A bright nine year old of my acquaintance has solved one of the great old philosophical questions - though she has tendencies toward analytic philosophy. The question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Her answer: the egg, which was laid by a dinosaur, which we know came before birds, and everyone knows that dinosaurs lay eggs. When pressed she was willing to concede the possibility that it was a flying dinosaur and the likelihood that the egg took a long time to hatch and that the dinosaur probably gave up on it and flew away. But when I parried but which came first, the dinosaur or the egg? She shut me off like a good analytic philosopher: "That wasn't the question."
Monday, October 03, 2011
Evolved philosophy
A bright nine year old of my acquaintance has solved one of the great old philosophical questions - though she has tendencies toward analytic philosophy. The question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Her answer: the egg, which was laid by a dinosaur, which we know came before birds, and everyone knows that dinosaurs lay eggs. When pressed she was willing to concede the possibility that it was a flying dinosaur and the likelihood that the egg took a long time to hatch and that the dinosaur probably gave up on it and flew away. But when I parried but which came first, the dinosaur or the egg? She shut me off like a good analytic philosopher: "That wasn't the question."
