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bad grades
depression
little
study
significant
others lack
of interest
drink too much
bad beer
Fig. 6a.
Cyclic causal dependency
depression
significant
others lack
of interest
Fig. 6b.
Larger grained representation of Fig. 6a
bad grades
depression
little
study
significant
others lack
of interest
drink too much
bad beer
depression
significant
others lack
of interest
Fig. 6c.
Linked cyclic causal complexes
Figure 6a represents a cycle that has external input. Possibly the cycle
might be collapsed to an imprecise larger grained single node labeled “depres-
sion” as in Fig. 6b. Reasonably, applying our common sense understanding
of human relationships, a return arrow could also go from “depression” to
“significant other's lack of interest” as in Fig. 6c. This would create another
cumulative cycle. The two cycles affect each other. How to represent the in-
teraction of two cycles, let alone two cumulative linked cycles is unclear.
Two union of two large-grained complexes can be inconsistent. Shoham [24]
provides the following example:
•
Taking the engine out of a car makes it lighter
•
Making a car lighter makes it go faster
•
So, taking the engine out of the car makes it go faster
The union of the first two causal complexes is inconsistent. It ignores the
presumption that the car has a working engine.
