Talk:Turtles all the way down

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I know google searches almost always point to the Hawking version. I guess this just prooves that books are still important sources for research! Slrubenstein

Contents

[edit] Theosophy?

I've heard a version in which the "old lady" was a Theosophist, which would offer some connection between the attested Indian version of the tale, and the later British and American ones. Sadly, I have no source to cite, which is why I'm posting this here rather than editing the article. --FOo 02:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tortoises vs Turtles

I have never read A Brief History of Time, and so cannot comment on whether the switch in the ancedote from tortoises to turtles occurs as is stated here. Could someone check this out? At the least, "tortoises all the way down" should redirect here; at the most, this page might have to be moved. --Martey 01:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

It's a word to word transcription of my edition at least, so yes it does strangely switch from tortoises to turtles.--Gwynplaine 03:30, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Interesting. Made a redirect page. --Martey 08:22, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
There's also a less common "elephants all the way down" version of the tale. Should there be a redirect page, and maybe also a mention of that in the article? --Guest 20:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

I don't feel this is notable enough for a page on its own and I would sooner see it abridged and merged with urban myth or origin belief or just so story. As Slrubenstein pointed out, Tatwd derives its notability entirely from Stephen Hawking's book, and the book's notability in turn rides on Stephen Hawking's immense contribution to theoretical physics and his battle with disability. Hawking is non-notable as a philosopher, and, like many people, I wasn't that impressed with the book per se. So I think the notability of the tutles story is not fundamentally greater than any other urban myth or origin belief or just so story, and merging would be a better idea. Zargulon 14:10, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The story is perennially retold, and actually encapsulates an Eastern or holistic view of metaphysics — that of ontological irreducibility. --goethean ॐ 15:57, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
On this note: Do you feel, as I do, that the article in question deals with ontological irreducibility with a patronizing tone? Rmilligan 06:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Totwd it is not notable for illustrating ontological irreducibility. As for the story being perennially retold, independently of Stephen Hawking's book, I would like to see some evidence of this. Zargulon 17:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

A Google Search on the exact phrase "Turles all the way down" NOT wikipedia NOT hawking gives 115,000 hits. --goethean ॐ 18:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I just noticed this story in William James's book The Will To Believe, specifically in the essay "The Sentiment of Rationality" (p. 104 of The Will To Believe in the Dover reprint):
Like the old woman in the story who described the world as resting on a rock, and then explained that rock to be supported by another rock, and finally when pushed with questions said it was rocks all the way down, -- he who believes this to be a radically moral universe must hold the moral order to rest either on an absolute and ultimate should, or on a series of shoulds all the way down.
The James collection was published in 1898. So we can conclude a) that the chunk of the Wikipedia article which attributes the quote to James is wrong, and b) that it probably had nothing to do with Russell. He would have been 26 when the James collection came out, and James was already describing this as a possible apocrypha. Slaniel 02:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Accepted - thank you Zargulon 18:36, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major revisions

I just went through and tried to clean up this article a bit. It was previously suffering quite badly from the "stream of unorganized facts" syndrome that so heavily affects much of wikipedia. I wanted to make this discussion post in case anybody cares about the changes, since I made some pretty drastic revisions.

First off, I removed all but one example of the anecdote itself. Since they're all basically the same except for some minor specifics in wording, it's really not necessary to have three copies of the same thing up on the page. The only version with a major difference, in which an Englishman and Indian are involved instead of a scientist and old lady, I noted along with the reference to that occurrence, which I think is enough to give the reader the full idea.

I also changed the listing of the occurrences. The quote from STUMPERS-L was just wrong... following the link provided gave nothing close to what had been supposedly a direct copy and paste, so I made a note that the 1969 occurrence was unverified, and cleaned up that section in general.

I split everything up into sections that seem to make sense. Hopefully it's not too chunked... I think it's more readable this way, personally.

Finally, I split the Discworld and movie references off into a seperate chunk at the bottom, since they're related but not really talking about the anecdote itself.

This is my first addition to WP, so please be kind :-)

216.231.49.141 10:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)enroth


[edit] Dawkins

One does not need to rehash Dawkins arguments concerning intelligent design, which does not mention turtles at all, in order to simply explain why ID itself might be an example of turtles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.27.203 (talk) 05:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] split off infinite regression (?)

I think this is a specific example of an infinite regression but not all infinite regressions are humping turtles. But I'm not entirely sure what an infinite regression is. Anyone want to split it off? — Dunc|☺ 23:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong?

If one can accept that our universe is space all the way out, why not turtles all the way down? Cheers :p

[edit] Native American story

The "turtles all the way down" idea also appears in Thomas King's The Truth About Stories (from the CBC Massey Lectures) as a Native narrative... I'm not sure how or where this would be best added, or I'd do so myself. (The exact phrase is on page 32, the myth shows up in a couple of other places, IIRC), 26 October 2006

[edit] Picture?

How's this for a picture? I made this. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 20:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Turtles all the way down.
Turtles all the way down.
That's very clever. I like it and I think's appropriate. There are some drawings out there that might be public domain that might also be famous. (Bjorn Tipling 20:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC))
Endorse I like it. Nardman1 18:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related concepts change.

CanadianCaesar: Um, I suppose we could end crime by legalizing it, but that would kind of miss the point. The "related concepts" section looks like a trivia section, smells like a trivia section, and quacks like a trivia section. Why not call it a trivia section?

Also, it'd be nice if you didn't just do a blanket revert. Do you really think the ones I removed are relevant enough? And the usage of "see" terminology in the header, which is bad style on the Internet with hyperlinks? SnowFire 04:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just incorporated your edit. I see no reason to invite more indiscriminate information by calling it Trivia. Just keep it to one topic. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 04:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, now. SnowFire 04:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unrelated concepts

Does anyone know if Dr. Seuss' book Yertle the Turtle was somehow inspired or influenced by the expression "Turtles all the way down"?

[edit] Infinite regression of turtles?

Not necessarily. Assuming a curved spacetime, there could be a finite number of turtles, with the bottom-most one standing on the Earth, or any other solid ground for that matter. Maybe a physicist would like to comment on this hypothesis?

--84.9.73.5 (talk) 11:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

As an Indian and a scientist, I have to make a few clarifications about this article.

1) The motif being spoken of is something that I have never heard of in Hinduism. Despite being a reliegion, Hinduism has strangely neo-scientific views on the universe's structure and creation, including its cyclic and infinite nature.

2) Even if this motif does exist in Hinduism somewhere, I personally feel that this article is not fair in its portrayal of 'the Indian'.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.42.6 (talk) 18:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)