Binary Counting: Is Its Origin In West African Traditional System?

Binary Counting: Is its origin in West African traditional systems?

In our elementary education, we learnt about number systems, integers, bases 2 and 10. Base 2 is the binary system of counting which reflect a 0 and 1. We are informed that in mathematics and digital electronics, we use the base-2 number system (the binary number system) for their operations, The binary number system is evidence of Nature’s duality. In Western science literature, the binary system is credited a Gottfried Leibniz who in the 17th century studied the Chinese I Ching, which is a divinatory system using the same binary coding.

Western scientists and mathematicians have admitted that the binary system existed in the African divination system which, in Yorùbá, is known as Ifá, prior to the works of Leibniz and his contemporaries. The historical path for base-2 calculation begins with African divination, runs through the geomancy of European alchemists, and is finally transformed into binary calculation, where it is now applied in every digital circuit.

COMPUTER PROGRAMMER and the BABALÁWO

“Bí Ifáà mi bá hù kan, màá tẹ méjì; bí Ifáà mi bá hù méjì màá tẹ kan.”

(Ifá my Ifá brings up one, I will mark two; If my Ifá brings up two, I will mark one)

For computer programmers, making the connection between Ifá binary notation and programming is a relatively straight-forward notion. The parallel between a babaláwo and a computer programmer is striking.

Programmers

Babaláwo

Write codes/instructions the codes are on the CPU (Central Processing Unit) the processor

Incantations (ohùn or ọfọ̀)

Chant/write binary codes

Recites Odù Ifá!

Write on sand (Silicon/CPU),

writes on Ìyẹ̀rẹ̀osùn (Ìrosùn powder).

In essence, a computer code is Àfọ̀ṣẹ (oun tí a fọ̀ tí ó sì ṣẹ)! (a command which invokes action). Computer codes (incantations) can animate the entities in the CPU (sand) and make them become whatever we want, for instance, a game console, financial trading systems, an air traffic controls, social media operations etc. The ohùn of the Babaláwo invoked from the Odù of Ifá brings about a result from our query

The Yorùbá perspective of the Binary System as discerned from Ifa uses various system to derive a binary pattern from the 256 corpuses of Ifá. Ọ̀pẹ̀lẹ̀, divining chain has eight seeds strung on together and held at the middle creating an equidistance between the seed. The seeds have a convex and concave side which depict the 0 and 1 value in the binary coding. The key issue here is that the Yorùbá system of defining a problem and proffering solutions is embedded in a binary coding system used before Leibniz and Boolean found this numbering system. The power of this binary system has been harnessed in the electronics and computing industry since the dawn of the Information age because of its simplicity and efficiency.

Ifá is the African Information Retrieval system used all over the African continent. Europe modified and called it Geomancy. It is this same system practised in Ancient Egypt that spread to Asia where the Chinese call it I Ching and the Japanese call it Shinto.

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