The Logic Of Time Travel (Part 3)

What conditions are metaphysically necessary for time travel to occur?  Obviously, there would have to be some sort of spiritual or technological means of traveling in time.  It is also obvious that there would have to be something that could travel in time (i.e. a consciousness or object, since abstract, immaterial things like logic and space cannot be sent anywhere).  An idea called presentism denies that a past or future exists at all, however.  Can time travel be reconciled with the notion of presentism?

Before I elaborate on the relationship between presentism and time travel, I will refute presentism yet again, as I have refuted it in several other blog posts.  There is a present moment.  In fact, to deny this is to do something while existing in the present moment; there cannot not be such a thing as "right now."  But the present moment is so brief, so precise, so fleeting, that a moment of time cannot remain in the present for longer than an instant.  By the time I have even comprehended or reflected on the present moment, it has already elapsed, gone into the past, and been replaced by a new moment of time (or else the present moment could not persist).

The present moment, therefore, cannot be the only moment of time that exists.  But if presentism was true, would time travel of any kind be even hypothetically possible?  No, the very concept of time travel would be inapplicable even if technology somehow scientifically permitted the actualization of time travel.  The very possibility of a device ever actually transporting an immaterial consciousness across time is dubious as it is, but even if I set aside technological limitations and the problem of teleporting a consciousness, or even a simple material object, presentism is inherently irreconcilable with time travel.

No one can travel to something that does not exist.

Since one cannot travel to a destination that does not exist--I cannot drive from Texas to Canada if there is no such thing as Canada--it would be impossible, if only the present moment existed, to travel in time in either direction, as there would be no past and no future to travel to.  On presentism, there is only right now when it comes to time.  There is not a single moment of time in the past, and not a single moment of time that has yet to elapse.  No other points in time exist.  Clearly, this makes the concepts of presentism and time travel logically incoherent.  The present moment being the sole point of time would render time travel impossible, and for time travel to be possible there must be a past or a future to travel to, as otherwise there could be no time travel.

Presentism is not only false, but it is also incompatible with other concepts like that of a chronological series of events.  Thankfully, recognizing the falsity of presentism does not require an enormous amount of effort in itself, since logic and experience plainly demonstrate that the past has existed for at least a moment.  This fact alone allows for even the hypothetical possibility of a being or object being transported across time into the past.  Likewise, the fact that the present continues to exist means that there is some sort of future that nears or arrives with each elapsed moment, and this alone allows for the possibility of being transported across time into the future, into a time that has not yet been realized.