This paper argues that the "time paradox," a long-standing problem in time travel science fiction and the philosophy of physics, is not a logical contradiction, but merely an illusion arising from the erroneous premise that "all timelines are instantly synchronized." The universe does not possess a function to maintain "instant consistency," and time travel is simply "the transfer of matter from one independent system to another." This paper uses a unique river flow model (state transition model) of "blue water and red water (and yellow water)" to explain that the effects of altering the past can never catch up to one's present self, and that altering the future is merely an event in another system. Unline the "many-worlds interpretation," which requires an infinite branching of worlds, this paper completely dismantles the "self-killing paradox" and the "bootstrap paradox" using only the simple principle of system independence, while maintaining the premise that "there is one world." Ultimately, it demonstrates that the self's system in "this very second" cannot be altered by any time alteration, and lands on an extremely sound ontology: the only way to change the future is to change the way "now" is.
The Great Imitation Museum (Mon,) studied this question.