OK. Each one of those lines is a line of cause and effect that goes back into the past and forward into the future. What each line is composed of in the context of the diagram is countless red dots (events). Of course, in this diagram I wasnt able to draw every single line of cause and effect that lead up to this event, because there would be way too many. Likewise I wasnt able to draw every effect.

Every event on each line has a similar structure to this red dot's causes and effects, in the form of other lines of cause and effect.

So if you use your imagination, you get this mind blowingly infinite (infinite due to the flow of time) and complex, web-like system of cause and effect. Thats what I see when I think of cause and effect. On one hand its orderly, in the way you describe, on the other its this infinite, chaotic mess of strings and events.

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