@talltim,
I'm looking at it a bid differently: I think time exists in totality in that sense, that it's not linear but consists of three or more dimensions. I also think it's us who are creating these branches - these *hardforks*. With every real decision (not reaction!) we split the time-space and create a new parallel branch. But then I believe that we only make a very few real decisions in our lives, that most of our *decisions* are merely *reactions*, not actual *creations* of new branches of reality. I believe a self-reflecting consciousness is actually here to go beyond causality.  We bring *hardforks* in a deterministic reality so to speak. We break the mechanism of cause and effect by importing something new: *Creativity*
When I look at what creativity actually is I come to this conclusion: The smallest bit of creativity is *decision*.