Qualitative Mechanism Independence

Abstract

We define what it means for a joint probability distribution to be compatible with a set of independent causal mechanisms, at a qualitative level -- or, more precisely, with a directed hypergraph ${\mathcal{A}}$, which is the qualitative structure of a probabilistic dependency graph (PDG). When ${\mathcal{A}}$ represents a qualitative Bayesian network, QIM-compatibility with ${\mathcal{A}}$ reduces to satisfying the appropriate conditional independencies. But giving semantics to hypergraphs using QIM-compatibility lets us do much more. For one thing, we can capture functional dependencies. For another, we can capture important aspects of causality using compatibility: we can use compatibility to understand cyclic causal graphs, and to demonstrate structural compatibility, we must essentially produce a causal model. Finally, QIM-compatibility has deep connections to information theory. Applying our notion to cyclic structures helps to clarify a longstanding conceptual issue in information theory.