Philosophy Now Forum

This may sound like a trivial question, but before there's a rush to judgement, Google the question and read up on what Wikipedia has to say (I favor the egg btw).

PhilX

Of course the egg came first by definition and everything else is merely semantics and confusion.

Chickens come from eggs hence the egg preceded the chicken.

cladking wrote:Of course the egg came first by definition and everything else is merely semantics and confusion.

Chickens come from eggs hence the egg preceded the chicken.

Exactly my thinking, but let's hear what others have to say.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:This may sound like a trivial question, but before there's a rush to judgement Google the question and read up on what Wikipedia has to say (I favor the egg btw).

PhilX

It's the self-perpetuating generation of life itself!

Eggs came first, but the proto chicken did indeed lay a proto chicken egg, so the proto chicken came first and then the first chicken laid an egg.



[edited byiMod]

Neither, the Rooster came first.

As egg-laying is a genetic mutation then it would have to be the ancestor of chickens that came first, then the first chicken egg, then the first chicken. The first hard-shelled, internally-fertilised eggs were obviously beneficial to survival or we wouldn't have egg-laying chickens today. The dinosaurs lay hard-shelled eggs, like birds, so the egg predated chickens by only a few hundred million years.

The questionn is flawed because it doesn't identify either the specific chicken or egg referred to. Generic chickens and eggs only exist within language.

If those are the only choices, both are incredibly unlikely, but since a chicken is more complex than an egg, and would constitute a greater violation of thermodynamics; if I had to choose, I'd go for the egg. But I think that's probably not what happened.

Bernard wrote:The questionn is flawed because it doesn't identify either the specific chicken or egg referred to. Generic chickens and eggs only exist within language.

How specified would you like it? Suppose you make the specification you would like.

PhilX

cladking wrote:Of course the egg came first by definition and everything else is merely semantics and confusion.

Chickens come from eggs hence the egg preceded the chicken.

Not necessarily, the chicken/hen/rooster could undergo mutations, thus becoming a full 100% modern chicken.

Definitely the egg came first, because dinosaurs had eggs.

RickLewis wrote:Definitely the egg came first, because dinosaurs had eggs.

You need to back up you argument with more science. Where in the process does the DNA become a 100% chicken?

RickLewis wrote:Definitely the egg came first, because dinosaurs had eggs.

But early life forms reproduced without eggs, so the ancient ancestor of the chicken existed before eggs evolved. Then eggs evolved (e.g. with reptiles as you point out) before there were chickens. Then some sort of bird species evolved into what we call chickens. The precise dividing line between the prior species and the chicken species is purely conceptual.

But let's suppose in theory that we could go back and find that first chicken that we all agree falls on the one side of the evolutionary dividing line:

It came from an egg produced by a non-chicken.

Does an egg produced by a non-chicken count? So the OP has to specify whether by 'the egg' in his question, he means a chicken egg or just any old egg. If he means just any old egg, then the egg definitely came first.

If he means a 'chicken egg', then one has to decide whether 'chicken' in the phrase 'chicken egg' describes the producer of the egg or the inhabitant of the egg. If it refers to the producer of the egg, then the egg in question is a 'nonchicken' egg and a proper 'chicken egg' didn't arise until the first chicken reproduced - and hence, the chicken came first.

Finally, if 'chicken' in 'chicken egg' refers to the inhabitant of the egg, then it becomes a tie, since the egg becomes a 'chicken egg' the exact moment that the fetus becomes a 'chicken.' QED

HexHammer wrote:

cladking wrote:Of course the egg came first by definition and everything else is merely semantics and confusion.

Chickens come from eggs hence the egg preceded the chicken.

Not necessarily, the chicken/hen/rooster could undergo mutations, thus becoming a full 100% modern chicken.

Not if it didn't hatch.

The first chicken might have been fully chicken except chickens all come from egg by definition. It couldn't be completely chicken unless it came from an egg.

This whole thing is just confusion spawned by modern language in my book. And sounds occur in woods whether there's a person there who thought himself into existence or not. We exist therefore we think. This isn't to say that I reject the modern paradigms so much as that I reject the confusion spawned by them.