and arrives at his destination; the time elapsed from departure to arrival is the duration of the journey. But if he is a time traveler, the separation in time between departure and arrival does not equal the duration of his journey”1. Time can be discerned into two different meanings. One meaning of the word is universal time, which is experienced by everyone and everything that is not time travelling. The other, is a traveller’s personal time which is amount of time spent living regardless of when or where they are. If one does not time travel at all, then they will live and die with their personal time, constantly progressing parallel to the universal time (they live for 80 years and die 80 years after their birth). If one does time travel, and they travel 150 years into the past, then die there (and then),

If you travelled into the future, but not too far, met your future self and killed them before they had the chance to conceive a child, would this provide a contradiction? Whether or not the future you will even conceive a child is undeterminable unless you travelled far enough into the future to find out. You would then however, have to travel backwards to either tell the past you or carry out the murder yourself, but you have travelled into the past and occurred the same contradictions as stated previously. There doesn’t appear to be any way to confirm that the future you will conceive a child without travelling backwards. However, the logical possibility of time travel is so far