[extropy-chat] ET is a Bacterium

[Acy James Stapp]

Or perhaps there was a long succession of somewhat chickenish 
creatures, followed by a whole bunch of more-or-less chickens, 
and then quite a few almost chickens, and then someone arbitrarily 
draws a line, et voila, /gallus gallus/. The placement of the
line depends on whether a chicken egg is an egg containing a
chicken or an egg coming out of a chicken. I choose to consider
it an egg containing a chicken, so the egg came first :)

Acy Stapp

Robert Lindauer wrote:
> You're hilarious.  May it take you far.
> 
> So the story is that some incorrectly chromosomed proto-chicken
> managed to hatch and egg AND find a matching incorrectly chromosomed
> proto-chicken that knew what to do with it to make a REAL chicken come
> out the other side?
> 
> But you still have the problem, where'd the proto-chicken come from?
> 
> Choices are, as I see it, primordial ooze (which doesn't seem to be
> experimentally viable), space bugs (which leave the same questions
> open), an intelligent designer (which gives some people the willies,
> probably understandably), or life is co-existent with the temporally
> unbounded universe (which may not give anyone the willies but it does
> cause a lot of confusion - especially when you throw in evolution as
> an order-increasing force in the universe with an eternity to organize
> itself...  you'd think we'd have a completely well-ordered universe by
> now inhabited by perfect intelligences - on second thought such a
> proposal might give someone the willies after all).
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> Robbie Lindauer
> The Avantguardian wrote:
>> --- Robert Lindauer <robgobblin at aol.com> wrote:
>>> came first, the chicken or the egg - answer
>>> "neither".  Response, "wha?").
>>> 
>> Actually. The egg came first. Something that was
>> almost, but not quite, a chicken laid an egg and it
>> hatched into a chicken. ;)