区分因果与触发,让数据自动识别事件背后的真正原因
Cause or Trigger? From Philosophy to Causal Modeling
- 提出因果与触发的哲学区分,建立可计算的数学模型
- 算法从观测数据中识别出飓风形成时的触发因素
- 适用于气候研究等现实场景,助力政策制定
现有因果推理、因果建模及哲学文献中很少探讨触发机制的作用。本文从形而上学角度分析触发与因果的区别,提出明确区分两者的定义,并构建数学模型与因果-触发算法。该算法基于可观测数据,可判断某过程是效应的因果还是触发。通过在近期两个气旋(Freddy 和 Zazu)的气候数据上验证,算法成功识别出风暴生成阶段引发强风的触发因素,结果符合专家判断。此方法使研究人员能直接从观测数据中区分触发与因果,对自然科学研究及现实决策(如飓风疏散或应对全球变暖)具有实用价值。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Not much has been written about the role of triggers in the literature on causal reasoning, causal modeling, or philosophy. In this paper, we focus on describing triggers and causes in the metaphysical sense and on characterizations that differentiate them from each other. We carry out a philosophical analysis of these differences. From this, we formulate a definition that clearly differentiates triggers from causes and can be used for causal reasoning in natural sciences. We propose a mathematical model and the Cause-Trigger algorithm, which, based on given data to observable processes, is able to determine whether a process is a cause or a trigger of an effect. The possibility to distinguish triggers from causes directly from data makes the algorithm a useful tool in natural sciences using observational data, but also for real-world scenarios. For example, knowing the processes that trigger causes of a tropical storm could give politicians time to develop actions such as evacuation the population. Similarly, knowing the triggers of processes that cause global warming could help politicians focus on effective actions. We demonstrate our algorithm on the climatological data of two recent cyclones, Freddy and Zazu. The Cause-Trigger algorithm detects processes that trigger high wind speed in both storms during their cyclogenesis. The findings obtained agree with expert knowledge.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。