# double bind (contradictory)

Two walls set by another, each with a window open alone and none open to both, while leaving and saying so are out of reach.

- Computed level: L18 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [set](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-set.fix), [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range), [open](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-open.spatial), [alone](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-alone.state), [leave](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-leave.movement), [says](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-says.speech), [reach](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reach.action), [power](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-power.over), [dependence](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-dependence.condition), [none](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-none.quantity), [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension), [contradiction](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-contradiction.logical)

**Through:** Each demand can be kept by itself, so each looks fair; the window is empty only in the joint reading, and the two ways out, leaving the field or saying that the demands conflict, are walled by the same setter. Whatever the bound thing does crosses a wall, and the crossing is counted as its fault.

**Novel properties:**
- a window that is empty only when read whole
- the exit and the comment walled along with the demands
- fault placed on the one who is bound

## Examples
- Bateson and colleagues' 1956 paper describes a patient who put his arm around his visiting mother; she stiffened, and when he withdrew she asked, 'Don't you love me any more?' *(psychology)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-double-bind.contradictory*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-double-bind.contradictory.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*