variations on a proof, a plea for assistance, and a poem

Can we all agree that a chicken is a vertebrate?

Okay, then.

Consider evolution. Vertebrates are descended from invertebrate ancestors. Acceptable? And invertebrates are descended from simpler multicellular organisms. And multicellular organisms are descended, ultimately, from single-celled organisms. Which appear to be descended from elaborate chains of chemical processes.

Okay?

Now, the simplest single-celled organisms reproduce by asexual division, not through sexual reproduction. Can we agree on that?

So at some point in the history of life on Earth, the only form of reproduction was asexual cell divison.

Now, if a chicken is descended, eventually, from a single-celled organism, we can say that the chicken and the single-celled organism are equivalent in some sense, can't we? You can trace, step by step, a direct line from chicken back to the single-celled organism, which is a kind of proto-chicken.

If we agree that asexual reproduction predates sexual reproduction, and that the proto-chicken and the chicken are equivalent, it should be fairly self-evident that the chicken comes before the egg.

OR

Alternatively, we can decide that the proto-chicken, since it is its own offspring, acts as both chicken and egg, in which case it is more accurate to say that the chicken and the egg arise simultaneously.

OR

If we don't take the origin of life on earth as our starting-point, but instead the origin of sexual reproduction, then we can take the following like of reasoning: the moment at which sexual reproduction arose in the chicken-egg line was the moment at which two proto-chickens were able to exchange reproductive material. Since the proto-chickens had to exist in order for the 'egg' (if we consider the combined reproductive material/offspring equivalent to an egg) to be produced, and since they themselves arose through asexual rather than sexual reproduction, the chicken still comes first.

BUT

If we take as our starting point a third moment, the moment at which what we would recognize as a chicken comes into being, our results differ. At this point sexual reproduction already exists. Two proto-chickens mate, produce an egg (which actually probably is an egg by now, and not just an 'egg', an equivalent reproductive outcome,) from which is hatched, not a proto-chicken, but an actual chicken. In that case, we would have to say that the egg comes first, since the egg came from a non-chicken, but contained the developing chicken within it.

Issues of Definition

Following the above, we could also decide that since the egg contains the developing chicken, they again arise simultaneously, but this becomes a meta-question, since by those definitions of "chicken" and "egg" there is then no difference ever between egg and chicken, and the answer is always "both." The same holds true if, in the argument immediately previous to that one, we assert that the reproductive material as it exists within the proto-chicken is the egg, instead of the offspring's being the egg. (In that case, however, we have two choices: either chicken and egg arise simultaneously, or the proto-chicken comes first, and develops the egg later, in which case the chicken still comes first.)

For this reason, it seems most reasonable to define the egg as the undeveloped organism, existing just subsequent to the moment of conception, and the chicken as the adult organism. The only case in which this does not hold true is in the first version of the argument, in which parent and daughter organism are indistinguishable; but this is acceptable, since it is a biological fact and not a semantic problem.

* * * * * *

I want to make a math joke and I need your help.

At work, I have three trays on my desk. Each tray holds files that are at different stages of the production process. The first tray holds "pre-checks", which are files that need to be looked at to see if they are complete." The second tray holds "working files" which are ones that I am in the midst of working on. The third tray holds "proofs", which are files waiting for the proof copy of the book to be printed.

We put signs on all of our trays so that people know where to put folders.

Since "proofs" puns on the use of "proof" in math, I thought it would be fun to have the other signs also pun on the process. And when I say fun, I mean, "fun for me." I thought that "Theorems" would be good for the pre-check file, as these are files that aren't "proven" yet. The "Proofs" logically match up, since both are the end of the process.

But what should I call the tray that has the files I am working on in it? Is there a word for all the work you do in between?

If you can think of anything, let me know.

* * * * * *

Last and possibly/not least, the draft of a poem, written a few days ago outside Herald Street Books.

Sometimes I set out to write an autobiographical poem, and instead I get ones about things like dandilions. Which leads me to conclude that I may, in fact, be a dandilion. Which could explain a few things.

 

expanding universe

hanging from its tuft of rays
each star constellates itself
draws lines which recalculate and decompose
as the seeds fail slowly
into the grass

(each seed, finding beyond the unknown air
only more unknown
succumbs to gravity
with a certain relief)