It is slavery to escape from slavery

 

“To speak of the Roman-numeral system as controlling us in order to get itself replicated and preserved may sound like relegating humans to the status of slaves. But that would be a misconception. People consist of abstract information, including the distinctive ideas, theories, intentions, feelings and other states of mind that characterize an ‘I’. To object to being ‘controlled’ by Roman numerals when we find them helpful is like protesting at being controlled by one’s own intentions. By that argument, it is slavery to escape from slavery. But in fact when I obey the program that constitutes me (or when I obey the laws of physics), ‘obey’ means something different from what a slave does. The two meanings explain events at different levels of emergence. “