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owlthatissuperb OP t1_izf0h4i wrote

Reply to comment by bornofthebeach in Causal Explanations Considered Harmful: On the logical fallacy of causal projection by owlthatissuperb

Yes I do think you can still run CLDs as a model--but they're much more chaotic. They would typically be modeled using differential equations, which can be really sensitive to a slight change in conditions. E.g. even a tiny miscalculation for the weight of one edge might cause the system to enter into a totally different equilibrium.

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bornofthebeach t1_izfc0ag wrote

Thanks for the response :)

Fair enough. If we had figured out a way to model society at the level of abstraction in your example, we'd have psychohistory.

It might be worth a clarification that it's not the complexity of the model, but the chaotic nature of the underlying system that's makes it intractable. If you had just as many variables, but they were pool balls being hit, you'd be able to predict the outcome with high accuracy.

It's exogenous random variables and stochasticity in the effects themselves that create the chaos, not the complexity of the model itself. (in my understanding)

If you've tried modeling this with differential equations I'd be super curious to see! I've never made a CLD model before, only the DAG version.

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