The chicken or the egg

The dilemma of causality commonly posed as, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" is found earliest in writing in Plutarch's Moralia, in the books titled "Table Talk," a series of arguments based on questions posed to various people drinking around a table. Under the section entitled, "Whether the hen or the egg came first," the discussion is introduced in such a way as to suggest that the origin of the dilemma was even older:

Related Topics:
Causality - Chicken - Egg - Plutarch - Moralia

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"...the problem about the egg and the hen, which of them came first, was dragged into our talk, a difficult problem which gives investigators much trouble. And Sulla my comrade said that with a small problem, as with a tool, we were rocking loose a great and heavy one, that of the creation of the world..."

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When used in reference to difficult problems, a chicken and egg problem is similar to a Catch 22 situation where something cannot happen until a second thing does, and the second thing cannot happen until the first does. For example, you cannot find a job without work experience, but you cannot get work experience without first having a job.

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There are many different answers to the question, many themselves humerous.

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