Paradoxes of Freedom I

Abstract

Chapter 3 is the first of two chapters on the paradoxes of freedom. Section 1 introduces the most famous paradox of this kind—the grandfather paradox—and relates it to other puzzles of “self-defeat.” Section 2 introduces a more general category of puzzles called the paradoxes of past-alteration. Section 3 then discusses one of the most common strategies for dealing with these problems—namely, the branching timeline model of time travel. Section 4 addresses a related view according to which time travel involves movement across more than one dimension of time. Finally, section 5 develops a new picture of time travel and past-alteration called the “A-model.”