What can we flip today?

According to the dictionary, people flip coins (they flipped a coin to decide the issue) or switches (he flipped a switch to open the door) or pages (mindlessly flipping through the magazine). But really, anything that can be suddenly turned over, moved or changed can be said to flip over (the plane flipped over then exploded), including our composure and equanimity (she clearly flipped under pressure).

Almost everything that has or can be said to have a backside--a flip-side--can flip. But all flipping happens in an instant. Either we physically flip them, or flip them in our minds.

I particularly like the thought that things we cannot escape from can nonetheless be flipped.

Take for instance the laws of gravity. Applied to two massive objects (say the moon and the earth), the laws of gravity completely fix the paths of these objects in space. They are "deterministic". (If the location of these two objects in relation to each are known at any one moment, your physics teacher can compute and draw a path which tells you where they were at any given moment in the past, or at a time in the future.) But this deterministic character of the laws of gravity can be flipped. If just another massive object is added, the laws of gravity will not be able to determine the paths of these objects after a certain point. (The objects can appear in completely different places than your physics teacher would predict. Chaos sets in.) But what is the point of having laws of gravity if they cannot even do that?

As philosopher Brian Massumi puts it, flipping is central to our freedom.

"Freedom is not about breaking or escaping constraints. It’s about flipping them over into degrees of freedom. You can’t really escape the constraints. No body can escape gravity. Laws are part of what we are, they’re intrinsic to our identities. No human can simply escape gender, for example. The cultural ‘laws’ of gender are part of what makes us who we are, they’re part of the process that produced us as individuals. You can’t just step out of gender identity. But just maybe you can take steps to encourage gender to flip."

So there, for freedom's sake, lets flip!