Category: Metaphysics

The classic problem of the external world presents an epistemic challenge forged by the skeptics: how do I know that what I seem to be experiencing as the external world is really real for real? Early skeptics claimed that what seems real might be a dream. Descartes upgraded the problem through his evil demon which used its powers to befuddle its victim. As technology progressed, philosophers presented the brain-in-a-vat scenarios and then moved on to more impressive virtual reality scenarios. One recent variation on this problem was made famous by Elon Musk: we are characters in a video game. This is a variation of the idea that this apparent reality is just a simulation. There is a strong inductive argument for the claim that this is a virtual world.

One stock argument for the simulation world  uses the form of statistical syllogism. It is statistical because it deals with statistics. It is a syllogism by definition: it has two premises and one conclusion. Generically, a statistical syllogism looks like this:

 

Premise 1: X% of As are Bs.

Premise 2: This is an A.

Conclusion: This is a B.

 

The strength of this argument depends on the percentage of As that are B. The higher the percentage, the stronger the argument. This makes sense: the more As that are Bs, the more reasonable it is that a specific A is a B.  Now, to the simulation argument.

 

Premise 1: Most worlds are simulated worlds.

Premise 2: This is a world.

Conclusion: This is a simulated world.

 

While “most” is vague, the argument is such that if its premises are true, then the conclusion is more likely to be true than not. Before embracing your virtuality, it is worth considering a similar argument:

 

Premise 1: Most organisms are bacteria.

Premise 2: You are an organism.

Conclusion: You are a bacterium.

 

Like the previous argument, the truth of the premises makes the conclusion more likely to be true than false. However, you are not a bacterium. This does not show that the argument itself is flawed. The reasoning is good, and any randomly selected  organism would most likely be a bacterium. Rather, it indicates that when considering the truth of a conclusion, one must consider the total evidence. That is, information about the specific A must be considered when deciding whether it is a B. In the bacteria example, there are facts about you that would count against the claim that you are a bacterium, such as the fact that you are a multicellular organism.

Turning back to the simulation argument, the same consideration applies. If it is true that most worlds are simulations, then any random world is more likely to be a simulation than not. However, the claim that this specific world is a simulation would require consideration of the total evidence: what evidence is there that this world is a simulation? This reverses the usual challenge of proving that the world is real by requiring evidence it is not real. At this point, there is little evidence that this is a simulation. Using the usual fiction examples, we do not seem to find glitches that would be best explained as programming bugs, we do not seem to encounter outsiders from reality, and we do not run into some sort of exit system (like the Star Trek holodeck). That said, all this is still consistent with the world being a simulation: it might be well programmed, the outsider might never be spotted (or never go into the system) and there might be no way out. At this point, the most reasonable position is that the simulation claim is at best on par with the claim that the world is real since all evidence is consistent with both views. There is, however, still the matter of the truth of the premises in the simulation argument.

The second premise seems true, whatever this is, it seems to be a world. As such, the first premise is the key. While the logic of the argument is good, if the premise is not plausible then it is not a good argument overall.

The first premise is usually supported by a now standard argument. The reasoning includes the claims that the real universe contains large numbers of civilizations, that many of these civilizations are advanced and that enough of these advanced civilizations create incredibly complex simulations of worlds. Alternatively, it could be claimed that there are only a few (or just one) advanced civilizations but that they create vast numbers of complex simulated worlds.

The easy and obvious problem with this sort of reasoning is that it involves making claims about an external real world to try to prove that this world is not real. If this world is claimed to not be real, there is no reason to think that what seems true of this world (that we are developing simulations) would be true of the real world (that they developed super simulations, one of which is our world).  Drawing inferences from what we think is a simulation to a greater reality would be like the intelligent inhabitants of a Pac Man world trying to draw inferences from their game to our world.

There is also the fact that it is simpler to accept that this world is real rather than making claims about a real world beyond this one. After all, the simulation hypothesis requires accepting a real world on top of our simulated world. Why not just have this be the real world?

While the classic werewolf is a human with the ability to shift into the shape of a wolf, movies usually show a transformation into a wolf-human hybrid. The standard werewolf has a taste for human flesh, a vulnerability to silver and a serious shedding problem. Some werewolves have impressive basketball skills, but that is not a standard werewolf ability.

There have been various efforts to explain werewolf myths and legends. Some of the scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific) theories include mental illness or disease. On these accounts, the werewolf does not transform into a wolf-like creature; they are afflicted people. These non-magical werewolves are possible but are more tragic than horrific.

There are also supernatural accounts of werewolves, many involving vague references to curses. In many tales, the condition can be transmitted, perhaps by a bite or even by texting. These magical beasts are not possible unless, of course, this is a magical world.

There has even been some speculation about technology-based shifters, perhaps nanotechnology that can rapidly re-structure a living creature without killing it. But these would be werewolves of science fiction.

Interestingly enough, there could also be philosophical werewolves (which, to steal from Adventure Time, could be called “whywolves”) that have a solid metaphysical foundation. Well, as solid as metaphysics gets.

Our good dead friend Plato (who was probably not a werewolf) laid out a theory of Forms. According to Plato, the Forms are supposed to be eternal, perfect entities that exist outside of space and time. As such, they are even weirder than werewolves. However, they neither shed nor consume human flesh, so they have some positive qualities relative to werewolves.

For Plato, all the particular entities in this imperfect realm are what they are in virtue of their instantiation of Forms. This is sometimes called “participation”, perhaps to make the particulars sound like they have civic virtue. To illustrate this with an example, my husky Isis was a husky because she participated in the form of Husky. This is, no doubt, among the noblest and best of dog forms. Likewise, Isis was furry because she instantiated the form of Fur (and shared this instantiation with all things she contacted, such was the depth of her generosity).

While there is some nice stuff here in the world, it is evident that all the particulars lack perfection. For example, while Donald Trump’s buildings are clearly quality structures, they are not perfect buildings. Likewise, while he does have a somewhat orange color, he does not possess perfect Orange (John Boehner is closer to the Form of Orange yet still lacks perfection).

Plato’s account of the imperfection of particulars, like Donald Trump, involves the claim that particulars instantiate or participate in the Forms in varying degrees. When explaining this to my students, I usually use the example of photocopies of various quality. The original is analogous to the Form while the copies of varying quality are analogous to the particulars.  Another example could be selfies taken of a person using cameras of various qualities. I find that the youth relate more to selfies than to photocopies.

Plato also asserts that particulars can instantiate or participate in “contrasting” Forms. He uses the example of how things here in the earthly realm have both Beauty and Ugliness, thus they lack perfect Beauty. For example, even the most attractive supermodel still has flaws. As such, a person’s beauty (or ugliness) is a blend of Beauty and Ugliness. Since people can look more or less beautiful over time (time and gravity are both very mean), this mix can shift and the degree of participation or instantiation can change. This mixing and shifting of instantiation can be used to provide a Platonic account of werewolves (which is not the same as having a Platonic relation with a werewolf).

If the huge assumptions are made that a particular is what it is because it instantiates various Forms and that the instantiations of Forms can be mixed or blended in a particular, then werewolves can easily be given a metaphysical explanation in the context of Forms.

For Plato, a werewolf would be a particular that instantiated the Form of Man but also the Form of Wolf. As such, the being would be part man and part wolf. When the person is participating most in the Form of Man, then he would appear (and act) human. However, when the Form of Wolf became dominant, her form and behavior would shift towards that of the wolf.

Plato mentions the Sun in the Allegory of the Cave as well as the light of the moon. So, it seems appropriate that the moon (which reflects the light of the sun) is credited in many tales with triggering the transformation from human to wolf. Perhaps since, as Aristotle claimed, humans are rational animals, the direct light of the sun means that the human Form is dominant. The reflected light of the full moon would, at least in accord with something I just made up, result in a distortion of reason and thus allow the animal Form of Wolf to dominate. There can also be a nice connection here to Plato’s account of the three-part soul: when the Wolf is in charge, reason is mostly asleep.

While it is the wolf that usually takes the blame for the evil of the werewolf, it seems more plausible that this comes from the form of Man. After all, research on wolves shows that they have been given a bad rap. So, whatever evil is in the werewolf comes from the human part. The howling, though, is all wolf.

On an episode of the Late Show, host Stephen Colbert and Jane Lynch had an interesting discussion of guardian angels. Lynch, who starred as a guardian angel in “Angel from Hell”, related a story of how her guardian angel held her in a protective embrace during a low point of her life. Colbert, ever the rational Catholic, noted that he believed in guardian angels despite knowing they do not exist. The question of the existence of guardian angels is yet another way to consider the classic problem of evil.

In general terms, a guardian angel is a supernatural, benevolent being who serves as a personal protector. The nature of  this guarding varies. For some, the guardian angel is supposed to serve in the classic “angel on the shoulder” role and provide good advice. For others, the angel provides a comforting presence. Some even claim that guardian angels take a very active role, such as reducing a potentially fatal fall to one that merely inflicts massive injury. My interest is, however, not with the specific functions of guardian angels, but with the question of their existence.

In the context of monotheism, a guardian angel is an agent of God. As such, this ties them into the problem of evil. The general problem of evil is the challenge of reconciling the alleged existence of God with the existence of evil. Some take this problem to decisively show that God does not exist. Others contend that it shows that God is not how philosophers envision Him in the problem, so that He is not omniscient, omnibenevolent or omnipotent. In the case of guardian angels, the challenge is to reconcile their alleged existence with evil.

There are presumably thousands or millions of cases each day in which a guardian angel could have saved the day with little effort. For example, a guardian angel could tell the police the location of a kidnapped or missing child. As another example, a guardian angel could keep a ladder from slipping. They could also do more difficult things, like preventing cancer from killing children or deflecting bullets away from school children. Since none of this ever happens, the obvious conclusion is that there are no guardian angels of this type.

However, as with the main problem of evil, there are ways to address this problem. One option, which is not available in the case of God, is to argue that guardian angels have very limited capabilities and are weak supernatural beings. Alternatively, they might operate under very restrictive rules. One problem with this reply is that weak angels are indistinguishable in their effects from non-existent angels. Another problem ties this into the broader problem of evil: why wouldn’t God deploy a better sort of guardian or give them broader rules? This, of course, just brings up the usual problem of evil.

Another option is that not everyone gets an angel. Jane Lynch, for example, might get an angel that hugged her. Alan Kurdi, the young boy who drowned trying to flee Syria, did not get a guardian angel. While this would be an explanation of sorts, it still just pushes the problem back: why would God not provide everyone in need with a guardian? We humans are, of course, limited in our resources and abilities, so everyone cannot be protected all the time. However, an omnipotent God does not face this challenge.

It is also possible to make use of a stock reply to the problem of evil and bring in the Devil. Perhaps Lucifer deploys his demonic agents to counter the guardian angels. So, when something bad happens to a good person, it is because her guardian angel was defeated by a demon. While this has a certain appeal, it would require a world in which God and the Devil are closely matched, thus allowing the Devil to defy God and defeat His other angels. This, of course, just brings in the general problem of evil: unless one postulates two roughly equal deities, God is on the hook for the Devil and his demons. Or rather, God’s demons since He created them.

Guardian angels fare no better than God in regards to the problem of evil. That said, the notion of benevolent, supernatural personal guardians predates monotheism. Socrates, for example, claimed to have a guardian who would warn him of bad choices (which Stephen Colbert also claims to have).

These sorts of guardians were not claimed to be agents of a perfect being, and so avoid the problem of evil. Supernatural beings that are freelancers or who serve a limited deity can reasonably be expected to be limited in their abilities and it would make sense that not everyone would have a guardian. Conflict between opposing supernatural agencies also makes sense, since there is no postulation of a single supreme being.

While these supernatural guardians do avoid the problem of evil, they run up against the problem of evidence: there does not appear to be adequate evidence for the existence of such supernatural beings. In fact, the alleged evidence for them is better explained by alternatives. For example, a little voice in one’s head is better explained in terms of the psychological rather than the supernatural (a benign mental condition rather than a supernatural guardian). As another example, a fall that badly injures a person rather than killing them is better explained in terms of the vagaries of chance than in terms of supernatural intervention.

Given the above discussion, there seems to be little reason to believe in the existence of guardian angels. The world would be radically different if they did exist, so they do not. Or they do so little as to make no meaningful difference, which is hard to distinguish from them not existing at all.  

I certainly do not begrudge the belief in guardian angels. If that belief leads them to make better choices and feel safer in a dangerous world, then it is a benign belief. I certainly have comforting beliefs as well, such as the belief that most people are basically good. Perhaps these beliefs are our guardian angels.

In my previous essay I introduced the notion of using the notion of essential properties to address the question of whether James Bond must be a white man. I ran through this rather quickly and want to expand on it here.

As noted, an essential property (to steal from Aristotle) is a property that an entity must have. In contrast an accidental property is one that it does have but could lack. As I tell my students, accidental properties are not just properties from accidents, like the dent in a fender.

One way to look at essential properties is that if a being loses an essential property, it ceases to be. In effect, the change of property destroys it, although a new entity can arise. To use a simple example, it is essential to a triangle that it be three-sided. If another side is added, the triangle is no more. But the new entity could be a square. Of course, one could deny that the triangle is destroyed and instead take it as changing into a square. It all depends on how the identity of a being is determined.

Continuing the triangle example, the size and color of a triangle are accidental properties.  A red triangle that is painted blue remains a triangle, although it is now blue. But one could look at the object in terms of being a red object. In that case, changing the color would mean that it was no longer a red object, but a blue object. Turning back to James Bond and his color, he has always been a white man.

Making Bond a black man would change many of his established properties and one can obviously say that he would no longer be white Bond. But this could be seen as analogous to changing the color of a triangle: just as a red triangle painted blue is still a triangle, changing Bond from a white to a black man by a change of actors does not entail that is no longer Bond. Likewise, one might claim, for changing Bond to a woman via a change of actor.

As noted in the previous essay, the actors who have played Bond have been different in many ways, yet they are all accepted as Bond. As such, there are clearly many properties that Bond has accidentally. They can change with the actors while the character is still Bond. One advantage of a fictional character is, of course, that the author can simply decide on the essential properties when they create the metaphysics for their fictional world. For example, in fantasy settings an author might decide that a being is its soul and thus can undergo any number of bodily alterations (such as through being reincarnated or polymorphed) and still be the same being. If Bond was in such a world, all a being would need to be Bond would be to be the Bond soul. This soul could inhabit a black male body or even a dragon and still be Bond. Dragon Bond could make a great anime.

But, of course, the creator of Bond did not specify the metaphysics of his world, so we would need to speculate using various metaphysical theories about our world.  The question is: would a person changing their race or gender result in the person ceasing to be that person, just as changing the sides of a triangle would make it cease to be a triangle? Since Bond is a fictional character, there is the option to abandon metaphysics and make use of other domains to settle the matter of Bond identity. One easy solution is to go with the legal option.

Bond is an intellectual property, and this means that you and I cannot create and sell Bond books or films. As such, there is a legal definition of what counts as James Bond, and this can be tested by trying to see what will get you sued by the owner of James Bond. Closely related to this the Bond brand; this can change considerably and still be the Bond brand. Of course, these legal and branding matters are not very interesting from a philosophical perspective, and they are best suited for the courts and marketing departments. So I will now turn to aesthetics.

One easy solution is that Bond is whoever the creator says Bond is; but since the creator is dead, we cannot determine what he would think about re-writing Bond as someone other than a white man. One could, of course, go back to the legal argument and assert that whoever owns Bond has the right to decide who Bond is.

Another approach is to use the social conception: a character’s identity is based on the acceptance of the fans. As such, if the fans accept Bond as being someone other than a white man, then that is Bond. After all, Bond is a fictional character who exists in the minds of his creator and his audience. Since his creator is dead, Bond now exists in the minds of the audience; so perhaps it is a case of majority acceptance, a sort of aesthetic democracy. Bond is whom most fans say is Bond. Or one could take the approach that Bond is whoever the individual audience member accepts as Bond; a case of Bond subjectivity. Since Bond is fictional, this is appealing. As such, it would be up to you whether your Bond can be anyone other than a white man. A person’s decision would say quite a bit about them. While some might be tempted to assume that anyone who believes that Bond must be a white man is thus a racist or sexist, that would be a mistake. There can be non-sexist and non-racist reasons to believe this. There are, of course, also sexist and racist reasons to believe this.  As a metaphysician and a gamer, I am onboard with Bond variants that are still Bond. But I can understand why those who have different metaphysics (or none at all) would have differing views.  

Since his creation, James Bond has been a white man. Much to the delight of some and to the horror of others, there were serious plans to have a black actor play James Bond. There has even been some talk about having a female James Bond. While racist and sexist reasons abound to oppose such changes, are there good reasons for James Bond to always be a white man? Before getting into this discussion, I will first look at the matter of the 007.

While James Bond has been known as 007, this is his agent designation and there are other 00 agents.  This is like the number used by an athlete on a team. As such, while James Bond has been 007, another person could replace him and get that number, just the person who was 23 on a baseball team could retire and someone else could get that number (although teams do retire numbers). Within the James Bond universe, it would make sense for someone who is not a white man to get the 007. This could occur for any number of in universe reasons, most obviously that James Bond is not immortal and would eventually be too old or dead to remain 007. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would be interesting to see a Bond timeline in which time mattered, a Bond world in which he grew old, and a new agent took his place. This would have the benefit of keeping Bond relevant to today while also maintaining (in universe) the old Bond. There is, of course, the obvious financial risk: having a new 007 who is not James Bond can be seen as analogous to replacing a star athlete with a new person who gets their number. There is the risk of losing the drawing power. But my concern is with the more interesting matter of whether James Bond must be a white man, so I will leave the money worries to the branding gurus.

One obvious fact about the Bond of the movies is that different actors have played the character. While there are strong opinions about the best Bond, there was little debate about whether a new white man should take the role when the previous Bond aged out of the role or left for other reasons. The actors who played Bond were (in general) accepted as at least adequate for the role and there was no debate about whether the character was James Bond despite the change in actors. That is, there is no general issue with a new actor playing the role. There was also, obviously enough, no effort to explain in the Bond universe the change in Bond’s appearance. I mention this because of another famous character from United Kingdom fiction, Dr. Who. When Dr. Who began, the actor playing the doctor was already old and they ran into the problem of age. They hit on a brilliant solution: Dr. Who regenerates and radically changes appearance, though remaining the same person. This gives the show an interesting feature: continuity of character through changes of actors with an in-universe explanation.

While Bond movies do feature gadgets and plots that border or even cross into science fiction (consider Moonraker), it is unlikely that the Bond cinematic universe would allow for such science fiction devices as alternative realities, such as in Marvel’s What If…? As such, the various Bonds are not explained in terms of being alternative or variant Bonds; they are all the James Bond. Now, if Bond can remain Bond despite the changes of actors, then it would seem that he would remain Bond even if he were played by a non-white actor. After all, if switching from Sean Connery did not mean that Bond was no longer Bond, then changing his race should not do that either. After all, the actors that played Bond are different people, with significant differences in appearance, mannerisms, and voice. Having a black actor, for example, would just be another change of appearance.  It would also seem to follow that having a female actor play Bond would also make as much sense; it would just be another change in appearance. But one could attempt to argue that it is essential to Bond that he be a white man. This, of course, gets us into the notion of essential properties.

In philosophy, an essential property (to steal from Aristotle) is a property that an entity must have or cease to be that thing. In contrast an accidental property is one that it does have but could lack and still remain that thing. To use a simple example, it is essential to a triangle that it be three-sided. It must have three sides to be a triangle. But the size and color of a triangle are accidental properties; they can change, and it will still remain a triangle. So, the relevant issue here is whether being a white man is essential to being James Bond or merely accidental. Given all the changes in actors over the years, there are clearly many properties that Bond has accidentally as they can change with the actors while the character is still Bond. One advantage of a fictional character is, of course, that the author can simply decide on the essential properties when they create the metaphysics for their fictional world. But, of course, the creator of Bond did not do that, so we need to speculate using various metaphysical theories about our world. That is, would a person changing their race or gender result in the person ceasing to be, just as changing the sides of a triangle would make it cease to be a triangle? On the face of it, while such changes would clearly alter the person, they would seem to retain their personal identity. If this is true, then James Bond need not be a white man. But more will be said in the next essay.

In philosophy, the classic problem of universals is determining in virtue of what (If anything) a particular individual is a member of a category. Some philosophers, such as Armstrong, Plato, and myself believe that at least some categories are metaphysically real and are thus as realists about properties. For example, if mass is a real quality, then entities with mass are grouped into that category in virtue of possessing that metaphysical property. A realist does not need to accept that all categories have a metaphysical foundation. For example, I take race and gender as human made ideas rather than being grounded in metaphysical entities. To use a less contentious example, I also take the property of being a citizen of the United States to be a social construct rather than a real metaphysical entity.

When talking about particulars being in categories, there are two general ways to view this. One is a matter of grouping: the property is what puts an entity into that category. There is also the matter of the entity being what it is in terms of the quality. These two can amount to the same thing but can be distinguished conceptually. For example, there is what it is for a green thing to be in the category of green things and the matter of what it to be green. Again, one might determine that these amount to the same thing. To illustrate, Plato would (probably) say that the Form of Beauty groups beautiful things into that category and makes a beautiful individual beautiful. I have not, of course, gotten into the epistemic aspect of this, such as how we know that something is in a category. I have also not addressed alternatives to metaphysical realism about properties. But for the sake of what follows, I will assume properties are real so that I can get on to discussing substances and substrata.

Philosophers such as Aristotle and Descartes accepted the existence of substance and define it as something that exists in a manner that does not depend on other entities. This can quickly get messy, but to keep it simple think of an everyday object like an apple.  It can exist as a distinct entity, apart from other things. Yes, I know that apples come from trees and depend on the existence of dimensions such as time; but I am keeping it simple here. The ability for an apple to exist on its own contrasts with that of its properties. To illustrate, I can buy an apple at Publix and take it home. I can take a bite out of it, taking that piece from the apple. But no matter how I bite it, I cannot bite away the property of mass or shape and have just mass or shape in my stomach. As such, properties are taken by many philosophers as not being substances. You can have an apple in your stomach, but you cannot have just apple shape or apple mass in your stomach. Because of this sort of thinking, philosophers such as John Locke have reluctantly accepted substance, calling it “something I know not what.” Others, of course, have rejected substance. If you accept properties as existing as part of substances, there is then the matter of whether the substance is just a bundle of properties or if there is another metaphysical entity that “binds” the properties together into a substance.

While bundle theorists have the advantage of metaphysical economy, they face the problem of explaining what connects the properties together into a single entity. Substrata theorists, like me, claim that there is a second type of metaphysical entity, the substrata. It has the function of binding properties together to form objects. While I have argued in favor of substrata at length, teaching the subject again in my Metaphysics class provided me with a metaphor that might help explain the matter.

Think of properties as being like paints and objects being like paintings. For those who just believe in properties and reject substrata, a painting would just be paint. Metaphorically, one would paint a painting by painting nothing; there would just be paint touching paint, forming a painting. Naturally, one could talk about letting some paint dry and then painting on that paint like a canvas, but there would be the question of what the first paint was painted on.

For those who accept substrata, the canvas (or other surface) would be like the substratum and the properties would be like paint: one paints on the canvas and the canvas plus the paint forms the painting. Naturally, metaphors and analogies tend to fall apart quickly when pressed. For example, one could say that one just needs to paint on the canvas until the paint dries, then peel the paint off. While this would be a flimsy painting, a painting made entirely of paint could thus exist. At least after it had been painted on a canvas. One could also reject the paint analogy or modify it in some manner so a painting could just be paint without a canvas. But the canvas and paint metaphor has a certain appeal.

This contains many spoilers. When I first saw the trailer for The Tomorrow War my thought was “I wonder who that discount Chris Pratt is?” When I realized it was the actual Chris Pratt, my thought was “he must really need money.” Yes, it is exactly that kind of movie. I will start with some non-philosophical complaints and then move on to what is most interesting (and disappointing) about the flick: time travel.

Like many war movies of its ilk, this flick handles armored fighting vehicles by leaving them out. Instead, the human forces confront the aliens with infantry, Humvees, transport helicopters, and fighter-bombers. Oddly, the infantry is armed with standard guns that are largely ineffective against the aliens.  This is even though they know this and there are plenty of existing infantry weapons that would kill the aliens. No armored fighting vehicles (like tanks) are used, and Humvees are the mainstay of the forces. They get easily destroyed by the aliens charging into them like deranged moose (except when the main characters are in one). Maybe leaving out armored vehicles is a budget issue, but it mainly seems because the aliens, which are basically animals, would be slaughtered by modern armor. They could do no damage, and antivehicle weapons would slaughter them. My theory is that rather than come up with an alien that could beat armor, the writers just leave out armored vehicles. The transport helicopters, as one would expect in such a film, generally fly within the leaping range of the aliens and attack helicopters do not exist (they do have armed drones, though). The fighter-bombers exist, as always, as a stupid plot device: in one part of the movie the hero is tasked with rescuing research that is the last hope for victory, yet an air strike is called on the otherwise empty city and it cannot be called off. But enough of that, on to the time travel.

Time travel is always a mess in philosophy, science, and fiction. But it can be fun if used properly. The movie does have an interesting, though unoriginal, premise: humans in the future have built a time machine and are using it to recruit soldiers and supplies from the past to fight the aliens that have killed all but 500,000 people. As movies must, the movie puts limits on time travel. The biggest limitation is that the time “tunnel” has a fixed temporal range of 30 years. When people go forward, they go forward thirty years. When they go back, they go back thirty years. One of the minor characters explains it in terms of two connected rafts in a river: they always stay the same distance apart but move along with the river. One of the supporting characters asks the obvious question as to why they do not make more rafts. The answer is that the time machine they have is held together with bubble gum and chicken wire, so they cannot build another one. While not the worst answer a writer could come up with, it is stupid within the rules of the movie: people and equipment can move freely between the present and future. More time machines could be made in the past and brought to the future. They could even build a time machine in the present and open a time tunnel to 30 years earlier, giving humanity another 30 years of preparation time. And then do that repeatedly until the paradoxes destroy reality. A better answer would have been some techno-metaphysical babble about how the time stream can only permit one time tunnel to operate. But let us get back to the fact that people and things can move between the times.

At one critical point in the movie, the heroes have completed a toxin that will kill the female aliens. But just as they complete it, their last base is overrun, and Chris Pratt is recalled to the past, with the toxin. The time machine is done, so the war has been lost. Apparently having struck his head in the fall, Pratt thinks he has no way of getting the toxin to the future, so everything is lost. The nations of the world also just sort of decide to give up as well, which would make sense if everyone believed in metaphysical determinism. Pratt’s character apparently lost the ability to understand how time works: the toxin he has in the present will eventually reach the future. It will just travel one day at a time towards that future.

Going back to the raft analogy, the time machine is like a pneumatic tube that has a fixed length, it can quickly move things back and forth over that distance. But, and here is how normal time works, one can also walk an object to towards the other end of the tube in the future. As such, when the aliens show up, the humans will have as much toxin as they wish to make to use against them. This feature of time would also allow the humans to plan their missions very effectively. To illustrate, I will use a smaller version of the time tunnel thing.

Suppose that on 12/5/2026 I build a time tunnel that reaches back 1 year (roughly). On that day, the tunnel pops open on 12/5/2025 and Mike 2026 can hand Mike 2025 a usb drive full of useful information (such as winning lottery numbers, weather reports, news reports on disasters, and so on). How would this be possible? Here is how. When Mike 2026 arrives, he tells Mike 2025 to fill up the drive. Mike 2025 spends the year doing just that, so in 2026 the drive is full of information and Mike 2026 hands it to Mike 2025 when he arrives.  Mike 2025 can now use all that information.

In the case of the movie, when the time tunnel opens for the first time, they could do the same thing: as people come from the future, they just update information. Thirty years after the time tunnel opens, the travelers have all that information and can use it to change missions that failed, and so on, thus changing the future. This, of course, creates the usual time travel mess of changing the future based on information from the future. An analogous problem also arises from bringing objects back from the future that depend on the future to exist. I will use the toxin from the movie to illustrate this old problem.

As mentioned above, Pratt’s character helps create a toxin in the future and brings it back to the past. He is weirdly baffled about how he will get it to the future but decides to not give up the fight. With the help of some others, he manages to determine that the aliens landed long ago and were frozen in the ice (like in the Thing). So, he does the sensible thing: he goes to a government official and tells him he knows where the aliens are and has the toxin to kill them. So, the official does the usual movie thing: he just refuses. So, Pratt and his associates do the usual movie thing and go it on their own. They use the toxin to kill a couple aliens, then blow up the alien ship (so they did not need the toxin). Then Pratt and his dad beat up the female that escapes the ship. The movie ends with everyone being happy. Except, obviously, the aliens and anyone who might have wanted the technology in that ship. Because of this, the tomorrow war never occurs. Which leads to some problems, but I will focus on the toxin.

The toxin only exists because it was created in the future in response to the aliens. To steal from Aquinas who stole from Aristotle, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect.” As such, the defeat of the aliens would mean that the toxin would never exist, it could not be there in the past. Also, going back to the information problem, Pratt only knows about the aliens because of the tomorrow war, which he prevented from happening. They could, of course, have done a “Yesterday’s Enterprise” thing: the whole timeline changes or something. This is just one of the many paradoxes of time travel.

Another approach, which one could mentally write into the movie if one wishes, is that time travel is dimensional travel or creates time-line branches (which is effectively dimensional travel). So, the future Pratt goes to is real and does not change for it is what it is. When he comes back from that future (alternative reality) with the toxin and kills the aliens in his present, this creates a new future timeline for him. This means, of course, that his alternative adult daughter dies in that alternative future, but his new alternative daughter does not, since the war does not happen in the new timeline.

The movie, I think, would have a been a bit more interesting if they used the alternative timeline approach and they could have had a brief moral debate about obligations to help in an alternate future of one’s own reality. Or it could be a plot twist that the people doing the “time travel” knew they were going to another reality but decided to lie about it to get help.

In terms of the quality of the movie as a movie; well, it is what one would expect from either a store-brand Chris Pratt or a name-brand Chris Pratt who really just needs the money.

As a runner, I have often imagined what it would be like to have super speed like the Flash or Quicksilver. Unfortunately for my super speed dreams, Kyle Hill has presented the fatal flaws of super speed. But while Hill did consider the problem of perception, he seems to have missed one practical problem with being a super speedster and that is how mentally exhausting (and boring) running a super speed could be. Kant can help explain this problem.

Our good dead friend Kant argued that time is not a thing that exists in the world, rather it is a form in which objects appear to us. It is for him, the “form of inner sense” because our mental events must occur in temporal sequence. Or, rather, must occur to us in that way. He does bring up a very interesting point, namely that other beings could experience time differently than humans. For example, God might experience all time simultaneously.  If God does this, it can account for both omniscience and free will: God knows what you will do because from his perspective you done did it, are doing it, and will do it. Other beings might have a similar inner sense, but with a different perceived speed. This takes us to speedsters.

While humans can operate fast moving vehicles like jets and rockets using our merely human perceptions, a super speedster would need to perceive the world and make decisions at super speed. Consider a simple comparison. With adequate training, I could pilot a plane going 500 mph. But imagine that I could run 500 mph, but my brain operated normally. If I tried to run a winding trail in the woods, for example, I would slam into trees because my running speed would vastly exceed my ability to perceive the trail and decide when to turn. But if my mental processes were also fast, then I would be able to run “normally” on the trail: from my perspective, I would have plenty of time to make decisions and avoid collisions. My “form of inner sense” would match up with my movement speed, so I would be fine. Mostly. But there would be a problem if I wanted to use my super speed to save on travel expenses.

Suppose I wanted to visit my family in Maine. My sister’s house is about 1500 miles from my house in Florida. If I could run 500 mph, I could be there in three hours. Being an experienced marathoner, I know that running for three hours is no big deal for me and it would be well worth it to save the cost and annoyance of flying. But travelling in this way would be more complicated than just running for three hours. For people watching me and by my watch, it would be three hours of running. But remember, my mind would be significantly sped up to enable it to handle my physical speed.

To keep the math simple, suppose my normal human running speed is 10 mph. So, my super speed would be fifty times that (500 mph). Suppose that my perception and decision-making speed was equally increased. While this might seem amazing, it would entail that from my perspective the three-hour run would take 150 hours (6.25 days). Even ignoring concerns about sleep and endurance, that would be an extremely unpleasant run. After all, I would experience it as if I were running there at normal human speed (although other people and things would seem to be moving very slowly). For me, it would not be worth it to spend 150 (mental) hours running even if it saved me the price of a plane ticket. After all, I could do that now—and I do not.

One could, of course, tweak the numbers a bit. Perhaps I could safely run at 500 mph while my mind operated at slower than 50 times normal speed. But it would still need to operate much faster than normal, otherwise I would keep running into things and doing a lot of damage. So, super speed would generally not be great for long distance travel.

One could, of course, do some comic book stuff and come up with workarounds to avoid the boredom problem. Perhaps a speedster would have multiple levels of awareness—a fast navigating subconscious awareness that guides them safely and a slower conscious mind to avoid the boredom. Going back to Kant, this would involve having two different forms of inner sense operating in the same mind, which is obviously not even very weird in philosophical terms. In that case, super speed would be a great way to travel.

By https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/sdcc-2019-all-of-the-marvel-studios-news-coming-out-of-hall-h-at-san-diego-comic-con, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62990603

If you have yet to see the first episode of season one of Disney’s Loki series, this essay contains spoilers. This episode presents some of the metaphysics of the MCU: there are many timelines (alternate realities) and variants of people, such as Loki and Deadpool, exist in some of them.

Loki is, obviously, the main character of Loki. In fact, he is two main characters: the anti-hero Loki and the hero-anti Loki (the villain). Since the metaphysics of the MCU includes time travel, this entails that the same person can be at different places at the same time. They can even fight, as happened with Captain America. While this is a metaphysical mess, this means time travel can be used as a multiplier: a person can time it so different versions of themselves arrive at the same place at the same time. So, for example, Loki could show up to fight an enemy at a set time and arrange for himself to go back or forwards in time ten times and end up with eleven of himself to overwhelm the foe. This, of course, leads to the usual paradoxes and problems of time travel. A future Loki could tell a distant past Loki about things that a middle past Loki did not know, but then the middle past Loki would know it. While this is even more of a mess, the time travelling Lokis could remain there in that time and start their own lives or perhaps travel back to a more distant past over and over to create a vast army of Lokis that meet up at a future time to do whatever it is that his character arc directs him to do.

Such time travel has various other problems. A point often made in time travel tales is the importance of not changing the past. Some sci-fi stories do allow a change in the past to change the future; other stories simply make it so that whatever the time travelers do is what happened anyway. That is, they make no change in the past because what they do is what they did and will always done did (Star Trek IV implies this). The classic grandfather paradox falls into this family of problems: if a person goes back to the past and changes things that impact their ability to go to the past (such as killing their grandfather), then they could not go back to change the past and hence the past would be unchanged and so they could go back to the past. But they could not, because if they made that change then they could not go back. And so on. In fiction, the writers simply write whatever they wish, but this does not address the matter of how this would all “really” work.

There is also the problem of personal identity: in the metaphysics of the MCU variants arise and a new timeline branch could presumably also spawn variants that create additional branches. As there are multiple Lokis in the show, they both spawned off the main timeline. Perhaps one Loki “divided”, or one Loki “split” from the other Loki. Or perhaps there are three (or more) Lokis: there is the Loki who remained on the timeline and was killed by Thanos. There is the Loki who escaped from the Avengers because of their time heist (the anti-hero of the show) and the third Loki who is the villain. Because of time travel, the third Loki might have split from the second Loki in the future. As always, time travel is a mess.

Having multiple Lokis does create the usual problems for personal identity. After all, what provides personal identity is supposed to make a person the person they are, distinct from all other things. As such, it would seem to be something that should not be able to be duplicated. Otherwise, it would not be what makes an entity distinct from all other things. If there are two Lokis in a room, there must be something that makes them two rather than one. There must also be something that makes each of them the Loki they are. But is this true?

One approach is taking inspiration from David Hume’s theory of personal identity.  After he argues a person is a bundle of perceptions, he ends up saying that, “The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion, which is of great importance in the present affair, viz. that all the nice and subtle questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties.” While this might be true, it does not satisfy. But it does provide a way of resolving a room full of Lokis: it’s a matter of grammar.

Another approach is trying to sort out the metaphysics of personal identity in the context of time travel. After all, time travel requires that entities can be multiply located while personal identity would seem to forbid duplication of what individuates. The reason time travel requires multiple location is that something from one time travels to another time and the matter or energy that makes up what travels will also be present when it arrives. So, the same thing will be in two places at the same time; something that is not normally possible. But one could accept the existence of metaphysical entities that allow this.

Yet another approach, and one that seems to match how the timelines were presented in the show, is that a branching creates an entire new reality that is similar but not identical to the first. This would also duplicate the people, perhaps creating them ex nihilo. So, the various Lokis would be similar people, but not the same person.

Dice (unloaded) seem a paradigm of chance: when rolling a die, one cannot know the outcome in advance because it is random. For example, if you roll a twenty-sided die, then there is supposed to be an equal chance to get any number. If you roll it 20 times, it would not be surprising if you didn’t roll every number. If you rolled the die 100 times, chance says you would probably roll each number 5 times. But it would not be shocking if this did not occur. But if you rolled a thousand or a million times, then you would expect the results to match the predicted probability  closely because you would expect the law of large numbers to be in effect. 

While dice provide a simple example, the world seems full of chance.  For example, diseases are presented in terms of chance: a person has X% chance of catching the disease and, if it can be fatal, they have a Y% chance of dying. While the method of calculating chance in the context of disease is complicated, the rough process involves determining the number of people in a category who become infected and the number in that group who die. To use a made-up example, if 1 person out of every 100 dies, then the chance of dying from infection would be 1%.

This estimate can be off for many reasons, but one obvious concern is that probability is being estimated based on the outcome. Why this is a problem is illustrated by considering a scenario in which you are given the results of repeated rolling of a die, and you are trying to figure out the type of die being rolled and whether it is weighted. You can, obviously, make some reasonable inferences. For example, if the highest number you are given is a 30, you know the die has at least 30 sides. Matters become more complicated if you are not sure that a die is really being rolled. Perhaps you have been given numbers generated by some other means. They might, for example, be selected to give the impression of chance. One could, for example, create the impression that they are rolling a 20-sided die by picking the appropriate numbers. A similar sort of thing could occur in the world, and this can be illustrated with the disease example.

Let us imagine two universes. Universe A is a random universe that has random chance and probability (whatever that means). In that world, there would be a metaphysical and metaphorical roll of the dice to determine outcomes arising from chance. For example, a disease that had a 1% fatality rate would work metaphorically like this: each infected person would get a roll with a 100 sided die (a d100 for tabletop gamers) and if they roll a 01, then they die. Thanks to the law of large numbers, if enough people got infected then this would work out to 1 in 100 people dying in this random universe.  Naturally, smaller numbers will not match the 1 in 100 perfectly, but with a large enough number of infections the 1 in 100 will be achieved (oversimplifying things a bit). Now to universe B.

Universe B is not random. It could be a deterministic or pre-determined universe or whatever non-random reality you want. In this universe the disease kills 1 in 100 people, but this is not the result of chance. Out of every 100 infected people, there will be one who will die (this oversimplifies things a bit for the sake of the example). This is not due to chance since this is not (by hypothesis) a random universe. In terms of why it occurs, this will depend on the sort of non-random universe one has picked. For example, perhaps the universe is run by a god who created the 1 in 100 death disease and has sorted out humans into groups of 100 using whatever standard the god has chosen and then selects one to kill with the disease.

From the standpoint of humans, this universe will (probably) appear identical to random universe A. After all, the samples people use will be imperfect and will create the impression that it is not a perfect 1 in 100 every time.  As such, it will seem random. Unless, of course, humans can figure out how the 100 person groups work. One could imagine a short story based on this idea in which scientists find that a disease is always fatal to 1 person out of a group of 100 people and the 100 person groups are divided up by the X factor they find. But if humans do not sort out the grouping, then the non-random universe would seem random because of human ignorance.

We do not, of course, know what sort of universe we live in. Roughly put, this might be a random universe and a 1 in 100 chance is “rolled” with metaphysical metaphorical dice. Or it might be a non-random universe in which a 1 in 100 “chance” means that it is “set” to happen once out of every group of 100. Unless we can identify the groupings and get adequate data, then we will never know what sort of universe we inhabit.