Title:
Time Traveller’s Abilities: A Bayesian Take
Abstract:
If time travel is possible, what can time travellers do? Consider Tim, a time traveller attempting to kill his grandfather. Can he succeed? While everyone agrees that Tim will not kill Grandfather, some argue that he nevertheless can kill him, while others insist that he can’t. I propose a new approach to the problem, based on Bayesian confirmation theory. The guiding idea is to treat ability claims as hypotheses, while the evidence is constituted by attempts to exercise said ability. I apply this framework to the case of the abilities of time travellers and conclude that it favors, albeit not conclusively, the hypothesis that Tim cannot kill Grandfather.