Concrete Causation
13 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsIn his study of causation J. L. Mackie once referred back to David Hume, who listed causation among one of the principles that are TO US THE CEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE and thus OF VAST CONSEQUENCE IN THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE (David Hume, AN ABSTRACT OF A “TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE”). Yet for example the early endeavours of the developers of the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) framework, which aimed at embedding causal meaning into the formal treatment, seem to be neglected, and David Lewis' counterfactual analysis of causation based on his possible worlds semantics does not come very handy for application. As Judea Pearl summarises: WE ARE WITNESSING ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE CIRCLES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF A LANGUAGE AND, SIMULTANEOUSLY, THE LANGUAGE OF CAUSALITY IN SEARCH OF ITS MEANING (Judea Pearl, CAUSALITY, 2000). Borrowing mathematical rigour from statistics, one of the most prominent areas of causal modelling today sounds out the interaction of probabilistic and deterministic approaches and is centred around Bayesian Networks, through which causal notions can be identified concretely and utilised for various disciplines eventually.
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Episodes
Probabilistic Causal Inference from Heterogeneous Evidence
March 13, 2018 10:42 - 43 minutes - 78.8 MB VideoRoland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) gives a talk at the workshop on "Mechanisms in Medicine" (3-5 July, 2017) titled "Probabilistic Causal Inference from Heterogeneous Evidence" (based on joint work with Barbara Osimani and Jürgen Landes). Abstract: Current methods for the purpose of causal inference aim to deliver a categorical assessment about the presence of a causal relationship between events or variables. This is at odds with the great amount of epistemic and ethical uncertainty surrounding mo...
Unifying Causal and Non-Causal Knowledge
October 20, 2014 02:58 - 56 minutes - 864 MB VideoMichael Strevens (NYU) meets Roland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) in a joint session on "Unifying Causal and Non-Causal Knowledge" at the MCMP workshop "Bridges 2014" (2 and 3 Sept, 2014, German House, New York City). The 2-day trans-continental meeting in mathematical philosophy focused on inter-theoretical relations thereby connecting form and content of this philosophical exchange. Idea and motivation: We use theories to explain, to predict and to instruct, to talk about our world and order the ob...
The Mind-Brain Entanglement
May 24, 2014 16:52 - 51 minutes - 786 MB VideoRoland Poellinger (MCMP/LMU) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (14 May, 2014) titled "The Mind-Brain Entanglement". Abstract: Listing "The Nonreductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation" (1993) Jaegwon Kim suggested that the only remaining alternatives are the eliminativist’s standpoint or plain denial of the mind’s causal powers if we want to uphold the closure of the physical and reject causal overdetermination at the same time. Nevertheless, explaining stock market trends by referring t...
Disentangling Nets for Causal Inference
September 15, 2011 17:43 - 12 minutes - 104 MB VideoAs part of the MCMP group presentation at the DGPhil XXII Workshop on Mathematical Philosophy Roland Poellinger (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy/LMU Munich) gives a mini presentation titled "Disentangling Nets for Causal Inference", in which he motivates an extension of standard Bayes net causal models to also allow for the embedding of non-causal knowledge. A longer introduction to the framework of Causal Knowledge Patterns (CKPs) can be found in the recording of the talk "Computin...
Computing Non-Causal Knowledge for Causal Reasoning
June 12, 2011 17:41 - 55 minutes - 524 MB VideoRoland Poellinger (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy/LMU Munich) gives a talk at the MCMP Workshop on Computational Metaphysics titled "Computing Non-Causal Knowledge for Causal Reasoning". Abstract: We use logical and mathematical knowledge to generate causal claims. Inter-definitions or semantic overlap cannot be consistently embedded in standard Bayes net causal models since in many cases the Markov requirement will be violated. These considerations motivate an extension of Bayes n...
The Causal Chain Problem
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 36 minutes - 257 MB VideoIn this talk at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) Michael Baumgartner (Konstanz) discusses "The Causal Chain Problem"
Welcome Address (Audio Excerpt)
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 4 minutes - 13.6 MB VideoProfessor C. Ulises Moulines (LMU Munich, Seminar for Philosophy, Logic and Philosophy of Science) opens the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) with his Welcome Address to an audience of various disciplines; this is an audio excerpt - download the full welcome address as a PDF from the workshop's website
A Ranking-theoretic Account of Causation
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 54 minutes - 518 MB VideoProfessor Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz) presents his ranking-theoretic account of causation as keynote speaker at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010). [Due to technical problems the recording begins with the second slide.]
Workshop Concrete Causation: Programme
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 1 minute - 10.2 MB VideoThe poster of the workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) with all speakers, times, chairs, and breaks
Causality and Observational Equivalence of Deterministic and Indeterministic Descriptions
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 44 minutes - 320 MB VideoCharlotte Werndl (Oxford) presents her results on "Causality and Observational Equivalence of Deterministic and Indeterministic Descriptions" (workshoo "Concrete Causation", 9 July 2010).
Causation in Physics
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 35 minutes - 286 MB VideoIn this talk Mathias Frisch (University of Maryland and Humboldt scholar at LMU Munich) critically examines a range of general arguments for the view that causal notions have an important place in the special sciences and discusses a case of causal modeling in physics - linear response theory (workshop "Concrete Causation", 9 July, 2010).
Graphs as Models of Interventions
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 40 minutes - 211 MB VideoIn this talk Roland Poellinger (Munich) gives an outline of Judea Pearl's deterministic approach towards causation (workshop "Concrete Causation", 9 July, 2010). The title of the talk is taken from the programmatic section 2.2 of Pearl's paper "Causal Diagrams for Empirical Research" (Biometrika, Vol. 82, No. 4, 669-709, 1995) which is briefly sketched and commented on as an introduction to Pearl's interventionist account of causal analysis. Further topics: The problems of simple causal netwo...
Modelling Experimental Interventions: Results and Challenges
July 10, 2010 00:00 - 40 minutes - 326 MB VideoIn this talk at the LMU workshop "Concrete Causation" (9 July, 2010) Jan-Willem Romeijn (Groningen) discusses probabilistic models of experimental intervention, and shows that such models elucidate the intuition that observations following intervention are more informative than observations per se (due to technical problems about one minute of the recording is skipped)