Two rooster jokes | Seth’s Weblog

“Why did the rooster cross the street” tells us a bit about jokes. It’s a joke about jokes. The primary half is a setup, reminding us that an absurd query creates pressure, which is then relieved by the punchline.

However the second half undoes this by refusing to launch the strain. “To get to the opposite aspect” is banal. There’s no level to this Q&A. And so we sit, empty, not sure about what occurs subsequent. The absence of a punchline reminds us of how a lot we care about punchlines.

Alternatively, “which got here first, the rooster or the egg,” isn’t a joke in any respect. As a substitute, it’s a false paradox primarily based on a misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution and taxonomy. The one factor that may be born from a rooster egg is a rooster, whereas one thing that’s nearly a rooster might lay a rooster egg. In actual fact, that’s how we bought chickens within the first place. The egg got here first.

However that’s not the explanation for the query. The query exists to create instability, to trigger us pressure as we search to seek out our footing within the face of an infinite loop.

Conversations and interactions develop into greater than rote efficiency exactly as a result of we will create, hunt down and relieve pressure.

Instability into stability and again once more.

February 3, 2024