Johnicholas comments on Argument Maps Improve Critical Thinking - Less Wrong

24 Post author: Johnicholas 30 August 2009 05:34PM

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Comment author: SilasBarta 30 August 2009 08:40:01PM 2 points [-]

Semi-OT: what about software for drawing Pearlean causal graphs that permit counterfactual surgery?

Comment author: Johnicholas 30 August 2009 09:22:16PM *  0 points [-]

Oddly enough, Twardy's research in philosophy (as opposed to philosophy education) is related to Pearlean counterfactuals. He worked somewhat with Lucas Hope on a tool called "Causal Reckoner".

See:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1082172&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=49488126&CFTOKEN=18921351

And:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/30m8ac6uafkxu9k3/

However, my google-fu is not strong enough to find the software itself. Possibly contacting the various individuals involved would be necessary.

Comment author: ctwardy 16 November 2009 11:16:34PM 1 point [-]

Luke Hope and Karl Axnick did most of the work on Causal Reckoner. I have used it, but I did very little to develop it. However, I believe it is GPL, so it could be posted.

Comment author: gwern 06 September 2009 10:38:38AM 0 points [-]

However, my google-fu is not strong enough to find the software itself. Possibly contacting the various individuals involved would be necessary.

I think so. The intervention paper links to the providing site, but the straight link is down with a server error; poking around the site reveals no other mirrors or mentions of the causal reckoner. The Internet Archive shows the pages fine, but the only download page is about getting the source via CVS - and not anonymous CVS! The CVS server doesn't seem to expose any HTTP files either (SSH seems to be the onlyway in).

Comment author: gwern 07 September 2009 12:25:56PM *  2 points [-]

It's too bad - I kept thinking about Eliezer's old post about 'what would ordinary things like sight be like if they were RPG powers/abilities', and it seems to me like a cool concept to try out would be a game where you can literally see the causal decision graphs governing the actions of characters. Perhaps another power could be snipping branches or modifying weights to manipulate characters into doing your bidding or simply getting out of the way. (One could start off trapped in a jail cell... :)

But I've tried a couple ways to view the PDF and I can't seem to see the screenshot of the GUI! Now that's annoying.

Comment author: gwern 31 August 2009 05:06:14AM 0 points [-]

I don't suppose there are any non-paywall versions?

Comment author: jhl 31 August 2009 08:20:21PM *  2 points [-]
Comment author: matt 06 September 2009 04:31:31AM 3 points [-]

Let me google that for you:

Very-OT: have you guys seen the awesome lmgtfy?