Explicit Formula for Partial Information Decomposition

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lyu, Aobo, Clark, Andrew, Raviv, Netanel
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Lyu, Aobo
Clark, Andrew
Raviv, Netanel
author_facet Lyu, Aobo
Clark, Andrew
Raviv, Netanel
contents Mutual information between two random variables is a well-studied notion, whose understanding is fairly complete. Mutual information between one random variable and a pair of other random variables, however, is a far more involved notion. Specifically, Shannon's mutual information does not capture fine-grained interactions between those three variables, resulting in limited insights in complex systems. To capture these fine-grained interactions, in 2010 Williams and Beer proposed to decompose this mutual information to information atoms, called unique, redundant, and synergistic, and proposed several operational axioms that these atoms must satisfy. In spite of numerous efforts, a general formula which satisfies these axioms has yet to be found. Inspired by Judea Pearl's do-calculus, we resolve this open problem by introducing the do-operation, an operation over the variable system which sets a certain marginal to a desired value, which is distinct from any existing approaches. Using this operation, we provide the first explicit formula for calculating the information atoms so that Williams and Beer's axioms are satisfied, as well as additional properties from subsequent studies in the field.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_03554
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Explicit Formula for Partial Information Decomposition
Lyu, Aobo
Clark, Andrew
Raviv, Netanel
Information Theory
Probability
Mutual information between two random variables is a well-studied notion, whose understanding is fairly complete. Mutual information between one random variable and a pair of other random variables, however, is a far more involved notion. Specifically, Shannon's mutual information does not capture fine-grained interactions between those three variables, resulting in limited insights in complex systems. To capture these fine-grained interactions, in 2010 Williams and Beer proposed to decompose this mutual information to information atoms, called unique, redundant, and synergistic, and proposed several operational axioms that these atoms must satisfy. In spite of numerous efforts, a general formula which satisfies these axioms has yet to be found. Inspired by Judea Pearl's do-calculus, we resolve this open problem by introducing the do-operation, an operation over the variable system which sets a certain marginal to a desired value, which is distinct from any existing approaches. Using this operation, we provide the first explicit formula for calculating the information atoms so that Williams and Beer's axioms are satisfied, as well as additional properties from subsequent studies in the field.
title Explicit Formula for Partial Information Decomposition
topic Information Theory
Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03554