For the benefit of other readers: this post is confused.
Specifically on this (although possibly also on other stuff): (a) causal and statistical DAGs are fundamentally not the same kind of object, and (b) no practical decision theory used by anyone includes the agent inside the DAG in the way this post describes.
---
”So if the EDT agent can find a causal structure that reflects their (statistical) beliefs about the world, then they will end up making the same decision as a CDT agent who believes in the same causal structure.”
A → B → C and A ← B ← C reflect the same statistical beliefs about the world.
I can’t tell if this is a terminological or substantive disagreement (it sounds terminological, but I don’t think I yet understand it).
causal and statistical DAGs are fundamentally not the same kind of object
Could you say something about the difference and how it is relevant to this post? Like, which claim made in the post is this contradicting?
Is this an objection to “If a system is well-described by a causal diagram, then it satisfies a complex set of statistical relationships”? Or maybe “To an evidential decision theorist, these kinds of statistical relationships are the whole story about causality, or at least about its relevance to decisions.”?
no practical decision theory used by anyone includes the agent inside the DAG in the way this post describes.
What is EDT if you don’t include the agent inside the model of the world? Doesn’t almost all philosophical discussion of EDT vs CDT involve inferences about the process generating the decision, and hence presume that we have beliefs about this process? Are you saying that “practical” communities use this language in a different way from the philosophical community? Or that “beliefs about the process generating decisions” aren’t captured in the DAG?
A → B → C and A ← B ← C reflect the same statistical beliefs about the world.
That’s true but I don’t understand its relevance. I think this is probably related to the prior point about the agent including itself in the causal diagram. (Since e.g. decision --> A --> B --> C and decision --> A <-- B <-- C correspond to very different beliefs about the world.)
For the benefit of other readers: this post is confused.
Specifically on this (although possibly also on other stuff): (a) causal and statistical DAGs are fundamentally not the same kind of object, and (b) no practical decision theory used by anyone includes the agent inside the DAG in the way this post describes.
---
”So if the EDT agent can find a causal structure that reflects their (statistical) beliefs about the world, then they will end up making the same decision as a CDT agent who believes in the same causal structure.”
A → B → C and A ← B ← C reflect the same statistical beliefs about the world.
I can’t tell if this is a terminological or substantive disagreement (it sounds terminological, but I don’t think I yet understand it).
Could you say something about the difference and how it is relevant to this post? Like, which claim made in the post is this contradicting?
Is this an objection to “If a system is well-described by a causal diagram, then it satisfies a complex set of statistical relationships”? Or maybe “To an evidential decision theorist, these kinds of statistical relationships are the whole story about causality, or at least about its relevance to decisions.”?
What is EDT if you don’t include the agent inside the model of the world? Doesn’t almost all philosophical discussion of EDT vs CDT involve inferences about the process generating the decision, and hence presume that we have beliefs about this process? Are you saying that “practical” communities use this language in a different way from the philosophical community? Or that “beliefs about the process generating decisions” aren’t captured in the DAG?
That’s true but I don’t understand its relevance. I think this is probably related to the prior point about the agent including itself in the causal diagram. (Since e.g. decision --> A --> B --> C and decision --> A <-- B <-- C correspond to very different beliefs about the world.)
I disagree, it doesn’t look confused to me.
The post explicitly discusses the different views of causality.
That seems in line with what the post describes: “and so it will be (much) too large for me to reason about explicitly”.