Are you saying that once you have a written record of me mentioning apples, then you can talk to me about 'apples' with no explanation, but before that you would have to talk to me about 'apples (which are ...)' with an explanation?

Hmm, ok. That can't be right when phrased that way. So something is wrong with my notions. It may be that the point about time-travel holds but generalizing it to the lever issue fails.