Interactive Causes: Revising the Markov Condition
Gerhard Schurz · Philosophy of Science · 2017
This article suggests a revision of the theory of causal nets (TCN). In section 1 we introduce an axiomatization of TCN based on a realistic understanding. It is shown that the causal Markov condition entails three independent principles. In section 2 we analyze indeterministic decay as the major counterexample to one of these principles: screening off by common causes (SCC). We call SCC-violating common causes interactive causes. In section 3 we develop a revised version of TCN, called TCN*, which accounts for interactive causes. It is shown that there are interactive causal models that admit of no faithful noninteractive reconstruction.