Thursday 8 August 2013

Chicken or the Egg?

I want to address this question here instead of writing a thesis and research paper upon graduation. Did the chicken or the egg come first? My judgment is as follows. It depends what sort of egg is being contemplated - if it is just any egg then dinosaur eggs came before the chicken so the answer is egg. But if it's the chicken egg, the chicken came first as 'chicken' is the adjective of a chicken egg, therefore, an egg is just an egg until a chicken comes into existence and can be an adjective for the egg.

A 'chicken egg' may be interpreted in two ways. An egg containing a chicken or an egg laid by a chicken. I do not believe the former can be a correct interpretation because that would disqualify an unfertilised egg laid by a chicken as not a chicken egg (since there is no chick or chicken inside). However, this is what some people have in their fridge. If the egg is interpreted as an egg with the potential to develop into a chicken, it can also not be entirely correct as during evolution, there was a multitude of possibilities which the contents of an egg could have mutated into what we know as chickens. This meant that a vast selection of eggs which had the potential to mutate in such a way were chicken eggs. This is against contemporary understandings of what is known as a 'chicken egg'.

Thus, it is the latter, where an egg is a chicken egg because it is laid by a chicken. Thus, the chicken must come first. Even if there was a first chicken (scientifically, Gallus gallus domesticus) which hatched out of an egg laid by its evolutionary ancestor, which for argument's sake, we may call it XX. The first chicken hatched out of an XX egg, not of a chicken egg.

Uni is so tiring and this is going to be a very tough semester with heavy subjects and everything due in a few weeks. Although the lectures are somewhat interesting, it is very draining and I have so many little assessment tasks to worry about. It's not just the structure of the course which tires me but also sometimes my lecturers. I have some of the most interesting lecturers I've ever had - they're full of personality. There's a loud barrister, a comedienne in her double life and there's one who is often politically (in)correct. I'm really having a lot of fun but it's also very different to what I'm used to so I'm quite intimidated by these large personalities - because I'm the one usually in control and feel in control, the one who is of bigger personality, usually the inappropriate one. On top of that, the bookshop lacks a textbook I need so I'm going to be behind. Also I still have to go out a lot since it is my birthday month and I still work. I guess I did ask for this lifestyle though, I liked busy. I wanted to be an energiser bunny.

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