From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!wolit
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: A Chicken/Egg problem
Article-I.D.: rabbit.665
Posted: Fri Aug  6 11:26:06 1982
Received: Sun Aug  8 08:03:01 1982


Marsh Gosnell's remark ("A chicken is an egg's way of preserving
itself") may have been intended to be humorous, but it is an idea that
is not without merit.  You can get an interesting perspective on the
"purpose" of life by looking at some members of the insect world who
carry this philosophy to an extreme:  in many cases the adult form of
the organism is in no way dominant, in terms of size, lifespan, or
energy expenditure, but exists solely for the purpose of mating
(once!) to produce eggs.  Adult Mayflies, for example, live for only a
few hours (out of a year-long life cycle) and neither feed nor travel
very far from where they emerged.  The larval form is the one that does
most of the "living" as we know it (except for sexual activity).
The adults seem sort of like detachable gonads (see earlier
discussions in net.jokes.limericks.q).