We often seek to “straighten out” a maze-like, loop-containing situation. We try to find a “path” through “causal” explanations that go in only one direction. Why? Any directed acyclic graph (DAG) can be linearized, i.e. topologically sorted. And we can apply the same types of reasoning to everything we can represent in terms of chains of causes and effects. We can proceed from start to end without any need for a novel thought.