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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Gebbie, Tim
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01979
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author Gebbie, Tim
author_facet Gebbie, Tim
contents 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.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_01979
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Simple Hierarchical Causality Primer
Gebbie, Tim
Multiagent Systems
Optimization and Control
Computational Finance
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.
title A Simple Hierarchical Causality Primer
topic Multiagent Systems
Optimization and Control
Computational Finance
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01979