Topological reversibility and causality in feed-forward networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of topological reversibility to quantify the uncertainty in reversing causal paths in feed-forward networks, with analytical characterizations and implications for evolutionary dynamics.

Contribution

It proposes a novel measure of path reversibility in directed acyclic graphs, providing a rigorous framework and analytical insights into reversible and entropic structures.

Findings

Analytical characterization of reversible and entropic structures

Introduction of topological reversibility as a measure of path uncertainty

Relevance to evolutionary dynamics and causal systems

Abstract

Systems whose organization displays causal asymmetry constraints, from evolutionary trees to river basins or transport networks, can be often described in terms of directed paths (causal flows) on a discrete state space. Such a set of paths defines a feed-forward, acyclic network. A key problem associated with these systems involves characterizing their intrinsic degree of path reversibility: given an end node in the graph, what is the uncertainty of recovering the process backwards until the origin? Here we propose a novel concept, \textit{topological reversibility}, which rigorously weigths such uncertainty in path dependency quantified as the minimum amount of information required to successfully revert a causal path. Within the proposed framework we also analytically characterize limit cases for both topologically reversible and maximally entropic structures. The relevance of these measures within the context of evolutionary dynamics is highlighted.