Journal article : Review
Greater than the parts: a review of the information decomposition approach to causal emergence
- Abstract:
- Emergence is a profound subject that straddles many scientific disciplines, including the formation of galaxies and how consciousness arises from the collective activity of neurons. Despite the broad interest that exists on this concept, the study of emergence has suffered from a lack of formalisms that could be used to guide discussions and advance theories. Here, we summarize, elaborate on, and extend a recent formal theory of causal emergence based on information decomposition, which is quantifiable and amenable to empirical testing. This theory relates emergence with information about a system’s temporal evolution that cannot be obtained from the parts of the system separately. This article provides an accessible but rigorous introduction to the framework, discussing the merits of the approach in various scenarios of interest. We also discuss several interpretation issues and potential misunderstandings, while highlighting the distinctive benefits of this formalism.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 668.1KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1098/rsta.2021.0246
Authors
+ European Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Funding agency for:
- Seth, AK
- Grant:
- 101019254
+ Wellcome Trust
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/029chgv08
- Funding agency for:
- Barrett, AB
- Mediano, PAM
- Grant:
- 210920/Z/18/Z
+ Gates Cambridge Trust
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/033sn5p83
- Funding agency for:
- Luppi, AI
+ The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/04wpy7706
- Funding agency for:
- Seth, AK
- Publisher:
- The Royal Society
- Journal:
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences More from this journal
- Volume:
- 380
- Issue:
- 2227
- Article number:
- 20210246
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2022-05-23
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-02-07
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1471-2962
- ISSN:
-
1364-503X
- Pmid:
-
35599558
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Subtype:
-
Review
- Pubs id:
-
1979945
- UUID:
-
uuid_f00998cf-2a60-45de-9b87-778f1ed6d7f5
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1979945
- Source identifiers:
-
W3212572250
- Deposit date:
-
2025-12-19
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Mediano et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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