See, I think of the egg as being possessed by the mother, so it would still be a chicken’s egg to me, but it could simultaneously be a “something else” egg.
The thing is that species aren’t that clear cut but exist on a spectrum. There is no first chicken as little as there is a first blue shade on a color gradient. Sure, you can draw the line somewhere but even when clearly defined as ancestor of all modern chickens, you can’t really go down to the individual level.
That is what I mean, the scooe of the question is too narrow.
“It’s a thought experiment, there is no real answer, blah blah blah…”
The question is only deep among those who constrain themselves to what they believe the question asks, just widen the scope and you have the logical sollution.
The flaw of the question is assuming there is a clear dividing line between species. Evolutionary change is a continuous process. We only have dividing lines where we see differences in long dead ones in the fossil record, or we see enough differences in living ones. The question has no answer, only a long explanation of how that isn’t how any of this works.
The chicken/egg problem is really a problem of a too narrow scope.
“What came first the chicken or the egg?”
The answer is obviously the egg as plenty of other species before chickens laid eggs.
The concept of an egg is far older than the concept of the chicken.
It’s implicit that the question is about a chicken egg, specifically.
It’s specifically implied? :P
The chicken egg came before the chicken, as the thing that laid the chicken egg was not quite a chicken
Correct!
I had this exact discussion within the last year. The first egg was a chicken egg. Every subsequent egg was a chicken’s egg.
Until a chicken lays an egg containing something that is not quite a chicken
See, I think of the egg as being possessed by the mother, so it would still be a chicken’s egg to me, but it could simultaneously be a “something else” egg.
It would be a chicken’s non-chicken egg
Do you want basilisks? Because this is how you get basilisks.
Schroedinger’s egg
The thing is that species aren’t that clear cut but exist on a spectrum. There is no first chicken as little as there is a first blue shade on a color gradient. Sure, you can draw the line somewhere but even when clearly defined as ancestor of all modern chickens, you can’t really go down to the individual level.
Is a chicken egg an egg laid by a chicken, or an egg that if fertilized would hatch into a chicken?
Chicken’s egg vs chicken egg
That is a great follow up question, is an egg defined by what ever laid it or by it’s contents?
Chickens don’t lay eggs, hens do. 😉
That is what I mean, the scooe of the question is too narrow.
“It’s a thought experiment, there is no real answer, blah blah blah…”
The question is only deep among those who constrain themselves to what they believe the question asks, just widen the scope and you have the logical sollution.
Then it just becomes a matter of word definitions.
The flaw of the question is assuming there is a clear dividing line between species. Evolutionary change is a continuous process. We only have dividing lines where we see differences in long dead ones in the fossil record, or we see enough differences in living ones. The question has no answer, only a long explanation of how that isn’t how any of this works.