From Hexagrams to Algorithms

“Where ancient symbols met binary code—and birthed the digital world.”

What do an ancient Chinese book of divination and a 17th-century European philosopher have in common? From Hexagram to Algorithm traces the astonishing connection between the I Ching—the oldest of China’s classic texts—and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s invention of binary code.

This second volume of An East-West Trilogy explores how East and West converged in unexpected ways to shape the foundation of modern computing. Jan Krikke weaves history, cosmology, and philosophy to show how binary logic—now at the core of digital technology—has ancient roots in the yin-yang patterns of Chinese thought.

Through in-depth analysis of the I Ching, Chinese aesthetics, the development of fuzzy logic, and the history of computing, this book reframes algorithms as not merely technical tools, but expressions of a broader cosmological vision. It reveals a hidden dialogue between Confucian ethics, Daoist metaphysics, and Western rationalism—and asks how this fusion of symbolic logic and ethical worldviews can inform our digital future.