Judea Pearl dubs it the 'Ladder of Understanding': correlation alone isn't comprehension
yudapearl · x · 2026-10-18
Causal inference pioneer and Conjecture Institute advisor Judea Pearl responds to the institute's video on his Ladder of Causation, proposing to rename it the "Ladder of Understanding." His point: true "understanding" entails more than Layer-1 (seeing/correlations) and Layer-2 (doing/interventions) — it must also cover higher rungs like imagining and counterfactuals. Correlations alone can't tell you what happens when you act, and answering "what if?" takes more than data.
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