Concept tag
#counterfactuals
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Correlation is not causation, I tell my team. But what exactly is the missing ingredient?
I build credit-scoring models for a mobile-money company in Nairobi. Our models find patterns: people who top up airtime at regular times repay loans more often. Everyone on my team can recite "correlation is not causation". Nobody can say what causation adds.…
Started by Wanjiru Kamau4 replies146 views -
Is Nyāya tarka a kind of counterfactual reasoning, and does it need possible worlds?
I teach mathematics, and when I read Nyāya I am always delighted by how close their techniques are to the proofs I teach. One that puzzles me is tarka, which I have seen translated as "hypothetical reasoning", "suppositional reasoning" or "reductio". The…
Started by Vikram Sethi5 replies228 views -
“I could have caught it sooner”: what is a nurse’s regret actually claiming?
Something from work that I keep returning to. A patient deteriorated overnight. Looking back, there was a sign at 2 a.m. that, in hindsight, pointed to sepsis. I noted it, it was within range, I did not escalate. By six he was…
Started by Elin Lindqvist5 replies203 views -
“But for the defendant’s act”: thirty-one years of counterfactuals from the bench
For three decades I wrote judgments that turned on sentences of the form "had the accused not done X, the deceased would not have died". I never asked what such a sentence is. It cannot be checked: the accused did do X.…
Started by Khalid Mahmood Awan5 replies192 views