Harry Potter and Philosophy

by David Baggett

  Other key locations, such as the Ministry of Magic and St. Mungo’s Wizards Hospital, are in London too (OP, 482-83). Recall that wizards enter the hospital by stepping through an enchanted window display. The location of the Ministry is underground in London and is entered via an old, broken-down red phone booth (OP, pp. 125-26, 768-69). Further evidence that the Muggle world and wizard world are the same world is that time “passes” at the same rate at magical places that it does in London; for example, if it is 11:00 A.M. at King’s Cross station then it is 11:00 A.M. on platform nine and three-quarters.

  How: Travel by Magical Means

  How do wizards travel through space-time shortcuts such as those provided by Floo powder, the Knight Bus, and teleportation (Disapparating and Apparating) via spells and Portkeys? Unfortunately the best answer to this question is, it’s magic! None of the descriptions in the books provides us with anything like a detailed explanation. However, some of these methods of travel may not be quite as inexplicable or inconceivable as they seem at first.

  Apparating

  It turns out that apparating can be quite dangerous and tricky. Potential serious errors include unintended landing sites such as in walls or on top of people or, even worse, getting “splinched” (only half your body teleports away leaving the other half behind). But what does apparating feel like?

  It happened immediately: Harry felt as though a hook just behind his navel had been suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground; he could feel Ron and Hermione on either side of him, their shoulders banging into his; they were all speeding forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; his forefinger was stuck to the boot as though it was pulling him magnetically onward and then—

  His feet slammed into the ground. (GF, pp. 73-74)

  So apparating involves motion through some kind of space because apparaters feel as though they are in motion and when they reappear, they are often described as “windswept,” “disheveled,” and “prone” on the ground. Also, most of the passages describing apparation imply that some time goes by from the point of disappearing in one place and reappearing in another. All of this suggests that apparating does not mean literally disappearing in one place and instantly reappearing in another without having traversed any space-time. But where is the connecting space that has been traversed and how do wizards traverse it so quickly? One possibility is that apparating is not so much teleportation (that is, instantly getting from point A to point B without having traversed any intervening space), but rather it is travel by “wormholes” or their magical equivalent. A wormhole is a tunnel made out of space-time, between two different points of space-time.

  Imagine, if you will, that space-time is like a very elastic rubber sheet. It might be possible to create a tunnel in the fabric of space-time (for example, with a massive object or by magic) that connects two space-time locations (such as the Weasleys’ house and the World Cup stadium) in such a way that the distance between them is greatly diminished. Such a tunnel would be a shortcut between these two points. Such a shortcut could connect two different places or even two different times. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity allows for the possibility of such wormholes. One possible conjecture is that apparating can be explained as the creation and manipulation of very small wormholes by magical means. Such a wormhole connecting different points on Earth could be quickly traversed and would be functionally equivalent to teleportation.

  Floo powder

  There is also some suggestion that travel via Floo powder is not strictly speaking a form of teleportation, but some kind of extra-physical or magical connection between certain fireplaces:

  ‘I had your fireplace connected to the Floo Network, you see—just for an afternoon, you know, so we could get Harry. Muggle fireplaces aren’t supposed to be connected, strictly speaking—but I’ve got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and he fixed it for me’. (GF, p. 45)

  Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys’ kitchen fire. (GF, p. 51)

  So travel via Floo powder requires that fireplaces be connected in some magical way that is not a mere physical connection (you cannot literally walk from fireplace to fireplace) and yet is somehow more like normal travel between distant points than apparating. We clearly get the impression that traveling via the Floo Network is a wild ride. Perhaps the Floo Network exists for those who cannot yet apparate or for when it is not safe to do so. If so, we may view the Floo Network as a set of pre-connected magical wormholes that are connected via magic.

  The Floo Network also serves another function, namely communication between distant fireplaces via “Floo talking” (OP, p. 740). In Order of the Phoenix Harry not only sees Grimmauld Place, he is seen by and has a conversation with the disloyal house-elf Kreacher who inhabits it (OP, p. 741). Now we have a real mystery on our hands, for it would seem that Harry’s head is in the fireplace at Grimmauld Place and his body is still firmly planted at Hogwarts in Umbridge’s office. It would appear that his head and body are still connected, but how is this possible under the circumstances given the large distance between these two places? It seems unlikely that Harry’s neck is elongated to the point where it literally traverses all that distance, so it would seem that the connection between his body and his head is a magical and not a physical one.

  Time Travel: The Tensed versus the Tenseless View of Time

  In Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione makes use of the “Time-Turner”—a device that allows Harry and her to time travel. But before we say more about these events it is important to get straight on some basic facts about time travel in general. First, we need to understand that there is only one conception of time in which time travel makes sense, namely, the “tenseless” theory of time. The common-sense view of time is the “tensed” view which holds that time, unlike space, flows or becomes.109 On this view, time, like a river, is a dynamic or changing entity. According to the tensed theory of time, the future is undetermined, unreal, and open. The past is set, but long gone like faded fireworks. Only the present is real on this view, and the present is where the past and future meet. The tensed view of time is not only the common sense-view, at one time it was also widely held by philosophers. Take this passage from Augustine for example: “How can the past and future be when the past no longer is and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time but eternity.”110

  By contrast, the tenseless theory of time holds that the “past,” “present,” and “future” are all equally real.111 On this view there is no becoming, no change, and the future is not open. In addition to the three spatial dimensions, time is conceived as a fourth dimension that is very much like just another spatial dimension. Events such as your birth, graduation, and death are all equally real (though not equally present) and we can plot them on a space-time diagram just as we would plot a point on a regular map. On this “block” or “static” picture of time the universe is a “four-dimensional space-time continuum.” The notion of “now” or “the present” has no fixed position, according to this view. Indeed, past, present, and future are relative notions, relative to where you are on the space-time block. The events of your birth and death, just like Paris and Hong Kong, are equally real, they just exist at different space-time points. The temporal relations among all four-dimensional objects are fixed forever. As evidenced by the following quotation Einstein himself held the tenseless view of time because he believed, as do many philosophers and physicists today, that the relativity of simultaneity implies it: “[t]he distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one.”112

  From a four-dimensional perspective there is no such thing as change. The unive
rse is like a still-born space-time jewel with many facets (for example space-time points), hence the name “block world.” The best way to conceive of change in such a world is by analogy with the illusion of change created by still film frames moving through a projector. In frame one (time t1), for example, Lupin is a man, in frame two (time t2) he is part man and part wolf, and in frame three (time t3) he is a full-blown Werewolf.

  It should now be easy to see why time travel only makes sense on the tenseless view of time. On the tensed picture of time neither the past nor the future exist, only the present is real. Therefore there is no past or future to travel to on the tensed view! On the other hand, the tenseless view makes time travel possible, at least in principle, because all space-time points are equally real. In the block universe “past” and “future” (relative to our frame of reference) are fixed forever.

  One interesting consequence of all this is that even if time travel is possible, it is not possible to change the past or the future. Thus all time travel stories in which people go back in time and change events that have already happened are inconsistent. Of course one can always try to render such stories consistent by claiming that the “new” past or future is really a distinct branch of time, different time line, different world, parallel universe, etc. But it is very different to travel “across” possible worlds as they do in the TV show Sliders and to travel in time as they do in the film Twelve Monkeys. For example, the film Back to the Future is a consistent story about possible worlds travel but an inconsistent time travel story because Marty changes things that have already occurred, such as the past and present events of his parents’ lives. There is nothing wrong with this but such stories are better dubbed possibility travel than time travel, because one is moving through possibility space and not time within our universe. To put it another way, if you go back in time and perform some action, according to the block world theory, this means you always went back in time and performed that action. It cannot be that the past event unfolded the first time without you and then you go back in time and the past event unfolds for the second time with you! If you go back in time and assassinate Hitler before the start of World War II then you were always the one to shoot Hitler. This means that you should not bother trying to do this, because it never happened!

  You may ask: but what prevents me from shooting Hitler if time travel is possible? People differ about how best to answer this question but since time travel is only possible in the block universe and since Hitler was not shot before the war, then we know that you cannot go back and shoot him now. It would be a contradiction if both Hitler was not shot before the war started and Hitler was shot before the war started, and logical contradictions just cannot happen. In short, the only time travel events that are possible (that can exist) are those that do not entail a contradiction.

  Time Travel in the Harry Potter Universe

  Now we can ask the question: does J.K. Rowling present us with a consistent time travel story in Prisoner of Azkaban? The answer is a qualified yes, qualified because we see aspects of both the tensed and tenseless views of time at work in the story: two logically incompatible notions of time. Let’s begin with key uses of the tensed view of time by Hermione.

  ‘No!’ said Hermione in a terrified whisper. ‘Don’t you understand? We’re breaking one of the most important wizarding laws! Nobody’s supposed to change time, nobody!’ (PA, p. 398)

  Hermione continues, “Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time” (PA, p. 399). We see that Hermione, under the tutelage of McGonagall and Dumbledore, is operating with the tensed view of time. That is, why should wizards bother having severe laws against changing the past when time travel is only possible in those worlds in which the past cannot be changed? One need only worry about changing the past if the tensed theory of time is true, but if the tensed theory of time is true then time travel is impossible. Dumbledore further corroborates this mistake when he says to Harry: “Hasn’t your experience with the Time-Turner taught you anything, Harry? The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed …” (PA, p. 426). The point is that if time travel is possible then the future is fixed, so predicting the future should not be difficult at all for wizards with that ability.

  There’s another clear-cut use of the tensed view of time in Order of the Phoenix when Harry and company are fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic. Wizards at the Ministry of Magic have actually trapped time itself in a jar and when one of the Death Eaters falls into the jar, his head keeps growing alternatively old and young again because it is trapped in the cyclical flow of time within the jar. This suggests that time is a thing in itself which flows and changes. However, none of these events makes sense on a tenseless view of time. Events do not appear, disappear, and change on this view; time is not a force—the universe is just a collection of space-time still frames, so to speak.

  In the case of time travel we have to make a distinction between personal time and objective time. In objective time, for instance, people might die before they were born; say you are born in the year 1988 and in the year 2004 you travel back to Dinosaur days and are killed by a Tyrannosaurus rex. In objective time you died millions of years before you were born in 1988. However there is no real paradox here, because in personal time you were born, traveled back in time fifteen years later, and died.

  Prisoner of Azkaban is ultimately a consistent time-travel story because upon close examination Harry and Hermione do not change events that have already happened. However, unless one reads the book very closely, the natural assumption is that the pair do change an event that has already happened, namely, the death of Buckbeak. We are primed to this misreading by all the tensed view of time oriented dialogue surrounding their trip back in time. Hermione interprets Dumbledore’s directive in the following way: “there must be something that happened around now he wants us to change” (PA, p. 396). In Prisoner of Azkaban it appears that Buckbeak has been beheaded, and that later on Harry and Hermione travel back in time and save Buckbeak “before” he is executed (p. 331). However, this is exactly the sort of thing that the tenseless view of time will not allow, and only the tenseless view of time supports the possibility of time travel. Again, Buckbeak’s having both been killed and not killed is a logical contradiction and so is not a possibility. Fortunately the film version of Prisoner of Azkaban is very careful, using a number of devices to ensure that the audience understands that Buckbeak was never killed and that it was always the time-traveling Harry and Hermione that saved him. As one example of this, the film version makes it clear that the time-traveling Harry and Hermione were always outside Hagrid’s house watching their non-time-traveling selves and waiting to free Buckbeak. Based on the book alone it would be easy to think the sequence of events was as follows:

  1. While exiting Hagrid’s garden the three hear Buckbeak get executed: “the unmistakable swish and thud of an axe” (PA, p. 331).

  2. Hermione and Sirius are rendered unconscious by the Dementors and Harry is surrounded by them. Just as Harry is about to have his soul sucked out by a Dementor’s kiss an “animal of light” appears out of nowhere and drives the Dementors away and Harry faints.

  3. Harry and Hermione wake up in the Hospital wing of Hogwarts and learn that Sirius is imprisoned upstairs and is about to be administered the Dementor’s kiss. Dumbledore sends Harry and Hermione three hours back in time to save Sirius.

  4. Harry and Hermione go to the edge of the woods and watch all the same events transpire leading up to Buckbeak’s execution but this time they sneak up and rescue Buckbeak.

  5. While making their escape, Harry sees the Dementors closing in on his “other self,” the unconscious Sirius and “other” Hermione. Harry decides to go and find out who saved him from the Dementors. Harry realizes that it was he (his time-traveling self) who saved himself from the Dementors
and he conjures up a patronus in the form of a “stag” which does exactly that.

  6. Harry and Hermione save Sirius and get back to the hospital wing just in time to sense Dumbledore sending their “other selves” off to time travel and save Sirius.

  From this sequence of events it appears that Buckbeak both is and is not beheaded, yet this is a logical contradiction that cannot occur. However, a close and charitable reading of these passages reveals that in fact Buckbeak was never killed and that the “events” experienced by the non-time traveling Harry and Hermione and their time-traveling counterparts, are in fact the same events. Rowling shows this by cleverly tying together the two events with almost the same language. In the first sequence, there is the “unmistakable swish and thud of an axe” that we are supposed to take as the execution of Buckbeak (PA, p. 331). And in the second sequence, after the time-traveling Harry and Hermione have saved Buckbeak, we hear “a swishing noise, and the thud of an axe” when the executioner swings his axe into a fence (PA, p. 402). In the movie version, we see the executioner chop a large pumpkin in half to the same effect.