Actual causation and the art of modeling
Artificial Intelligence
2011-06-15 v1
Abstract
We look more carefully at the modeling of causality using structural equations. It is clear that the structural equations can have a major impact on the conclusions we draw about causality. In particular, the choice of variables and their values can also have a significant impact on causality. These choices are, to some extent, subjective. We consider what counts as an appropriate choice. More generally, we consider what makes a model an appropriate model, especially if we want to take defaults into account, as was argued is necessary in recent work.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.2652,
title = {Actual causation and the art of modeling},
author = {Joseph Y. Halpern and Christopher Hitchcock},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.2652},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
In <em>Heuristics, Probability and Causality: A Tribute to Judea Pearl</em> (editors, R. Dechter, H. Geffner, and J. Y. Halpern), College Publications, 2010, pp. 383-406