Würde man wie angekündigt philosphisch darüber nachdenken (wozu ein
anglo-amerikanischer Tropf natürlich nicht in der Lage ist), dann muss die
Antwort (natürlich) lauten: Seit Aristoteles galt ausnahmslos: zuerst die
Henne, dann das Ei, bis zu Heidegger; bei dem zuerst das Ei, dann die Henne.
Warum galt die aristotelische Bestimmung so lange ausnahmslos? Weil das von
ihm festgelegte und für diese Frage entscheidende Verhältnis von dynamis und
energeia vor (und nach) Heidegger von niemandem in Frage gestellt wurde.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas R. Koll" <tom...@gmx.de>
To: <BAGASCH@LISTS.MONOCHROM.AT>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [monochrom] Ask a philosopher: 'Which came first: The chicken
or the egg?'
Weren't there egg-laying raptors before the chicken?
Am 19.06.2010 um 01:27 schrieb das ende der nahrungskette:
Which came first: The chicken or the egg?
This is a factual, rather than a philosophical question. However, it is a
legitimate task for philosophy to analyse the conditions under which it
would be correct to say that the chicken came first, as well as the
conditions under which it would be correct to say that the egg came first.
If the theory of Creationism is true, then God could have created the
first chicken, which hatched the first egg, or He could have created the
first egg, from which the first chicken hatched. Either task would have
been equally easy (or difficult). Unfortunately, the information which
would enable us to answer this question is missing from the Book of
Genesis.
If Darwin's theory of evolution is true, then we can say that the 'trick'
of producing a soup of proteins and fats enclosed in a hard casing, inside
which an embryo is protected and nourished, was developed by the
prehistoric creatures from which chickens evolved. We know that dinosaurs
laid eggs. Dinosaurs are reptiles. The accepted view is that birds evolved
from reptiles. So in that sense it would be true to say that the egg came
before the chicken.
But what about that first chicken? What kind of egg did it hatch from?
If we had the power to go back in time to follow every line back of each
one of the millions of generations that led up to the chicken that
supplied your breakfast egg this morning, it would be impossible to
identify the first chicken. There is no single characteristic, so far as I
understand it, which separates a real chicken from a bird which is ever so
much like a chicken, but is not a real chicken. However, supposing there
is some unique, new feature, a crucial genetic mutation which separates
chickens from non-chickens, it logically follows that the first bird to
possess that new feature was hatched from an egg which was laid by a bird
which did not possess that feature.
(Geoffrey Klempner)
Link
--
Thomas R. "TomK32" Koll
just a geek trying to change the world
http://ananasblau.com || http://photostre.am || http://photolog.at
