English

The Magmoid of Normalized Stochastic Kernels

Category Theory 2026-02-02 v2

Abstract

Normalization, D(X+1)D(X)+1D(X + 1) \to D(X) + 1, is almost a distributive law; but because one of the distributive law axioms only holds up-to-idempotent, it yields a non-associative composition of normalized kernels. We introduce the Markov magmoid of normalized stochastic kernels: a normalized-by-construction semantics for probabilistic inference, unifying exact Bayesian observations and interventions as two parenthesizations of the same composite. Front-door and back-door criteria follow from the axioms of Markov magmoids; we implement these with non-associative monadic notation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.01131,
  title  = {The Magmoid of Normalized Stochastic Kernels},
  author = {Elena Di Lavore and Mario Román and Márk Széles},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.01131},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

28 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:11:12.133Z