Turtles All the Way Down ... Respect Them All

So don't waste your mind on nursery rhymes
Or fairy tales of blood and wine
It's turtles all the way down the line
So to each their own 'til we go home
To other realms our souls must roam
To and through the myth that we all call space and time

From “Turtles All the Way Down,” Sturgill Simpson

Country singer/songwriter Sturgill Simpson invokes the Turtle in connection to his own quest for meaning. The thoughtful Kentucky lyricist explains: "'Turtles' is about giving your heart to love and treating everyone with compassion and respect no matter what you do or don't believe.”

Heady stuff for a country song, huh? If you've never heard of the saying “turtles all the way down,” you probably aren't alone. The expression concerns the logic of infinite regress – a sequence of reasoning or justification which can never come to an end. Or, allow me to put it like this: An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P₁ requires the support of proposition P₂, the truth of proposition P₂ requires the support of proposition P₃, and so on, ad infinitum.

Infinite regress arguments tacitly rely on a principle of non-contradiction to generate the infinite sequence. On the one hand, they are often quickly brushed aside as being unreasonable and even preposterous. On the other hand, the alleged absurdity of infinite regresses has been a source of inspiration and the ground for far-reaching conclusions.

The saying about turtles alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports the earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly large turtles that continues indefinitely (i.e., "turtles all the way down").

The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain. A similar saying – "rocks all the way down" – appears as early as 1838. References to the saying's mythological antecedents, the World Turtle and its counterpart the World Elephant, were made by a number of authors in the 17th and 18th centuries. This mythology is frequently assumed to have originated in ancient India and in other Hinduist beliefs.

Of course, it makes sense that any proposition requires justification. And, it follows that any justification requires support. A regress argument proposes that any proposition whatsoever can be endlessly (infinitely) questioned.

“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

“At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.'

“The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'

"'You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down!'”

• from R.A. Wilson. Prometheus Rising. 1983

Whether it's turtles or elephants or country music songs “all the way down,” infinite regress is pertinent to the current state of tolerance in America. Sturgill Simpson wrote in his song: “So to each their own 'til we go home to other realms our souls must roam.” Beliefs are just that – tenets or things that are accepted and held as OPINIONS. And, lord knows, opinions differ. Accepting diversity with understanding fuels necessary tolerance, something sorely lacking now as America suffers through the reign of a leader who is both bigoted and xenophobic.

The “turtles” that support your belief system are not necessarily the same slow-moving reptiles that underpin the trust of your neighbors. To even comprehend the complex problems and obstacles others face requires some suspension of your own slippery reality.

“All the way down” requires contemplation of infinity, and that mental activity is particularly enigmatic. Paradoxes that characterize the concept of infinity deal with astrophysical data and complex opinions such as the continuum hypothesis. Try as they might, most intelligent minds struggle with any morsel of reality in infinity and end up with a question mark. I believe the notion of infinity is fundamentally beyond the human ability to comprehend, so I can leave you with an affirmation – Turtles all the way down sounds about right to me. Testudines, how low can you go?

Click it for Sturgill Simpson and “Turtles...": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gBV-Nzq7Pg