2 of Wands: Integers

There are 10 kinds of people in the world

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In computing, wands map to encoding: the way we interpret the state of a machine as information. Encoding is at the foundation of computing - The encoding and decoding of electrical signals into intelligible information makes computers useful.

The second card in a tarot suit is the the ideal of that suit - the ace is pure, abstract essence, so it is left the two to be the first articulated ideal of the principle of wands.

When people say that computing is “all ones and zeroes”, they’re not quite correct. Ones and zeroes are notional, mathematical objects, found nowhere in nature. Digital computers are made of wires. The mapping of wires to meaning in computers is the useful fiction that a certain voltage across a wire can be interpreted as a zero, and a different voltage across that same wire can be interpreted as a one. From electrophysics we get a duality (a two!) and once we have zeroes and ones, we have the integers.

From the integers, we have the rest of information. Computers map integers to fractions and decimal numbers, to letters and to words, to colors and pixels and sound samples and the angular positions of robot arms and the speeds of motors.

What are the axioms you’re using to understand your situation? What are the founding myths of the world in which you encounter your problem? How were they chosen? What is the first order story that you’re weaving into the higher order stories that you tell?