[hiAndrewQuinn]

Bingo, precisely. I keep using this compromise as a foundational example when I talk to my wife (currently doing a CS degree) about why binary stuff, specifically, keeps coming up in her stuff. 2 is a magic number in computing because it is the Great Compromise we made with reality to get it.

Every now and then people here bring up more exotic paradigms, like ternary computing, and yes! In an ideal world the more phases you can detect the 'better', all the way up to infinity (pure analogue computing). But the difficulty curve to scale anything besides base 2 to where base 2 computing currently is is, at least for our current understanding in physics, materials science, etc., way higher.