Designer;
Your problem, is only in how you feel things must be ordered to be true. To me, this is because your facts are based upon what I understand to be fallacies.
You forget that my philosphy not only allows for free will, but also institutes the idea that all things happen in the same instant. Alog with that, the universe is uncaring and instantly adaptable, because our understanding of time is banal at best.
To put it plainly, almost everyone follows time in a liner fashion from moment A, to B, to C, etc. A travelers timeline, although being connected moments to themselves, would encompass moment A to moment F, to moment C, to moment Z to moment H...
Your misunderstanding assumes that each and every entity in the universe must first (in their subjective times) experience the death of this poor victim, and then deal with that until this victim is resurrected, some twenty years later...they having had to cope with the death and then the repercussions of the ressurection.
You, however, forget the FACT that I would have been present in the 1980's to prevent the death.
You imply that the observers travel from moment A (just prior to the would-have-been death) to moment B (the death), to moment C (the term of having the victim dead), to moment D (wherein this person is no longer dead).
Your philosophy dictates that this must be true, because it would be twenty or so years before I go back to moment A or B and prevent this, and therefore each and every other creature in the universe has this as their subjective reality until it is changed, and then must cope or have some magic veil pulled over their souls. With that precept in mind, you then counter that either the universe implodes, a doppleganer appears out of nowhere to save the universe from destruciton, or that there is no free will and I have only done what fate had meant me to do.
You are forgeting the basic fact that when everyone else, within the timestream, travels from moment A to moment B, that I am there as well...for everyone in the universe, not just myself. I am a physical part of the universe, I am not simply watching, I am acting.
For the purposes of physics, the universe, and anything else that you might care to bring up, it does not change the fact that I am there, in that moment and acting to my surroundings and influencing them as much as a person within the time stream can influence things.
At this juncture, I merely sway the outcome from what would have happened, to what I made happen. To subjective time, the universe, and observers, or anything or anyone else you might bring up, I am simply a person that saved the poor victim's life.
Now I may have known that the victim was destined to die. And then I will know that my actions changed the course of what would have become; but it does not change the fact that I was there, in concrete and not theoretical reality, and prevented a death.
For everyone in the universe, except for the traveler, their moment A leads up to moment B (which has been altered by somebody coming from moment Q) But their point of observation is moment A, to moment B, to moment C.
You are implying that I must either create a new universe, bring another copy from another universe, or create a closed temporal loop, or be a victim of fate.
Free will is a philosophical construct, and it has no effect on mathematics or events; just as mathematics have no effect on philosophy.
You assume, from your pool of precepts, that time must play out in a certain order or otherwise the universe is a fraud. As the concept of a fluid and amorpheus universe is not in your philosophy, epsecially when it pertains to time, and specifically with problems with perceiving it to be a fluid rather than a linear construct, I can only say again that the death doesn't happen and rephrase the answer as many times as you can rephrase and repose the question.
You cannot percieve an event being altered in it's own present (or past) without first having been played out through the universe, and then leaving every being to be be reprogrammed to cope with the change any more than I can relate again and again that if I am in an era, i am a part of it, and my actions have an effect on that era, even though, I have certain histories to draw upon to give me a better course of action to make the fluid of the universe congeal into what i desire it to be.
you can speak of formulae, and copncept, and perdcetions as much as you like, and I can retort counters to the same, but it does not change the fact that in moment B, i was there and prevented the death. As the universe in the moment-to-moment stream observes moment A to B, there simply is no death, and therfefore there is no set of decades of coping to suddinely have things changed. For everyone else in the stream, no matter where they are in it, moment B did NOT include the vitim's death, it merely included a brush with death.
There is no problem to be dealt with, because the facts have been changed and the event questioned did never / will never occur. There quite simply was no death. As the universe sees it(and hence everyone else but those few that might know [and care] of the difference AND be outside of the normal current of the timestream) event B is does not result in a death.
Just because something would have happened if a time traveler had not been there does not change the fact that it did NOT happen because a shooter was there.
You are quite simply hung up with the idea that all things can happen at once, we have free will, and whatever we do to the timestream does not make the universe splinter in other realities or make it disappear, that you cannot accept the idea that from moment A to moment B, is what happens, even if I come from moment Z-plus infinity and change moment B while the rest of the universe is experiencing it.
You are saking me that if moment B would normally have included the death of the victim and I move back in time from mement E to prevent it, how do the people cope with their memories of moments C, D, and E. That is easy. For the rst of the universe, their moment B did not include the death prevented. Fro the universe it is real because it was made so. there is no even B containing the death, because moment B was altered to not contain the death. There quite simply is no death to deal with, and therefore there are no 'memories' of what what could have been to be coped with.
All beings are caught up in the flow fo the timestream. Even travelers are subject to it, unless they are the ones altering the event (which gets convoluted and bizarre, but this is why the archives must be kept outside of the timestream).
However, the changing of an event merely changes the event, it does not allow the entire universe to travel along ona ruse and then suddenly have cosmic and tmeporal carpet ripped out from under them.
Now to save one's on ego and sanity, you can pop whatever terminology upon this that you want. You may call it divergence, you may call out an inifinite number of inifinite times and realities that are influenced by an infinite number of choices from an infinite number of people, that are again influenced by the infintie number of inifinite possiblities that are ordained by the previous infinites, etc... but it does not change the reality of the situation. However you decirbe it, and the more complex you choose to describe it, does not change the fact that it is.
I shall now quote one of the ultimate truisms of the universe as said to me by Nina (from the late 22nd): "Dar, You are an
A@@^ole! I know why you are, but it doesn't change the fact that you are one single quark."
My point is that creating a complex and meaningless set of constructs to describe what is does not change the fact that it is. Likewise, understanding the reasons why somehting is still does not change the fact that it is.
Events can be changed, and are being changed. they were being changed long before humans ever figured it out. they were being changed long before i got here. When I'm fragged and hung upon the city walls as an example, it won't change the fact that things are being changed. Making up realities that do not exist, or popping in mystical creatures to account for things we don't undertsand won't change the fact that things are being changed. Adding lingo to them and trying to decribe how things could have been chasnged, still won;t effect the fact that they are.