The 64 Hexagrams map the mutations of the cosmos in a complete 8×8 matrix.
The I Ching stacks the eight trigrams into pairs to produce sixty-four hexagrams — six lines each, every possible combination — and assigns to each a situation, an image, and a movement of change. Cast by chance, it answers questions by locating you within this total space and showing where the lines are tending.
The I Ching unlocks the idea of a complete combinatorial map of situations: a finite, binary set covering every archetypal condition, with built-in transitions between them. Leibniz saw binary arithmetic in it; we might see the first state machine — sixty-four states and the rules that move between them.