# Are you the sperm or the egg? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 13, 2009, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643 "2009-06-13T05:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Picard_Kills_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/21 "2009-06-14T04:57:05Z")
> [@Lucky\_13](#): > > I dunno, this just smacks to me of the whole “life begins at conception” thing. Oh god, I’m going to get pitted by the time this is over with :smack:;). > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I don’t think it’s a male/female thing though. All the movies and jokes I’ve ever heard refer to the eventual person as the (fastest) sperm. I wasn’t really sure or not whether I would get different answers based on gender, but since I can’t answer both sides for myself I thought I would go ahead and throw the extra question in. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/22 "2009-06-14T05:27:52Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > The penetration by the first sperm triggers a cascade of events which do two things: they prevent another sperm from entering, and they cause the DNA packet from the sperm to move deeper into the ovum, where it joins with the DNA packet in the nucleus. From that point on, the DNA is you, unique (unless you are going to have an identical twin in a few days.). And that’s when that fully complete 2n set of chromosomes starts going to work. But as to which is “animating” which, it’s just a matter of how you describe it. I could just as easily (and accurately) say that the breach of the ovum wall triggers the ovum’s follicular cells to release ions which prevent another sperm from entering, and then the ovum draws the DNA packet of the sperm to its nucleus, where the chromosomes combine to for the newly unique you. > > Both the sperm and the ovum are active, neither is required to animate the other, yet neither will live very long if fertilization doesn’t happen. > > You would not be you. Unless you think you would have been you as a girl, or a red head or with one arm or a math genius. All of those are potential other kids your parents could have had with the combination of that month’s ovum and a different sperm, from your dad or someone else. > > Of course, that also depends what you mean by _I_. If _I_ is you apart from all your physical, mental and emotional characteristics, devoid of personality or preference, then you’re into metaphysical territory. I don’t know if your same soul, spirit, what have you, would have embodied that other person or not. But you wouldn’t be recognizable to anyone who knew the you of today. Thanks. I’m just happy the way it turned out. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/23 "2009-06-14T13:56:40Z")
> [@dragonlady](#): > > I’m with you Sam. I never thought of it that way, but I completely agree with you. The egg is the person, waiting to be “jump started” by the sperm. Totally illogical, and yet I think you’re right! Now that I think about it, I see it this way. I know, it’s not right at all, but it does make sense in kind of an emotional way. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/24 "2009-06-14T14:07:17Z")
> [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](#): > > Oh god, I’m going to get pitted by the time this is over with :smack:;). Oooh! I’ve never pitted anyone before! _Prepares scathing attack_ Nah, we all know that sperm and eggs aren’t sentient, but who hasn’t though about themselves as racing for life, a miniscule chance to exist - and they made it! It’s a little mind boggling. I wonder when a person does become sentient in the womb? I know the brain is formed by eight weeks, but when does the fetus obtain awareness? Someone must have done a study about this. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/25 "2009-06-14T14:33:16Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > I wonder when a person does become sentient in the womb? I know the brain is formed by eight weeks, but when does the fetus obtain awareness? Someone must have done a study about this. Oh, lots. But unfortunately, we don’t know how to test for sentience. I’m not entirely convinced that everyone who posts on a message board is sentient. 😉 At 8 weeks, the embryo will move to avoid being touched on the cheek. Of course, so will a planaria. 😉 Other body parts become sensitive gradually, and by 32 weeks, all parts of the body undoubtedly have motor and sensory response to touch. Fetuses will react to sound at around 28 weeks, although some argue it as young as 16 weeks. Eye movements which look a whole lot like REM begin around 23 weeks, leading some people to believe that the fetus is dreaming. Perhaps they are, or perhaps the nerves and muscles of the eye are forming and testing themselves, I don’t know. Awareness? Facetiousness aside, I think a good argument can be made that \*newborns \*are not aware in any reasonable sense of the term. Not until separation anxiety and object permanence really kick in around 6-8 months do I think we can be sure that the child is aware of himself as a unique and separate entity, distinct from his primary caregiver and able to deliberately affect change in his environment. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/26 "2009-06-14T14:47:06Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Oh, lots. But unfortunately, we don’t know how to test for sentience. I’m not entirely convinced that everyone who posts on a message board is sentient. 😉 > > At 8 weeks, the embryo will move to avoid being touched on the cheek. Of course, so will a planaria. 😉 Other body parts become sensitive gradually, and by 32 weeks, all parts of the body undoubtedly have motor and sensory response to touch. Fetuses will react to sound at around 28 weeks, although some argue it as young as 16 weeks. Eye movements which look a whole lot like REM begin around 23 weeks, leading some people to believe that the fetus is dreaming. Perhaps they are, or perhaps the nerves and muscles of the eye are forming and testing themselves, I don’t know. > > Awareness? Facetiousness aside, I think a good argument can be made that \*newborns \*are not aware in any reasonable sense of the term. Not until separation anxiety and object permanence really kick in around 6-8 months do I think we can be sure that the child is aware of himself as a unique and separate entity, distinct from his primary caregiver and able to deliberately affect change in his environment. Interesting data. Thank you. I suppose, ultimately, that this is why we can’t determine the start of human life within the womb - no definition for what human life actually means. And yet, I still picture a sentient sperm racing with other sperm to impregnate the passive egg, a la Look Who’s Talking. Maybe it was a mistake for my mother to give me The Talk during that movie. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/27 "2009-06-14T16:57:58Z")
This is an interesting question. Now, I may be wrong (I got a C in Biology), but there’s only one egg at a time waiting to be fertilized, right? So imagine that you go back in time and cause your parents to get in a huge fight, preventing them from doing the nasty in the past-y. Instead the each hook up with someone else that night, and 9 months later, there’s two new kids in the world instead of just one. Now the one from your mom came from the same egg as you, so it is half the same as you. But the chance that the other kid came from the same sperm as you is astronomically small, so the kid is less than 50% you. Now imagine that you fix your mistake in the past, and your parents still come together that night. However, the timing is all off, so a different sperm makes it, and the new kid is about 75~% you. (Kinda put Back to the Future in perspective, they got it all wrong). So are you the egg, that always would’ve been you, or the sperm, the one in a million bit of genetic material that made it, mostly by chance? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/28 "2009-06-14T17:46:28Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > This is an interesting question. Now, I may be wrong (I got a C in Biology), but there’s only one egg at a time waiting to be fertilized, right? So imagine that you go back in time and cause your parents to get in a huge fight, preventing them from doing the nasty in the past-y. Instead the each hook up with someone else that night, and 9 months later, there’s two new kids in the world instead of just one. Now the one from your mom came from the same egg as you, so it is half the same as you. But the chance that the other kid came from the same sperm as you is astronomically small, so the kid is less than 50% you. No, the kid would be exactly half you. The egg half didn’t change. > [@](#): > > Now imagine that you fix your mistake in the past, and your parents still come together that night. However, the timing is all off, so a different sperm makes it, and the new kid is about 75~% you. (Kinda put Back to the Future in perspective, they got it all wrong). Nope, again, it would be half you. Same egg (half), different sperm (half). Welllll…okay, maybe a bit more than half, if we’re assuming it got some duplicates of some chromosomes in your dad’s sperm. It would be “more related” to you like your brother is more related to you than a stranger on the street. But that’s really stretching. By the way, “astronomically” small might be overstating it. Of the roughly 400 million sperm in ejaculate, at least half leak out the vagina and never make it into the uterus. Another half go the wrong way and find the empty fallopian tube. Lots and lots more die on the trip. By the time they reach the egg, the vast majority have died off, and there may be [only a few hundred sperm left.](http://www.dhushara.com/book/renewal/renewal.htm) And it might even be the case that many of the sperm aren’t suited for fertilization at all, but are “attack” sperm that digest competing men’s sperm, or “helper” sperm which help dissolve the outer covering of the ovum so that a “fertilizing” sperm can get through. So it’s actually pretty likely that you could still have been you if it was intercourse between your same parents within a day or two. > [@](#): > > So are you the egg, that always would’ve been you, or the sperm, the one in a million bit of genetic material that made it, mostly by chance? Neither. Both. \*Biologically \*speaking, you are neither the sperm nor the egg. Your combination of DNA, that thing that makes you uniquely you, didn’t exist until after fertilization, when the nucleus of the sperm merged with the nucleus of the egg and the chromosomes inside paired up. Historically speaking though, the “I’m the sperm!” and “The sperm animates the egg!” people have greater company. For hundreds of years it was believed that a little tiny person existed in each sperm, and that the sperm itself was planted in the womb of a woman and grew to newborn size. That little microscopic baby in the sperm was called the [homunculus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Preformation.GIF). Although there were those who believed the homunculus lived inside the woman and was animated by the man’s semen somehow, either there were more spermatists, or the spermatists remembered to write down more. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643/29 "2009-06-14T19:56:26Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Welllll…okay, maybe a bit more than half, if we’re assuming it got some duplicates of some chromosomes in your dad’s sperm. It would be “more related” to you like your brother is more related to you than a stranger on the street. But that’s really stretching. That’s what I meant by the whole “less than 50” and “75%”. Basically, whatever person is made won’t be genetically identical as you, but it won’t be completely dissimilar. I think the question is more philosophical than scientific. If you chose egg, then it was irrelevant what sperm would’ve gotten there. If you choose sperm, then you’re saying that only that one sperm would have made you, you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-the-sperm-or-the-egg/499643.md?page=1)