Abstracting Causal Structural Models
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In this presentation we consider the problem of relating causal models representing the same phenomenon or system at different levels of abstraction. A given system may be represented with more or less details according to the resources or the need of a modeler; switching between descriptions at different levels of abstraction is not trivial, and it raises questions of consistency. In this presentation, we will focus in particular on structural causal models (SCM) and we will express properties of consistency in this context. We will then present two formalisms for defining a relation of abstraction between SCMs: an approach based on the definition of a transformation between the outcomes of models, and an approach based on the definition of a mapping between the structure of models. We will then conclude with some observations and some questions regarding this current direction of research.