Most of the machines we encounter in everyday life are one-way devices. Kitchen appliances turn bread into toast and cabbage into cole slaw, but they cannot perform the opposite transformations. Even machines that claim to be reversible adopt a very shallow notion of what it means 
to go backwards. The drill in my tool box has settings marked "forward" and "reverse," but no matter which I choose, I cannot undrill a hole. Thegearshift in my car also has a position labeled R, but when I back up, the engine keeps turning in the same direction; if the car were truly reversed, it would suck in pollution through the tailpipe, converting it into gasoline and air.
to go backwards. The drill in my tool box has settings marked "forward" and "reverse," but no matter which I choose, I cannot undrill a hole. Thegearshift in my car also has a position labeled R, but when I back up, the engine keeps turning in the same direction; if the car were truly reversed, it would suck in pollution through the tailpipe, converting it into gasoline and air.
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