Bits and pieces: understanding information decomposition from part-whole relationships and formal logic.

ABSTRACT: Partial information decomposition (PID) seeks to decompose the multivariate mutual information that a set of source variables contains about a target variable into basic pieces, the so-called 'atoms of information'. Each atom describes a distinct way in which the sources may contain information about the target. For instance, some information may be contained uniquely in a particular source, some information may be shared by multiple sources and some information may only become accessible synergistically if multiple sources are combined. In this paper, we show that the entire theory of PID can be derived, firstly, from considerations of part-whole relationships between information atoms and mutual information terms, and secondly, based on a hierarchy of logical constraints describing how a

SUBMITTER: Gutknecht AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8261229 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature