Culture Shock
For the last week, which happened to be golden week, I’ve been pissed off. That is, I’ve been steadily above a 5 on the pissed-off-meter. It’s a bit like the chicken and the egg situation, as I think I inadvertently created a feedback loop where the more pissed off I am, the more pissed of I was getting. It started with the bugs.
Ah well. Im better now although I did have a mild allergic reaction to scallops yesterday.
Speaking of ‘the chicken and the egg’ – I think I’ve solved it, by applying the theory of evolution. It all comes down to the definition of a chicken – and any mathematician will tell you that ‘chicken’ is not well-defined. (i.e. defined in an unambiguous way using a logical set base of axioms). In short, it’s not precise enough. The real question is – “when does a egg, or series of evolving organisms* become a chicken?“”. I’ll break it down into three questions:
1. What is the definition of ‘the chicken’?
2. What is the definition of ‘the egg’?
3. Which one of these objects existed in an earlier point in history?
Now you see the problem lies in your definition of a chicken, which is difficult if not impossible. So, let’s avoid defining ‘a chicken’ and ‘a chicken egg’. We can just say that there was a proto-chicken, an egg** and then a chicken (in that order). You don’t need to define a chicken as ‘something that lays chicken eggs’, or define a chicken egg as ‘something from which a chicken hatches’ – those definitions suffer the problem of not being well-defined.
So there you have it according to me.
* It has been ‘proved‘ by geneticists that the domestic chicken evolved from Red Junglefowl, a tropical member of the pheasant family.
** I hasten to add that this egg isn’t defined as a ‘chicken egg’ or a ‘proto-chicken’ egg – just ‘the egg’. It is implied in the question that a chicken hatched out of it, not that it is a egg laid by a chicken.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
You should drink more sake to fix these philosophical episodes you are suffering…
December 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Danny,
The underground experimental music scene is in Osaka. Probably far away, but if you end up holidaying at all at the end of your course, go check the motherfucker out. When do you get back? I had a dream last night where you came back and you were completely different, and when I asked you if you were happy with how much Japanese you had learned, you said, ‘Oh yeh. Too much, man. Too much.’ In your most recent post, you made it sound like you’re getting sick of Japan. Really? You’ll have to elaborate, it just sounded like the fucking bugs and illness were getting on your nerves. If you have time, can you write a post detailing your journey to and from ‘school’? I want to get a sense of what its like during everyday life. The ‘colourful’ stuff seemed to be touristy things, how is your world right now? Look forward to your next post, Vas and I miss you. Haven’t had a chance to jam.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I am not so sure it’s really about definitions – that only matters if having a label to affix to a concept (i.e. chicken)is important. Proto chicken is nicely vague. Any early self replicating organism probably fits the bill. It’s more about concepts of time/flow/dynamics/process. The chicken and the egg are one – though separated in time. In the beginning there was information that was (miraculously!?) saved. It’s essentially the same question as what preceded the Big Bang. Infinite
recession. I like the Vedic notions of the Breath of Shiva – in and out (100 billion years) forever.