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It is very remarkable that the inventor of the binary numeral system our computers are using, the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, had a keen interest in the I Ching.

 

Oh wow, i had no idea. That is very neat. I will be reading up more on him in relation to the I Ching. Great insight, Michael.

 

Immediately my search led me to this recent article...

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/ancient-book-wisdom-i-ching-computer-binary-code

 

The ending of the article is good stuff....

 

"So when scientific thinkers – including many of my favourite science fiction writers – ask whether computers can create "virtual realities" or "artificial intelligence", they are missing the point. Of course we can create ever deeper and more complex layers of the dream of reality to get lost in. The real question is, can we wake up from the dream we're in already?"

Edited by ValleyStream
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It is very remarkable that the inventor of the binary numeral system our computers are using, the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, had a keen interest in the I Ching.

 

True but I think it served more as a affirmation of his own ideas; his first paper did relate the chinese origins of binary in the I Ching.

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Actually, the binary system, 0 and 1, was in use long before computers. Communications equipment has used it for a very long time. It was part of the radio-teletype equipment when I Joined the Army in 1957.

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Actually, the binary system, 0 and 1, was in use long before computers. Communications equipment has used it for a very long time. It was part of the radio-teletype equipment when I Joined the Army in 1957.

Liked because I think it's awesome, the things you've experienced. I think the first computer was invented in the early 40s, though. I'm not sure, but I thought that one used binary.

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Trinary rather than binary, to be pedantic -- Morse code is an excellent example. Shorts, longs and blank spaces in between (that's three distinct states).

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There is actually an ancient Chinese book called T'ai hsuan ching which has a lot of similarity with the I ching but is based on 81 patterns which express a trinary code on four lines. (It's also noteworthy that the TTC has 81 chapters.)

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Morse code is an excellent example. Shorts, longs and blank spaces in between (that's three distinct states).

Hehehe. That's why I didn't use it as my example.

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