The Making of Remainders
Chinese mantic arts rely on the premise of a cyclical cosmic dynamic whose regularity would make future events predictable. However, because of the multiplicity of parameters involved in this dynamic, it is particularly complex to decipher and it requires elaborate techniques of fate « calculation ». This work focuses on counting-out operations that aim at producing remainders in various specialized and common divinatory techniques that can be observed today in the Chinese world. This operating process is related to similar divinatory procedures in other cultural contexts and to other activities such as games. This article questions the tension between the complexity of divinatory techniques (which aim to include as many parameters as possible to account for a situation in the most accurate way) and the necessary simplicity that is required when these techniques are applied in contexts of action and decision-making. It highlights how divinatory artefacts and associated cognitive patterns work as deciphering and orientation tools by reducing the unfathomable diversity of the cosmos to a scale that can be apprehended by the human mind.