Integrated Information in Discrete Dynamical Systems: Motivation and Theoretical Framework (original) (raw)
Figure 7
Analyzing systems in terms of elementary components.
(A) and (C) show systems that on the surface appear to generate a large amount of integrated information. The units in (A) have a repertoire of 2_n_ outputs, with the bottom unit copying the top. Integrated information is n bits. Analyzing the internal structure of the system in (B) we find n disjoint couples, each integrating 1 bit of information; the entire system however is not integrated. (C) shows a system of binary units. The top unit receives inputs from 8 other units and performs an _AND_-gate like operation, firing if and only if all 8 inputs are spikes. Increasing the number of inputs appears to easily increase φ without limit. (D) examines a possible implementation of the internal architecture of the top unit using binary _AND_-gates. The architecture has a bottleneck, shown in red, so that φ = 1 bit no matter the number of input units.