It doesn't. We, as bilaterally symmetrical people, have this urge to divide everything into opposites. Up and down, yes: one of the few cases where there is a two way split. But we arbitrarily create North/South and East/West when usually we cannot tell one from the other. There is a complete spectrum between freedom and bondage, epitomised by concepts like "age slave": if you *have* to work for a living, are you truly free. The requirement to have a binary life/death split causes arguments in many directions: abortion (when does a foetus cross that barrier?), euthanasia (is someone in a vegetative state alive?), animal rights (is a cabbage alive? or a virus). The fact is that the boundary between life and death is fuzzy - but we feel a necessity to make sharp divisions. When does the day start? How much water does it take to make you wet? How dark must your skin be before you are "black" (I saw a picture of Colin Powell - black - and jack Straw - white - looking exactly the same colour). If you move from one country to another, when to you change from being a visitor to an immigrant to a resident? These binary distinctions are in response to a human need to make simplistic judgements, and do NOT often reflect the real world.

I guess because to give anything value we have to find something to benchmark or contrast it's value and assign it an equal lesser value so as to make the value distinct and measurable by some standard

surely not everything is an opposite. for example here vs there are not opposits at all. the decision i make in the morning to which breakfast ceral i eat or i may go for the opption of toast, but whatever i choose its still not an opposite. there are only a few true opposites.