Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:04:38.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Near-Decomposability and the Timescale Relativity of Causal Representations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Naftali Weinberger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A common strategy for simplifying complex systems involves partitioning them into subsystems whose behaviors are roughly independent of one another at shorter timescales. Dynamic causal models clarify how doing so reveals a system’s nonequilibrium causal relationships. Here I use these models to elucidate the idealizations and abstractions involved in representing a system at a timescale. The models reveal that key features of causal representations—such as which variables are exogenous—may vary with the timescale at which a system is considered. This has implications for debates regarding which systems can be represented causally.

Type
Causation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 841 - 856
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to Jim Woodward, Lauren Ross, and Ken Kendler for inviting me to participate in the PSA colloquium Strategies for Dealing with Causal Complexity. Thank you to the Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science for funding me during the year in which I wrote this article and the Humboldt Foundation for funding me during the period when I revised it. The following people read earlier drafts of the article and provided useful comments: Colin Allen, Janella Baxter, Thomasz Bigaj, Dan Burnston, Kevin Hoover, Chungyoung Lee, Edouard Machery, Antonella Tramacere, Bill Wimsatt, Jim Woodward, Liying Zhang, and two anonymous reviewers. Finally, I am indebted to Adam Edwards, Jonathan Livengood, Shannon Nolen, and Karen Zwier for years of fruitful discussions about causality and time.

References

Bechtel, W., and Richardson, R. C.. 1993/2010. Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Burnston, D. C. 2019. “Getting over Atomism: Functional Decomposition in Complex Neural Systems.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axz039.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chemero, A., and Silberstein, M.. 2008. “After the Philosophy of Mind: Replacing Scholasticism with Science.” Philosophy of Science 75 (1): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dash, D. 2003. “Caveats for Causal Reasoning with Equilibrium Models.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Frisch, M. 2014. Causal Reasoning in Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. M. 1998. Causal Asymmetries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoover, K. D. 2015. “The Ontological Status of Shocks and Trends in Macroeconomics.” Synthese 192 (11): 3509–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ismael, J. 2016. “How Do Causes Depend on Us? The Many Faces of Perspectivalism.” Synthese 193 (1): 245–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iwasaki, Y., and Simon, H. A.. 1994. “Causality and Model Abstraction.” Artificial Intelligence 67 (1): 143–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, J. 2009. Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathkopf, C. 2018. “Network Representation and Complex Systems.” Synthese 195 (1): 55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, H. A. 1953. “Causal Ordering and Identifiability.” In Studies in Econometric Method, ed. Hood, W. and Koopmans, T., 49–74. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A.. 1962. “The Architecture of Complexity.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106 (6): 467–82.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A., and Rescher, N.. 1966. “Cause and Counterfactual.” Philosophy of Science 33 (4): 323–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberger, N. 2019. “Reintroducing Dynamics into Static Causal Models.” In Time and Causality across the Sciences, ed. Kleinberg, S.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 2017. Physics Avoidance: And Other Essays in Conceptual Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. 1972. “Complexity and Organization.” In PSA 1972: Proceedings of the 1972 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 67–86. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar