A Simple Hierarchical Causality Primer
It provides a conceptual framework for understanding multi-level causality in complex systems, but is purely theoretical and lacks empirical validation.
This paper formalizes hierarchical causality in complex systems by introducing causation classes, aggregation operators, and discrete event-time maps to describe how actor-level roles constrain agent-level behavior across levels.
We provide a brief primer for the idea behind formalising hierarchical causality in the context of complex systems. Here actors are not simply agents. Actors instantiate causation classes. Agents implement local dynamics in given levels or organisation in a given system. Hierarchical causality then describes how actor-level roles constrain, select, and organise agent-level behaviour across levels. The system then necessarily requires three additional structures. First, causation classes to abstract a given form of causal influence that an actor instantiates. Second, aggregation operators to move across the levels. Third, discrete event-time maps are required because the system comprises events, and the relation between local event counts and any global clock must be specified. Our formulation here is purposefully simple and discrete.