I was having a very serious discussion about the age-old philosopher’s treat the chicken and the egg and which one popped into existence first when my brain began melting.
I realise that attempting to get to the bottom of this – braver men have tried – is like trying to find where a circle begins but it’s a fun thought experiment nonetheless. At least you can actually measure how long a piece of string is when someone asks you but you can’t duck back in time and testify as to the original existence of either the chicken or the egg.
Whenever anybody asks which came first, I tend to picture a group of philosophers standing around and scrutinising a photo-finish of a chicken and egg a la some very close Melbourne Cup finishes.
Of course, this is absurd because eggs have not ever been, nor are they likely to ever be, particularly good at foot races.
A friend suggested that maybe the chickens were participating in an egg-and-spoon race but this lacks traction because, well, this just seems against the natural order of things.
There are elements of nurture that must be adhered to. For example, an egg needs an incubator to be viable so surely it must have been the chicken that arrived first. But from whence the chicken came? Space? Was it a space chicken?
And if it was the eggs that came first, their house warming parties would have been terribly dull. Just a bunch of eggs, really, all sitting around an open fire. Yawn.
At least with chickens you have the added spice of family rivalry, frayed relationships between the dominant members of the group and a terrible incident involving the punchbowl. But perhaps I am confusing this with my own house warming parties. Easy mistake to make.
Naturally, I am being ridiculous thinking I’ll ever get an answer to a cliché. This only exists to describe actual situations in real life that appear to blur the boundaries of cause and effect.
Did the price of velvet go up because of demand in the 1980s or did someone put the price of velvet up to make it seem more exclusive and thus more popular? There’s an economics lesson in here somewhere, to be taught by someone who has the capacity for self-hatred way beyond what I do.
Basically the whole question of ‘chicken and the egg’ has evolved from it’s first use many centuries ago as a leaping off point for deeper self inquiry to its use today which is more akin to a very disinterested person telling you ‘I haven’t a bloody clue, go and Google it’.
Similar, too, why did the chicken cross the road? The answer is most definitely not ‘because it needed to make a run to the hardware store to complete a home renovation project’. The answer is, there is no answer. That’s the point.
Genius author Douglas Adams made the same point when his character, searching for the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, came across the answer ‘42’. It’s an absurd answer because the question is absurd.
You don’t get a logical answer to questions of the soul.
But the fact you’re asking the questions is a pretty good sign you’re doing OK.
I realise that attempting to get to the bottom of this – braver men have tried – is like trying to find where a circle begins but it’s a fun thought experiment nonetheless. At least you can actually measure how long a piece of string is when someone asks you but you can’t duck back in time and testify as to the original existence of either the chicken or the egg.
Whenever anybody asks which came first, I tend to picture a group of philosophers standing around and scrutinising a photo-finish of a chicken and egg a la some very close Melbourne Cup finishes.
Of course, this is absurd because eggs have not ever been, nor are they likely to ever be, particularly good at foot races.
A friend suggested that maybe the chickens were participating in an egg-and-spoon race but this lacks traction because, well, this just seems against the natural order of things.
There are elements of nurture that must be adhered to. For example, an egg needs an incubator to be viable so surely it must have been the chicken that arrived first. But from whence the chicken came? Space? Was it a space chicken?
And if it was the eggs that came first, their house warming parties would have been terribly dull. Just a bunch of eggs, really, all sitting around an open fire. Yawn.
At least with chickens you have the added spice of family rivalry, frayed relationships between the dominant members of the group and a terrible incident involving the punchbowl. But perhaps I am confusing this with my own house warming parties. Easy mistake to make.
Naturally, I am being ridiculous thinking I’ll ever get an answer to a cliché. This only exists to describe actual situations in real life that appear to blur the boundaries of cause and effect.
Did the price of velvet go up because of demand in the 1980s or did someone put the price of velvet up to make it seem more exclusive and thus more popular? There’s an economics lesson in here somewhere, to be taught by someone who has the capacity for self-hatred way beyond what I do.
Basically the whole question of ‘chicken and the egg’ has evolved from it’s first use many centuries ago as a leaping off point for deeper self inquiry to its use today which is more akin to a very disinterested person telling you ‘I haven’t a bloody clue, go and Google it’.
Similar, too, why did the chicken cross the road? The answer is most definitely not ‘because it needed to make a run to the hardware store to complete a home renovation project’. The answer is, there is no answer. That’s the point.
Genius author Douglas Adams made the same point when his character, searching for the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, came across the answer ‘42’. It’s an absurd answer because the question is absurd.
You don’t get a logical answer to questions of the soul.
But the fact you’re asking the questions is a pretty good sign you’re doing OK.
If you're into evolution, the egg came first, and from it hatched the creature we now call the chicken - descended from a looooong line of proto-chicken avians.
ReplyDeleteSo nyerr.
Well isn't deemacgee clever. Or something anyway. I did consider this issue as I was reading this post and I decided I would have to have another coffee to come to a well thought out answer.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not going out to coffee until 2.00pm today, and I'm currently limiting my coffee intake to two cups a day. This means I can't further consider the question yet. I need the coffee to further consider it. Therefore perhaps I'd better go, in case my naughty brain slides off to do some thinking on its own and comes up with a insufficiently caffienated answer which will only confuse me and possibly other people if I tell them about it.
Hmm, I'm going now, goodbye.