I believe the notion of causality that is relevant to EDT is the “right” one, because causality seems like a concept developed to make and understand decisions (both over evolutionary time and more importantly over cultural evolution) rather than something ontologically fundamental that is needed to even define a correct decision.
🤔
One distinction I would like to draw is between the causality related to your decisions, and the causality related to everything else; “decision counterfactuals vs theory counterfactuals”. Your argument seems to show that decision counterfactuals are well handled by EDT.
But one type of decision we need to make is about what sort of information to go out and gather. And one type of information we might want to go out and gather would be causal information, not necessarily about the effects of our decisions, but instead about the effects of variables in the world on each other.
This seems like a place where EDT and CDT could end up differing, though it seems quite hard to model, so it’s hard to know.
🤔
One distinction I would like to draw is between the causality related to your decisions, and the causality related to everything else; “decision counterfactuals vs theory counterfactuals”. Your argument seems to show that decision counterfactuals are well handled by EDT.
But one type of decision we need to make is about what sort of information to go out and gather. And one type of information we might want to go out and gather would be causal information, not necessarily about the effects of our decisions, but instead about the effects of variables in the world on each other.
This seems like a place where EDT and CDT could end up differing, though it seems quite hard to model, so it’s hard to know.