A Modification of the Halpern-Pearl Definition of Causality
Artificial Intelligence
2015-05-04 v1
Abstract
The original Halpern-Pearl definition of causality [Halpern and Pearl, 2001] was updated in the journal version of the paper [Halpern and Pearl, 2005] to deal with some problems pointed out by Hopkins and Pearl [2003]. Here the definition is modified yet again, in a way that (a) leads to a simpler definition, (b) handles the problems pointed out by Hopkins and Pearl, and many others, (c) gives reasonable answers (that agree with those of the original and updated definition) in the standard problematic examples of causality, and (d) has lower complexity than either the original or updated definitions.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1505.00162,
title = {A Modification of the Halpern-Pearl Definition of Causality},
author = {Joseph Y. Halpern},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.00162},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
This is an extended version of a paper that will appear in IJCAI 2015