"Of course they run on paint", hissed Xito, visibly irritated. "What else would they run on? We started with crude splashes of the primary colours. Then, Professor Enima determined that by laying these down in orders, one could obtain pictures. And by showing someone multiple pictures in quick succession, video-"
"Yes", I hurriedly replied in thinly veiled impatience, "but how did that translate into the stuff you and I understand? Abstract things like art and pictures are all well and good, but what about writing? Languages? Books? Solving formulae? Numbers?"
"Now that was quite a logical leap", replied the learned gentleman with the somewhat far Eastern name, "but we owe Enima another one for making the connection there."
He motioned over to a large curtain, the size of a dozen billboards. A thick rope dangled from the left hand side, almost to the ground. Xito leapt ceilingwards, threw his limbs round the giant cord and his weight somehow managed to yank it downwards sufficiently to trigger a hidden mechanism which clanked, grumblingly, as it pulled the curtain to the left hand side. It was as if the machine itself did not wish to relinquish it's secrets.
And what secrets they were.
Behind that curtain lay a wall of colour, every possible hue and saturation imaginable. I didn't know where to look, for it formed different rainbow at every point you cared to turn your eyes. But as I paced closer, the wall was revealed to comprise mere pin pricks of paint. It took me a moment to appreciate how these dots had formed a continuous orgy of sensory overload for the eyes from just a few feet further away. And it took me yet a further moment to appreciate that below each dot was a symbol, a letter or a number.
"The alphabet. In just about any language, too, including several endangered dialects. Numbers, to incalculable decimal places. Or hexadecimal places, if you prefer. Mathematical symbols. Every conceivable state of algebra, calculus, geometry-we encoded the lot in mere paint strokes."
"So all writing...all fine print...and all numbers...is paint?"
"Yes. Once we realised we could encode just about any symbol using the three primary colours in a different variation of some sort-hue, saturation, brightness, you know-it was just down to getting everyone to agree on the same standard."
"Red, green, blue...so this is a binary...no, wait...a ternary system?"
"I suppose. Sometimes, when we don't actually have the paint, we compile a set of instructions to have it delivered. Ticker tape, parchment, microfiche, whatever the medium, the instructions are always the same. First, the primary colour desired, and then the amount and combination with the other colours."
I took a few long moments to digest this. The fundamental solution was so simple as to be mind-blowing.
"Paint can be... Anything?"
"Yes. Though it does help to keep the extents of the brightness and composition rates within the average domestic Sketcher's capablities. You wouldn't want to fry the central Penning unit."
So then...to make all this stuff...you have to be a highly skilled artist?"
"Well, thirty or so years ago, I'd have said yes. But today most of the low level brush code is kept well below what the user can see. If your kid needs help with an essay, she just asks the sketcher and the Verbal User Interface takes care of the rest. Or, suppose you wanted to solve a particularly nasty equation..."
He shuddered for a moment.
"Of course, being computer scientists, none of us get bogged down in maths. It's not relevant to what we do these days, and some of the best artificial plotters are already putting up better equations than any artsy fartsy Einstein or Turing. No, we prefer to deal with the fundamentals of self expression and colour."
I pondered on this for a second. What if, somewhere in the universe, this was all turned on its head?
"You know...it could have been done in reverse..."
Xito looked at me puzzled, with a look almost implying grave offence. "What on earth are you talking about? Paint encodes our world. That's it."
"Yes...but suppose it was numbers that encoded the world? And even the colour within it? And a different number matched up to a given colour, and adding the numbers yielded yet more colours...?"
"That's ridiculous. How would it ever work? Besides, you'd then have mathematicians monopolising our data. Our private lives. And," he uttered in horror, "our art! No, it would never happen. Not to mention that the only fundamental numbers we have been able to encode at the lowest level are 1 and 0. Paint composition can only handle our complex world because of the trillions of shades and hues it can form. But to encode a world using only 'on' and 'off'? What's that meant to mean? Yes and no? Pass and fail? You just can't simplify the world to that level. It's nice, but it's ludicrous."
I turned away from the colour wall.
"Besides," he concluded, "no one would understand it. Maths is just too bloody difficult."