An Old Man From Jersey Explains: What Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?

This is a mini-series of comics about a naive but curious ten year old boy who pesters a crude but wise old man while he sits on the steps to their dingy New Jersey apartment building trying to read the newspaper.

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An Old Man From Jersey Explains Life

• The meaning of life
• How to grow up
• Religions
• Philosophy
• Is man inherently good or evil?
• Does everything happen for a reason?
• Does free will exist?
• The social contract
• Right and wrong
• How to think

TRANSCRIPT

KID

Hey, mister!

OLD MAN

What do you want, KID?

KID

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

OLD MAN

Is the chicken a male or female?

KID

A female, duh. Male chickens don’t lay eggs.

OLD MAN

So which came first, the female chicken that laid the egg or the male chicken that impregnated the female chicken?

KID

There would have to be two more chicken to have them…and two before them…and two before them.

OLD MAN

You figured it out. There’s chickens all the way down.

KID

Well, let’s say time only stretches into the future.

OLD MAN

You’re assuming time exists.

KID

Seeing as how I have to be home at six, and this is taking longer than I thought, let’s assume time exists. So where did the first two chickens come from?

OLD MAN

…the same place as everything else?

KID

So what existed before everything else?

OLD MAN

…Potential?

KID

What about time? Did that exist before anything else?

OLD MAN

Potentially.

KID

Was the universe born from its own potential?

OLD MAN

Well, if you’re going to assume the universe had a beginning, or a birth as you put it, I reckon you can assume whatever else you want.

KID

How could it not have a beginning?

OLD MAN

You don’t want time to have an end, but you expect it to have a beginning?

KID

Which option gives me and the chickens a definite beginning in time and an eternal future?

OLD MAN

The beginning of time is the end of time. The chicken is the egg. Time and space are a loop.

KID

I’ll take it.

OLD MAN

Got any more questions?

KID

Well… I had one, but I guess you sorta already answered it.

OLD MAN

Yeah, what was that?

KID

If God created the universe then who created God?

OLD MAN

…assuming there is a god.

KID

I’m going home now.