Religion and spiritual practice often comment on the meanings of one, two and three and generally these are quite agreeable with an information-oriented interpretation of these concepts.
John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
–The Bible
If you are going to bear record (store information) in heaven, you will use the most efficient radix, which is three.
The trinity is the most efficient conception of discrete individuality.
To understand three when one is raised, to judge precisely at a glance
this is the everyday food and drink of a patchrobed monk.–The Blue Cliff Record
I interpret this as meaning that when folks raise the concept of one, it is underpinned by three, because by raising one, they have entered in to the business of discrete information representation, which finds its true expression in three. This fits the general zen idea that to refer directly to a thing distorts the essence of the thing.
As usual, within one sentence of Yun Men three sentences
are bound to be present. These are called the sentence that
encloses heaven and earth, the sentence that follows the
waves, and the sentence that cuts off the myriad streams.-The Blue Cliff Record
Another one and three, but I feel like these 3 nicely capture some of the essence of one two and three:
- one – The sentence that encloses heaven and earth. To speak of reality as “one” we encircle all that exists, both physical and figurative.
- two – The sentence that follows the waves. One becomes two through natural wave motion; one’s existence produces a wave, one wave produces another.
- three – The sentence that cuts off the myriad streams. Three settles matters by collapsing the infinite e-dimensional details in to the simplicity of the most efficient integer base.