English

Causal models have no complete axiomatic characterization

Artificial Intelligence 2008-04-16 v1 Logic in Computer Science

Abstract

Markov networks and Bayesian networks are effective graphic representations of the dependencies embedded in probabilistic models. It is well known that independencies captured by Markov networks (called graph-isomorphs) have a finite axiomatic characterization. This paper, however, shows that independencies captured by Bayesian networks (called causal models) have no axiomatization by using even countably many Horn or disjunctive clauses. This is because a sub-independency model of a causal model may be not causal, while graph-isomorphs are closed under sub-models.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.2401,
  title  = {Causal models have no complete axiomatic characterization},
  author = {Sanjiang Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.2401},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:31:07.626Z