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Browsing by Author "Marshall, William"

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    System Integrated Information
    Marshall, William; Grasso, Matteo; Mayner, William G. P.; Zaeemzadeh, Alireza; Barbosa, Leonardo S.; Chastain, Erick; Findlay, Graham; Sasai, Shuntaro; Albantakis, Larissa; Tononi, Giulio (MDPI, 2023-02)
    Integrated information theory (IIT) starts from consciousness itself and identifies a set of properties (axioms) that are true of every conceivable experience. The axioms are translated into a set of postulates about the substrate of consciousness (called a complex), which are then used to formulate a mathematical framework for assessing both the quality and quantity of experience. The explanatory identity proposed by IIT is that an experience is identical to the cause-effect structure unfolded from a maximally irreducible substrate (a phi-structure). In this work we introduce a definition for the integrated information of a system (phi(s)) that is based on the existence, intrinsicality, information, and integration postulates of IIT. We explore how notions of determinism, degeneracy, and fault lines in the connectivity impact system-integrated information. We then demonstrate how the proposed measure identifies complexes as systems, the phi(s) of which is greater than the phi(s) of any overlapping candidate systems.