The I Ching is a language. Its 'letters' are in the form of images reflecting generic, holistic, organic, qualities of meaning. The set of images is finite and the language is at a level of being able to describe itself through reference to itself by the method of analogy (thus the I Ching is "autological"). This allows us to describe the details of a hexagram through a manipulation of logic and the use of analogy. The table in each hexagram thus describes the details of the current hexagram through analogy to each of the other hexagrams. The logic used is in interpretation of hexagrams as part/whole interactions - as such the table is like a hexagram's spectrum and so a 'parts list'. Another analogy is to geneotype (a universal gene) and phenotype (the expression of the gene given some specific context).