I don’t think this works. There are many cases where the gears-level model is causal and the policy level is not, but it’s not the same distinction, and there are cases where they come apart.
E.g., suppose someone claims to have proven P ≠ NP. You can have a policy-level take on this, say “Scott Aarenson think it’s correct therefore I believe it”, or a gears-level model, e.g., “I’ve read the proof and it seems solid”. But neither of them is causal. It doesn’t even make sense to talk about causality for mathematical facts.
I don’t think this works. There are many cases where the gears-level model is causal and the policy level is not, but it’s not the same distinction, and there are cases where they come apart.
E.g., suppose someone claims to have proven P ≠ NP. You can have a policy-level take on this, say “Scott Aarenson think it’s correct therefore I believe it”, or a gears-level model, e.g., “I’ve read the proof and it seems solid”. But neither of them is causal. It doesn’t even make sense to talk about causality for mathematical facts.
Yes, I’ll grant that “causal” doesn’t fit so well for mathematics. Yet even in mathematics, people still talk in terms of “why” and “because”.