When we think about cause and effect, by contrast, we single out certain events as uniquely responsible for events that come afterward, as “making them happen.” That’s not quite how the laws of physics work; events simply are arranged in a certain order, with no special responsibility attributed to one over any of the others. We can’t pick out one moment, or a particular aspect of any one moment, and identify it as “the cause.” Different moments in time in the history of the universe follow each other, according to some pattern, but no one moment causes any other.
