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  • $\begingroup$ Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean with the word causal? Is there some more nuanced meaning to it or does it simply refer to the notion of causality and relationships bound between causes and effects? Thank you for your answer, btw. $\endgroup$ Commented May 4, 2016 at 6:34
  • $\begingroup$ Causal knowledge involves the effects of interventions. If you have causal knowledge, then you know how some system will respond to an action you make. (Cf. the common refrain, "association is not causation.") One way to appreciate how causal knowledge lies beyond the province of mere statistics is to consider the Hooke's Law example I cited above. Depending on how a spring is used (e.g., in a fish scale vs spring-loaded toy gun), the $F$ might cause the $x$ or vice versa. Yet $F=-kx$ is ambivalent to the causality here (because $=$ is a symmetric relation). $\endgroup$ Commented May 4, 2016 at 12:44