Integrated Information in Discrete Dynamical Systems: Motivation and Theoretical Framework
Figure 5
Decomposing systems into overlapping complexes.
In this example elements are parity gates: they fire if they receive an odd number of spikes. Links without arrows are bidirectional. The system is decomposed into three of its complexes, shown in shades of gray. Observe that: i) complexes can overlap; ii) a complex can interact causally with elements not part of it; iii) groups of elements with identical architectures generate different amounts of integrated information, depending on their ports-in and ports-out (compare subset A, the dark gray filled-in circle, with subset B, the right-hand circle).