The egg came first?
April 26th 2007 03:06
Standard argument: -- The one that gets airplay on Wikipedia, and on CNN.
Assuming you don't want to say that God or the Big Bang came first, it seems likely: (a) that life evolved from primaeval goop; (b) that the chicken evolved from an earlier feathered lifeform; and (c) that the earlier feathered lifeform laid eggs.
So egg wins.
But: -- If I'm serious about claiming that definitions have fuzzy edges, then I have to grant that "chicken" has fuzzy edges, and that there was no object you could have pointed to to say, "Behold -- here be the first chicken", though this is what the standard argument assumes.
And if there's no clear origin point, then it's not possible to say that either came first.
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Comment by Damo
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Some people will want to say that a new species WAS created in one generation. Everything that came before a certain point was chickenish, and then someone laid an egg, and the next thing that came along had enough qualities to be a full-brown chicken.
Others will want to say that since all the features of the chicken likely took a long time to come together, then NEITHER the chicken nor the egg came first, because there was no clear point at which you had a chicken, and so there was no clear point at which you could say that a chicken was born from an egg.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks Damo!
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
THE CHICKEN!
THE CHICKEN!
THE CHICKEN!
There! I've said my piece! ; )
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Maybe this is:
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
Comment by Damo
For God Sake don't start trying to work out how many angels can sit on the head of pin.
We will never get off the merry-go-round.
The chicken egg argument fails to give an answer no matter which way you look at it. It is in scientific terms untestable. The edges are always fuzzy. You also have the problem of when is a chicken a chicken. Is it only a chicken when it hatches? Or is there a chicken in the egg. I think whoever first posed this question must be laughing his way to infinity.
Comment by MelissaA
Fun Facts
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I have the impression that Aquinas' answer is "Infinite, because angels are non-material."
Good point! I personally think that, in terms of natural language, you're correct -- this is vague. Though it's common to argue that the fetal chicken is still a chicken, that if a gorilla laid an egg that hatched an ostrich, then it was an ostrich egg, not a gorilla egg, and the egg came first, etc.
Comment by Damo
Something material is finite.
Then if you divide infinity by any finite number you get zero.
Take that Aquinas.
I guess this line of though is useful if I ever get interrogated. I could feed them this for months and they would still know nothing.
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Thought provoking post as always.
I LOVE the pics you've put in the comments. Hilarious.
Kylie
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
But what if potentiality proceeds actuality, or what if the egg is actual and the chicken is only a poential?