Warning: this article contains SPOILERS for Severance.
One of the biggest mysteries in the Apple TV+ show Severance is the meaning behind the numbers Lumon employees are hired to sort, and there are a few theories based on clues in the show. In Severance, the "innies" spend their days cataloging numbers based on their emotional reactions to them, but the origin of the Lumon numbers is never revealed (nor are the reasons the innies react to the Severance numbers at all). Severance exaggerates the arbitrariness of the office by offering its characters no explanation for the necessity of mundane tasks. All the Lumon employees know is that they must sort numbers that evoke an emotional reaction into folders. They meet quotas, try to finish number files before they expire, and receive rewards for reaching quotas that include erasers, finger traps, and waffle parties.
Still, sorting numbers and meeting quotas doesn't fully satisfy a sense of accomplishment at work. The main characters' innies don't seem to know exactly what Severance's Lumon Industries do, much less what the Lumon numbers signify. Still, they make theories ranging from Dylan believing that they're cleaning the ocean for a mass human migration to Irving innocently thinking that they're eradicating swear words from movies. Clues regarding Lumon's staunch philosophies, and airtight control of its employees, make both suggestions unlikely, but there are still plenty of theories about what the numbers really mean. A common thread through all of these ideas is that Lumon isn't actually interested in the numbers at all — what matters is how the employees react to them.
Employees Aren't Actually Archiving Lumon's Data
In Severance's episode 1, "Good News About Hell," Mark's outie tells his friends that he works in the "corporate archives division" at Lumon, but this hardly seems true after seeing what Mark's innie actually does. If the severance process already guarantees information confidentiality from the employees, it's hardly logical that Lumon and their non-severed supervisors Cobell and Milchick would enforce a further security measure by not telling their employees' innies what the Lumon numbers mean. It's possible that they're archiving sinister data that, if the employees knew, would disrupt their workflow and cause risks of disobedience.
However, the disorienting severance process already creates that risk, as seen with Helly's frequent attempts to quit her job. Furthermore, like the severance process, it's likely that employees would eventually become complacent to sinister data. While keeping the data secret for this reason is possible, it seems too moot a point for it to be true. It's therefore more plausible that what the company does in Severance is not actually archiving data, as Mark's outie is led to believe. If anything, that seems more like a lie to convince Mark's outie to keep returning to work.
The Numbers Are The Four Tempers
A compelling Severance numbers theory that episode 3, "In Perpetuity" further supports is that the Lumon numbers represent the four tempers. Upon a visit to Lumon's Perpetuity Wing, where past CEOs are celebrated alongside Lumon's company mission, a wax figurine of founder Kier Eagan emits a recording explaining his philosophy regarding what he calls "tempers." Eagan's tempers are "Woe, Frolic, Dread, [and] Malice," and Eagan believes that "each man's character is defined by the precise ratio" of these tempers. Looking at the computer screen when Mark inputs a number set into a folder, a table of progress bars labeled "WO, FC, DR, [and] MA" pops up. It's plausible that these progress bars stand for the four tempers if "WO" means Woe, "FC" means Frolic, and so forth. This would also parallel the medieval belief in four temperaments caused by fluid in the body which impacted mood.
The answers to a lot of Severance's meaning may lie in Lumon's creator Eagan, including the real purpose of the Refiners' job. Maybe the company is interested in how the employees recognize the Lumon numbers as tempers and wants to discover the most optimal way to balance their character based on Eagan's philosophy. The numbers could also be an empirical representation of the tempers, and the Refiners are performing machine learning by classifying the data. It really depends on how Lumon uses the data, but the numbers seem to relate to Eagan's four tempers somehow.
Why The Employees Don't Know What The Lumon Numbers Mean
The Refiners not knowing what the numbers are reveals a lot about Lumon. The severance procedure alone allows Lumon to manipulate the employees at their whim, withholding and receiving any information that they please. From the rigid protocols and harsh punishments to Severance's small departments, Lumon finds many ways to control its severed employees without a clear explanation as to why they need to be controlled in the first place.
If all the Refiners do is sort the Lumon numbers without any knowledge about what they mean, severing and controlling them to such great lengths appears more costly and resource-heavy than the job requires. That is, unless the numbers themselves aren't actually the point of the job. If Lumon truly needed the numbers to be sorted, they could easily create a computer to do this job. It's quicker, more cost-effective, and more accurate. It's likely that Lumon needs to see how the human mind classifies these numbers. If the Refiners knew an objective number meaning, it may taint the data.
Are The Employees Test Subjects?
This leads to a likely theory that Lumon is running an experiment on its employees. Severance's Lumon shares many tech company similarities, from the company having a generalized purpose to its employees being part of a unique Lumon culture. A company with as much public influence as Lumon easily has the power to secretly perform clandestine experiments. Corporations usually collect product data from focus groups and Research and Development departments, but Lumon may actually be hiring people to use as human lab rats. Lumon so greatly stresses the importance of following protocol among its severed employees, all the while giving them a meaningless task, that the experimentation theory is valid. What experiment the Lumon numbers are part of, however, is still a huge unknown.
What Else Lumon's Numbers Could Be Hiding
The numbers need some kind of meaning if they evoke feelings in the Refiners. It's possible that Severance's terrifying memory-splitting process may impose inherent feelings toward the numbers, which leads to serious ethical questions about Lumon's severance procedure. Lumon sells severance as a way to optimize a work-life balance, with workers like Mark sometimes electing to undergo the procedure as a trauma-coping mechanism. Before the procedure, employees make a video expressing their consent, but this doesn't assure their consent to the procedure's full scope. Even if the numbers themselves are innocent, how they're used to train a severed employee's brain is frighteningly unknown.
Severance Season 2 Shouldn't Explain The Lumon Numbers
Severance season 2 has been greenlit by Apple TV+ and began filming in New York in October 2022. It is set to finish shooting in May, which would mean Severance season 2 will likely begin streaming in late 2023 or early 2024. Viewers will be looking for the resolution of some of Severance's mysteries, but a bold move would be for Severance to continue to not explain what the numbers mean. While some may find this frustrating, the mystery around Lumon's numbers is so deep that few explanations would feel sufficient.
As written, the numbers are a perfect metaphor for the kind of meaningless make-work that so many office workers spend their days on, and explaining their purpose could ruin this. Other series like Twin Peaks and Lost have struggled when they have to provide concrete explanations for their atmospherically rich mysteries. Severance season 2 will surely have to answer some questions, but it should also still leave some elements of the world mysterious, and the numbers could be one of these elements. For now, all fans can do is create Severance theories about the numbers and their true meaning.