Organon F
Volume 33, August 2026, Issue 3, Pages 258–280
ISSN 2585-7150 (online)
Research Article
Is it Time Travel?
Elton Junior Martins Marques
According to David Lewis, time travel occurs when a traveller’s ‘personal time’ has a discrepancy with what we might call ‘external time’ (Lewis 1976, 145). For example, one of two clocks located within a time machine could signal a short trip, while the other may diverge even without limit. In the science fiction classic, Back to the Future, Dr. Brown tries to convince Marty McFly that he sent Einstein, Dr. Brown’s dog, on a time travel mission. To do this, he uses previously synchronised clocks (one internal to the time machine and the other external), noting the discrepancy in how they recorded the duration of the trip. The Lewisian characterisation of time travel has many virtues, but it is not without issues and queries. This paper will propose original cases to reflect on the Lewisian definition. As will be shown, the aim is not just to question this definition by introducing problematic cases but rather to clarify and reformulate it: 1) the time traveller’s personal time (internal time) must be greater than zero, despite Lewis’s explicit acceptance of zero-duration journeys, which he characterizes as ‘broken streaks’ (Lewis 1976, 145, 147); and 2) there are unique cases in which no criteria, especially based on Lewis’s definition, seem sufficient to conclude with certainty whether a time travel event has taken place. The fictitious cases to be discussed are all intended to support the above conclusions, providing us with an opportunity to appreciate the little-mentioned aspects of the Lewisian definition and its implications.
Time travel; temporal experience; temporal dimension; internal time; external time.
Author
Elton Junior Martins Marques
Affiliation 1
Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte
Address
Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte: Caixa Postal 1524 - Bairro: Lagoa Nova - CEP: 59078-900, Natal-Brazil
Affiliation 2
Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte
Address
Catholic University of Portugal, Center for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies, Rua Camões 4710-362, Braga, Portugal
Received
25 April 2025
Revised
9 January 2026
Accepted
13 January 2026
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Marques, E. J. M. (2026). Is it Time Travel? Organon F, 33(3), 258–280. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33302
Chicago
Marques, Elton Junior Martins. 2026. "Is it Time Travel?" Organon F 33 (3): 258–280. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33302
Harvard
Marques, E. J. M. (2026). Is it Time Travel? Organon F, 33(3), pp. 258–280. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33302
© Elton Junior Martins Marques
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