simplicio comments on Causal Diagrams and Causal Models - Less Wrong

61 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 October 2012 09:49PM

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Comment author: simplicio 14 October 2012 03:03:10AM 12 points [-]

I recall reading some lovely quote on this (from somebody of the old camp, who believed that talk of 'causality' was naive), but I couldn't track it down in Pearl or on Google - if anyone knows of a good quote from the old school, may it be provided.

Maybe it's this one?

The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm. (Russell, 1913, p. 1).

It should be noted that Russell later reversed his skepticism about causality.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 October 2012 06:34:02PM 3 points [-]

The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

Outside view: Consider the sentence

[X], I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

there are a number of words that could replace X in that sentence to produce something that would be considered a standard LW position. Are we making a similar mistake, i.e., assuming that just because we don't yet have a satisfactory theory of X that no such theory can exist?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 14 October 2012 06:45:08PM 3 points [-]

Are we making a similar mistake, i.e., assuming that just because we don't yet have a satisfactory theory of X that no such theory can exist?

Our inability to come up with a plausible-sounding theory of X is not especially strong evidence for the absence of X, agreed.

Still less, though, is it evidence for the presence of X.

Especially if the work a theory of X is supposed to do can be done without a theory of X, or turn out not to be necessary in the first place.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 16 October 2012 04:09:16AM *  2 points [-]

Still less, though, is it evidence for the presence of X.

Agreed, the evidence for the presence of X is that humans have been talking about it for a long time and seem to mean something.

Especially if the work a theory of X is supposed to do can be done without a theory of X, or turn out not to be necessary in the first place.

Careful, it's very easy to convince oneself that one doesn't need a theory of X when one is actually hiding X behind cached thoughts and sneaked in connotations. For example, Russell no doubt believed that he didn't need a theory of causality to do the work the theory of causality was supposed to do.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 17 October 2012 04:15:48PM 2 points [-]

Absolutely. If I fail to notice how the work is actually being done, I will likely have all kinds of false beliefs about that work.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 March 2013 11:44:39PM 1 point [-]

Added.

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