The department of Philosophy and religious studies hosted a conference on time travel last weekend. The event started last Friday with the speech by J. Richard Gott of Princeton, and another five lectures were given over Friday and Saturday by guest speakers from across the country.
The lectures included “Time Travel and Determinism in General Relativity,” “What time travelers might want and how to give it to them (mostly,)” and “Truth in (Time Travel) Fiction,” given by Chris Smeenk, University of Western Ontario; Geoff Goddu, University of Richmond; and Richand Hanley, University of Delaware, respectively.
Topics addressed varied from the physical aspect of time travel to the philosophical aspect. With respect to the former, one theory was that there are several metaphysical layers that make up the universe – parallel universes. If time travel alters the past, is was proposed that travels to a parallel world in which the new, altered timeline occurs.
Goddu’s lecture addressed the philosophical aspect of time travel, analyzing in certain levels of activity in the past were logically possible. Basie n the nature of photons, one sees things in the past every day – something a few feet away is only a few nanoseconds in the past, but the sun we see as it was eight seconds agobecause it is so far away. Alpha Centari, the second nearest star to Earth, we see as it was four years ago. Based on this and given the proper device, Goddu concluded that observing the past is possible. Changing, fixing, and undoing the past are different entirely.
Also in attendance were students and members of the public. Ada Milenkovic Brown, a published science fiction writer, attended the event to get story ideas, and to keep up with the latest thoughts on the topic.
“A good bit of it has been out of my understanding range, although I will go back and read up on these things to try and understand them a bit better,” Brown said. “I have found a few things about time that I didn’t know people understood. I didn’t know that philosophers actually thought about time travel as being something that was possible. Thinking about the lecture, what you can change and what you can’t change, that will be useful.”
Ada heard about the event via Facebook.
The event was organized by John Carroll, a professor of philosophy.
“There was an opportunity to apply for some funding,” Carroll said. “There has been a growing interest in the field with teaching in philosophy classes.” Carroll teaches PHL 330, metaphysics, and HON 341, time travel.
According to Ann Rives, an executive assistant in the department of philosophy and religious studies, the event was publicized through the University calendar of events, and Carroll personally contacted many of the speakers and attendees.
The conference cost $10 for University students and $25 for members of the public. Attendees were given a packet that included a tablet of paper, pen and name tag. The nametags each features a time travel reference from popular culture, some featured a DeLorian (Back to the Future,) a TARDIS (Police call box from Doctor Who,) the guardian of Forever (Star Trek, the original Series,) and the cardboard box time machine from the Calvin and Hobbes.
“I hope another [event] like this happens in the future,” Carroll said. “I think it’s been successful.”
