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RE: Let's Learn Something Cool - The Solar System (The Trolls Are Back!)
Have you ever heard the phrase: "It's turtles all the way down."?
If not, ask me about it some time.
Have you ever heard the phrase: "It's turtles all the way down."?
If not, ask me about it some time.
Nope, never heard of it, what does it mean? :)
The natives of North America call the continent "Turtle Island"
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!"
"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of the model that Earth is actually flat and is supported on the back of a World Turtle, which itself is propped up by a chain of larger and larger turtles. Questioning what the final turtle might be standing on, the anecdote humorously concludes that it is "turtles all the way down".
The expression is an illustration of the concept of Anavastha in Indian philosophy, and refers to the defect of infinite regress in any philosophical argument. Contrary to most extant western references, it is not a popular Hindu belief." Wikipedia
Thank you for that!
It reminded me of Atlas, who was punished to hold the skies. Could turtles derive from Atlas?
turtles - turtlas - tartlas - atlas? :P
Jokes aside, myths are fascinating and human imagination can create amazing stories. It's funny though how some ideas remain the same within different cultures.
Logic and (modern western) science take place in the conscious mind. The subconscious is much more powerful and makes little or no use of logic at all! It's language is that of myth and dreams.
And there are theories of a deeper still "collective" consciousness which might explain the recurrence of mythological themes throughout history and across geological barriers.