Warning: this article contains SPOILERS for Severance.

It remains a mystery what the numbers in Severance certainly aim, but there’s a genius assumption provisioning a convincing rebut. Severance follows Mark Scout( Adam Scott) and state members of the Macrodata Refinement department at the big Lumon company. Everyone working in Macrodata Refinement has gone through a contentious process known as “severance, ” in which an individual’s memories are surgically divided between their work life and their personal being which thus, in theory, appoints the optimal work-life balance. Severed employees have an “innie” self for the position and an “outie” self for residence, with the outie self retaining their life memories.

Only Lumon’s basement departments are severed, thus ensuring that employees working in those departments don’t remember information about what the fuck is do outside of work. However, even inside, they’re not told what the fuck is do. While no one in Severance knows what Lumon does, Mark’s outie tells friends in episode 1, “Good News About Hell, ” that he’s in the “corporate archives division.” Knowing how manipulative Lumon is towards its employees, the corporate repositories interpretation isn’t an irresistible truth, extremely considering the fact that Mark’s innie isn’t privy either to Lumon’s mysteries. Therefore, it’s still not clear what Mark actually does or what the numbers all mean.

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One theory[ via Reddit] proposes that the Macrodata Refinement department isn’t archiving data, but is rather performing machine learning with the numbers. Machine learning is the process of giving computers diversified data and stimulant to improve its estimating experience. Over time, machine learning countenances a computer to produce better production data with the more input data it receives. For precedent, Apple’s Siri will gradually improve with more reiterated show to the user’s voice. It’s still a little strange that Severance’s courages need to split their caches for their activity, expecting this theory is correct. Nonetheless, the machine learning theory suggests that the real data Lumon is interested in aren’t the numbers themselves, but how government employees classify them. In a practice, Macrodata Refinement’s role feels more experimental than anything.

The meaning behind the numbers is completely unknown to Severance’s main references. They can see the numbers based on no prior understanding of their relevance, but they still try to reconcile the riddle by coming up with possibilities about what the count clas is accomplishing. Arguing that their outies must have gone through Lumon’s terrifying severance process for an cataclysmic rationale, Dylan( Zach Cherry) tells Helly( Britt Lower) in occurrence 2, “Half Loop, ” that grouping the numbers might be preparing humanity to live in the sea. Meanwhile, Dylan was of the view that Irv( John Turturro) thinks they’re “cutting swear words out of movies” with the list sorting.

Despite their best hypotheses, all the employees know is that they must sort the numbers based on feeling. Mark tells Helly in incident 2 that some counts look “scary, ” and this scary feeling will be innate to the worker. However, bout 3, “In Perpetuity” reveals that sometimes the numbers actually provoke a cozy feeling. The proletarian recognizes the suitable amounts in a matrix-like fashion and draw them to folders labeled “0 1, 02, 03, ” and so on until “0 5, ” all with progress saloons underneath. Severance outlines the Gen-Z nightmare of a dull, meaningless wreak procedure by indicating that grouping these crowds is all that this job involves. The employees have quotas to meet with these crowds. Their honors for reaching quotas include quarterly waffle parties and finger traps.

Lumon contains a Perpetuity Wing, a museum celebrating the CEOs and the company mission that includes an exact replication of benefactor Kier Eagan’s house and a office of smile pictures displaying the evident elation the company provides to the public. Spoken through a recording emanating from a Kier Eagan figurine, the four “tempers” are introduced as “Woe, Frolic, Dread[ and] Malice.” Eagan develops that “each man’s character is defined by the precise ratio” of these natures “that resides in him.” Controlling these spirits is the center of Eagan’s philosophy.

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An employee’s personality peculiarities and operate ethic are highly valued by Lumon. One such sample presenting this is the fact that Severance’s small-minded basement agencies are grouped by employee perfections – what those honours are is up for debate. For speciman, Dylan says that “Macrodats are clever and genuine, while[ Optics and Design is] more cruelty-centered, ” which his coworkers immediately question. The four feelings seem to be a more overarching way of classifying beings. While it’s commonplace for companies to have specific prices and goal affirmations, Lumon’s four moods lead a step beyond this idea. Their lists, in fact, might be a clue to how important the four irritations are.

Looking closely at Mark’s computer screen in incident 1, a table daddies up out of the folder he inputs figures in that establishes four progress rail lists: “WO, FC, DR, MA.” It is suggested that they stand for the four humours: WO is Woe, FC is frolic, and so on. Lumon’s creator may provide answers to Severance’s mysteries , notably in how these multitudes could represent the four spirits. Considering the machine learning theory, the numbers might be the four tempers somehow encoded as data. Once classified, the data may learn Lumon’s systems what prompts the four irritabilities in beings. This helps explain why it takes time for Helly to feel anything from the numbers, and the “scary” feeling is probably more specifically Dread.

Kier Eagan talks about balancing and controlling the four tantrums, and it’s possible that Lumon is developing methods to create more optimal hires based on this doctrine. Potentially, the numbers affect government employees differently. For precedent, a number specified that induces Dread in Helly may be meaningless to Mark. Otherwise, the numbers express the four humours empirically, which means that the natures can be manifested concretely.

It still remains a concerning mystery why government employees need to be separated for this job, and why the two Severance references who probably aren’t separated are the ones in positions of authority. It’s possible that separation provides a kind of uninterrupted space of recognizing the moods in oneself, thus facilitating the digit category. Irv mentions how history affects one’s identity, and how being severed buds one without a biography until they begin working and learn about Lumon. Severed works start their job in a tabula rasa state – they’re a blank slate with no context for who they are. Severance’s secrets move darker, and the idea that so much of a apparently meaningless activity is concealed from the employees exclusively further shows this.

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Read more: screenrant.com