Why did the chicken cross the road?

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Risa said as the Lemons ate lunch in the cafeteria.

"I don't know. Why did the chicken cross the road?" Kasumi said.

"I don't know."

"Where's the joke?!"

"It wasn't a joke. I was asking seriously."

"Which chicken did you see crossing the road recently? We don't just have chickens roaming the streets around here."

"I just wanted to know. There are a bunch of reasons a chicken could cross a road. There could be food on the other side, maybe it's running away from something. Maybe it's just wandering around, and it just wanted to get to the other side of the road. That is all possible."

"Well, there are many reasons a chicken would cross the road, but it depends on context. It's like asking why did Risa cross the road? To get to the other side is the general answer because, well, is there another reason? There are other reasons, but it's generally about getting to the other side. If there's food on the other side, then you'll have to cross the road to get to the food and you have to get to the other side."

"Well, hypothetically, there are other reasons than wanting to get to the other side. For example, someone could want to kill themselves by crossing the road and getting hit by a car. The purpose isn't to get to the other side but to die."

"But wouldn't that also be getting to the other side? You know, by dying you go from normal life to the afterlife. In a way, you still get to the other side."

"I guess that does make sense, but I believe that there should be another explanation. You could say that you crossed the street to get hit by a car, but not for suicidal reasons, but for insurance reasons. If a car hits you, you get insurance money for your injury. This isn't to get to the other side."

"You could say that you are getting to the other side of money or something, but that doesn't really work. If you use that insurance method, then your goal doesn't involve actually getting to the other side of the street, then it isn't the reason to get there. But there are some problems with that. If you get hit by a car when crossing the street, you didn't cross the street. You stepped into the street, but you didn't step out of the street. Therefore, you never 'crossed' the street. You just attempted to cross the street, but ultimately failed. As such, if you cross the street to get insurance money, you didn't cross the street."

"So, what you are saying is that in order to not cross the street to get to the other side you must never reach the other side, but in order to cross the street, you must reach the other side. Therefore, it's impossible to cross the street without doing it to get to the other side."

"Yes, basically that. It's a paradox."

"But the question becomes if it's possible to just not do it. Let's say that you are blindfolded and have no idea where you are, and you cross the street. At that point, you didn't cross the street to get to the other side because you didn't even know that you were crossing a street."

"Technically yes, but you were trying to go forward, which happened to the other side, and if you have to cross the street to get there, you cross the street to get to the other side. It's simply impossible to cross the street without doing it to get to the other side."

"But that's intention and outcome. If we follow that logic, if someone loses all of their money because they made bad investments, then they made bad investments to lose all of their money. The crossing of the street doesn't mean that the other side is the intended outcome."

"I guess so, but we are talking about a bad situation. Getting to the other side isn't a bad situation, and even if it is, people are aware of their movements. Unless you aren't aware of moving, you either are deliberately crossing the road or moving in the direction of the other side. That makes it too simple to be anything other than crossing the street to get to the other side."

"How about if you are being held at gunpoint to cross the street or maybe being carried across the street? You have less control."

"Well, the first one is still crossing the street to get to the other side. Even if you don't ready have any choice in the matter, it's still the reason to get to the other side. You are crossing the street to get to the other side because that what happens then." "But that has some issues. If you cross the street to avoid getting shot, you aren't even thinking of going to the other side. But wait, never mind, assuming that the person holding the gun is telling you to cross the street, you are trying to get to the other side because you know that it'll be safer there. That's simple stuff. You are still crossing the street to get to the other side. Anyway, about the next one?"

"Well, that's kinda weird, but I just don't think that you have an intention that could change the outcome. You might not want to get to the other side, but you are being forced there. It's the person who's moving you that is making the decision here. So, that person is crossing the street to get to the other side. So, you can say it still applies, but it isn't a big thing. It isn't your choice. It's the person who's carrying you's choice."

"Okay, honestly, I feel like there is an exception to this rule. It'll have to involve getting to the other end without having the intention of going to the other end or something in the other end's direction. I feel like something is yelling at me right now, but I can't hear it."

"That's normal. I feel like hundreds of people are constantly judging anything I do."

"No, I doubt that many people even know about you, much less that they care about your personality, actions, or anything really. What did you commit some war crimes in a foreign country when I wasn't paying attention?"

"No, nothing that extreme. It's probably just underlying anxiety or something. Maybe if I don't care about it, it'll go away."

"I hope it's that easy, but if it gets worse, tell me. Mental health is important."

"Yeah."

While Kasumi and Risa were talking about the chicken crossing the road, Yuri was playing with her food. You and I might play with our food like it was broccoli vs carrot fight, but Yuri was smarter than that. She caused an entire set about making the chicken cross the road. It was a sea of rice with it being split in the middle, and on one end of the gap was a lone chicken wing. Could Yuri make the chicken cross the road? Yes, that was very easy. You just need to pick up the chicken wing and move it across the gap. That wasn't the hard part. The hard part was that could she make the cross the road without having the intention of getting to the other side. Well, you see, if you accelerate the chicken wing to a speed of 10 meters per second then you try to stop the chicken wing before it starts to cross the road, but fail in stopping the bird, it will cross the road without trying to get to the other side since you were trying to get it to stop at the side of the road where it started. However, this was theoretical as doing this in real life causes a mess that you must clean up.

The Lemons spent the rest of the lunch period cleaning up chicken juice and rice that flew everywhere.