3 ms·

I think that to be able to properly answer a question, it is very important to first try and fully understand the question, and to know where it's coming from.

by hooby 5y ago

I think that to be able to properly answer a question, it is very important to first try and fully understand the question, and to know where it's coming from. If the egg IS a chicken, then the question "the chicken OR the egg" does not make much sense, does it? You can't chose "the egg" for an answer as that still would be the chicken (just inside a shell). Given that the question is ancient, as well as the fact that the question has been used to further philosophical debate about first cause, infinite regression and cause & effect, it seems pretty unlikely that - within the context of the question - "chicken" is meant to refer to the entire animal species including the ovum. It seems way more likely to me, that "chicken" is originally meant to refer to the adult animal, as in: ovum -> egg -> chick -> chicken Thus the argument that the chicken came first, because of the ovum (also known as "egg cell") - does not just misinterpret the premise that the question is built on - it kinda breaks the question, because basically it turns it into "What came first? The chicken or the chicken?" Of course the evolutionary answer does defy the purpose of the question as well - finding an answer was never the purpose - but at least it sticks with the meanings of "chicken egg" and "adult chicken", that are kinda implied in the question. The question treats the egg as NOT being a chicken. And thus by extension the ovum should not be treated as a chicken as well. It's of the species chicken of course - but it's not an adult chicken - which is the meaning of "chicken" used in the question.

SamBam 5y ago
You may have misread my answer: I was not declaring that "egg" meant "ovum", I was saying that other people were. The "egg" per Wikipedia, is the vessel that contains the developing chick. In that regard, it's analogous to the uterus. Indeed, assuming we take "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" to mean "...or the chicken egg" (otherwise it's just a silly question, as dinosaurs had eggs), then we can make the analogy to "which came first, the human or the human uterus?" That should clearly be trivial to answer: the first organism that we could call a "human" must have started developing before her uterus did. So the human came before the human uterus. I'm saying that this is equivalent for a chicken egg. Since the "egg" is created 100% by the mother, albumen, yolk, shell and all, I'm saying it "belongs" to the mother, in the same way that a uterus belongs to a mammal mother. It's all her own cells. Therefore, the first "chicken egg" had to be the one laid by the first chicken. So it comes after the chicken.

by hooby 5y ago

SamBam 5y ago

You may have misread my answer: I was not declaring that "egg" meant "ovum", I was saying that other people were. The "egg" per Wikipedia, is the vessel that contains the developing chick. In that regard, it's analogous to the uterus. Indeed, assuming we take "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" to mean "...or the chicken egg" (otherwise it's just a silly question, as dinosaurs had eggs), then we can make the analogy to "which came first, the human or the human uterus?" That should clearly be trivial to answer: the first organism that we could call a "human" must have started developing before her uterus did. So the human came before the human uterus. I'm saying that this is equivalent for a chicken egg. Since the "egg" is created 100% by the mother, albumen, yolk, shell and all, I'm saying it "belongs" to the mother, in the same way that a uterus belongs to a mammal mother. It's all her own cells. Therefore, the first "chicken egg" had to be the one laid by the first chicken. So it comes after the chicken.