Ponderin' Poultry Priority

[panta rhei]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Disclaimer : I'd like to discuss this question of temporal priority (if possible) without getting bogged down in a buncha scientific mumble jumble. My enquiry's geared towards the epistemic and ontological ramifications of the notion (temporal priority) itself.(As you can see, philosophical mumble jumble is not only allowed, but encouraged!)

Q1.) Are we justified in taking for granted the underlying presupposition that one necessarily preceded the other?

[Suburbanite]

Well, epistemologically speaking, we do exist in a timeline, so yes, one does precede the other. The question really cannot be answered too concretely by philosophy, but Darwinism really does a good job of it. The first animal that is holistically a chicken, one with all the defining characteristics of a chicken, who was bread from pseudo-chickens, does in fact start as an egg. Now that being said, perhaps our definition of a chicken slightly changed over time, maybe the chickens of yore are not fully the same as the chickens of present day. Meaning, in a post-modern type of way, if our word for chicken defines them how they are now, then the advent of the chicken is only recent. In fact, the very existence of chickenry worldwide is constantly being remade. Kentuky’s Fried Chickens aren’t exactly the same as your local super market’s chicken. The very definition of what is a chicken is now in question. This was fun.

[Technosoul]

One thing one might concider is the somewhat missleading nature of the question.

For in real terms the egg is a chicken in a developing stage and a chicken is likewise developing eggs. In other words, the egg and the chicken are the same creature only at different stages of growth.

The question would suggest they (the chicken and the chicken in the egg) are two different things, but if we reason they are the same bird then that bird cannot come before that bird. If you get the point of my logic.

Now even if another kind of bird laid a chicken egg because of some change in the evolution of the DNA (whatever) then you would need to extend the debate by asking "what came first the egg or the very first creature". Then you run into some complications. Did a one-cell micro organism lay eggs or were they hatched, mostly not. And so eggs did not come first relative to the concept that advanced beings evolved from simple mirco beings. Which would led to the question of "where, when, and why" eggs came into the picture on the evolutionary charts.

Now the egg was designed as a house for the sperm to develope in, more or less, and yet they both had to come into reality at the same time, both male and female, otherwise the egg would do nothing and the sperm would have no place to go too. So why would "evolution" come up with that to insure survival? Why both a rooster and a hen when it would have been more simple to for animals just to be self-duplicating creatures and thus remove the additional risk of not finding a mate?

So how about those questions? In a joking way I will add "perhaps some egghead can hatch the answers for that mystery".

Technosoul.

[Ken Carman]

If we accept evolution, then the creature who we'd first identify as a chicken came from an egg. But THAT egg came out of a creature we wouldn't quite identify as a chicken.

If we accept Creationism then, POOF, there's a chicken. Otherwise there would probably be nothing to hatch the egg, unless some random creature sat down on it. Possible... but unlikely.

So the answer would be...

...chicken.

[orgaelin]

Folks, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think the actual question was about the temporal priority of cause and effect, not 'has anyone got a clever answer to the chicken-and-egg question?'!

To that end: anything which is within the realm of what we call spacetime is therefore necessarily a subject of time. Time is basically the seperation of two events, just like space is the separation of two objects. (Two or more, obviously.)

Now if we are talking about a physical object in the event, then it has to occur within the bounds of spacetime. That basically means that, just like two objects can't be in the same space at the same time, two events cannot occur at the same moment. They must be seperate.

This means that cause MUST come before effect within time. Events occuring with 'things' that don't have a physical nature, should such 'things' exist, would not be bound by that sequence. Neither would any object which was outside of the effect of time.

You might say that time itself is external to itself... a bit like a ball is to itself... a ball could never be said to be inside itself could it? So one could then argue that time does not have to follow the sequence of cause and effect.

What difference does that make? It simply means that it is possible that an event capable of causing time to come into existence could have occured without time having had to exist first.

Or, outside the influence of time, it wouldn't matter whether the chicken or the egg came first because they would be co-causal - the chicken would cause the egg which would cause the chicken which would cause the egg, etc.

Make any sense to anyone?!

~ Org.

[Ken Carman]

Originally posted by orgaelin, Folks, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think the actual question was about the temporal priority of cause and effect, not 'has anyone got a clever answer to the chicken-and-egg question?'! To that end: anything which is within the realm of what we call spacetime is therefore necessarily a subject of time. Time is basically the seperation of two events, just like space is the separation of two objects. (Two or more, obviously.) ~ Org.

Uh, oh, now I probably AM going to hear "tin foil hat" rhetoric. All of the above is interesting but only true if you accept spacetime as most do. If there are seperate realities/dimensions... all that Sci Fi stuff that's fun to think about, but of course question, then all could exist at the same time if there is leakage or connection between realities/dimensions... etc. That tosses the whole discussion in so many directions it's almost pointless to postulate. OK, I'll take off the hat now.

BTW, for those more in the know it's probably obvious that my depth of education on spacetime is more "pop" than college based. What might Chaos Theory have to add to any of this?

[Rosborne]

In the question of which came first, I believe that it was neither one. The egg, would have had to have been created by the chicken. Not only that, said egg would also have had to been fertilized by a male chicken. Sense there would already have to be two chickens, or chicken-type creatures, there would also have to be two eggs in the beginning. Sense if the egg came first to produce a chicken, this chicken would have to be accompanied by another chicken of the opposite sex in order to reproduce. So I think that the two appeared with eachother, it was neither the chicken or the egg, they would have had to appear together.

[Ken Carman]

I hate to be picky during a rather intellectual discussion, but isn't a "male chicken" actually a rooster? I ask because, from my limited farm experience, very limited, I always assumed that a chicken is always the female of the species. Once again, not trying to pick on a previous poster, just clarify a rather minor point.

[Rosborne]

Yes, yes it is, I had forgotten about that. But then a female chicken would be a hen. I was just talking chickens in general. Thanks for pointing that out.