Integrated information theory provides a mathematical framework to fully
characterize the cause-effect structure of a physical system. Here, we
introduce PyPhi, a Python software package that implements this framework for
causal analysis and unfolds the full cause-effect structure of discrete
dynamical systems of binary elements. The software allows users to easily study
these structures, serves as an up-to-date reference implementation of the
formalisms of integrated information theory, and has been applied in research
on complexity, emergence, and certain biological questions. We first provide an
overview of the main algorithm and demonstrate PyPhi's functionality in the
course of analyzing an example system, and then describe details of the
algorithm's design and implementation.
PyPhi can be installed with Python's package manager via the command 'pip
install pyphi' on Linux and macOS systems equipped with Python 3.4 or higher.
PyPhi is open-source and licensed under the GPLv3; the source code is hosted on
GitHub at https://github.com/wmayner/pyphi . Comprehensive and
continually-updated documentation is available at https://pyphi.readthedocs.io/
. The pyphi-users mailing list can be joined at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pyphi-users . A web-based graphical
interface to the software is available at
http://integratedinformationtheory.org/calculate.html .Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 6 pages of appendices. Supporting information
"S1 Calculating Phi" can be found in the ancillary file
