A causal loop is a paradox of time travel that occurs when a future event is the

cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event. Both events
then exist in spacetime, but their origin cannot be determined. A causal loop may
involve an event, a person or object, or information.[1][3] The terms boot-strap
paradox, predestination paradox or ontological paradox are sometimes used in
fiction to refer to a causal loop.[4][5]

Grandfather paradox
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Main article: Grandfather paradox
The consistency paradox or grandfather paradox occurs when the past is changed in
any way, thus creating a contradiction. If one were ever to go back in time and
kill one's grandfather in his childhood, it would result in the time traveler's
parents, and ergo the time traveler, not being born. If the time traveler weren't
born, then he never went back in time to kill his grandfather in the first place.
Therefore, he lives to offspring the time traveler's parents, and therefore the
time traveler. There is, thus no predicted outcome to this.[3] Consistency
paradoxes occur whenever changing the past is possible.[1]

A possible resolution is that a time traveler can do anything that did happen, but
can't do anything that didn't happen. Doing something that didn't happen results in
a contradiction.[3]

Fermi paradox
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Main article: Time travel � Absence of time travelers from the future
The Fermi paradox can be adapted for time travel, and phrased "if time travel were
possible, where are all the visitors from the future?" Answers vary, from time
travel not being possible, to the possibility that visitors from the future can not
reach any arbitrary point in the past, or that they disguise themselves to avoid
detection.[6]

Newcomb's paradox
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Main article: Newcomb's paradox
Newcomb's paradox is a thought experiment showing an apparent contradiction between
the expected utility principle and the strategic dominance principle.[7] The
thought experiment is often extended to explore causality and free will by allowing
for "perfect predictors": if perfect predictors of the future exist, for example if
time travel exists as a mechanism for making perfect predictions, then perfect
predictions appear to contradict free will because decisions apparently made with
free will are already known to the perfect predictor.[8][9]

See also
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Cosmic censorship hypothesis
Retrocausality
Wormhole
References
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Francisco Lobo (2002). "Time, Closed Timelike Curves and Causality" (PDF). p. 2.
Retrieved November 2, 2015.
Jan Faye (November 18, 2015), "Backward Causation", Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, retrieved May 25, 2019
Nicholas J.J. Smith (2013). "Time Travel". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Retrieved November 2, 2015.
Leora Morgenstern (2010), Foundations of a Formal Theory of Time Travel (PDF), p.
6, retrieved November 2, 2015
Klosterman, Chuck (2009). Eating the Dinosaur (1st Scribner hardcover ed.). New
York: Scribner. p. 60. ISBN 9781439168486. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
"Carl Sagan Ponders Time Travel". NOVA. PBS. December 10, 1999. Retrieved April
26, 2017.
Wolpert, D. H.; Benford, G. (June 2013). "The lesson of Newcomb's paradox".
Synthese. 190 (9): 1637�1646. doi:10.1007/s11229-011-9899-3. JSTOR 41931515.
Craig (1987). "Divine Foreknowledge and Newcomb's Paradox". Philosophia. 17 (3):
331�350. doi:10.1007/BF02455055.
Craig, William Lane (1988). "Ta