The intuitive reason is that the outcome of an event shouldn’t be affected by its consequences, and thus causes don’t become entangled just because they happen to affect the same event.
It should be noted that one counterexample to this is when dealing with agency. People (or evolution or …) select variables to intervene on which coordinate to cause some outcome of interest. As a result, many logically independent variable can become correlated in such a way as to massively increase the likelihood of some outcome.
Of course, in such a case, one can model it by treating people and their goals as a common cause of all of these different mediators. But it is worth keeping in mind that this is a potential exception to the Piranha principle.
Excellent post!
It should be noted that one counterexample to this is when dealing with agency. People (or evolution or …) select variables to intervene on which coordinate to cause some outcome of interest. As a result, many logically independent variable can become correlated in such a way as to massively increase the likelihood of some outcome.
Of course, in such a case, one can model it by treating people and their goals as a common cause of all of these different mediators. But it is worth keeping in mind that this is a potential exception to the Piranha principle.