Talk:Turtles all the way down

message: The article doesn't state this term or phrase's most common usage, as an argument against The Big Bang Theory. A proponent of this theory states or believes all matter in the universe was once compacted into a single object no larger (if you can believe it) than a thimble. However the proponent cannot explain where this thimble of matter comes from. Often, instead, the proponent will give an additional theory stating or proposing that eventually all matter with compact into a thimble again and that it already has multiple times, there have been many universes prior to ours, each caused by "big bangs". However they cannot say when the first universe began or where the matter came from before all these universes. To which an opponent than replies: "Yes, it's turtles all the way down." 173.209.103.239 (talk) 18:19, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most Common Usage 

message: 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)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that Aleister Crowley mentioned the "turtles all the way down" anecdote; I'm not sure whether he was speaking of a Theosophist or not, but there's a good chance of that.  It might have been from Magick Without Tears. Afalbrig (talk) 08:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Theosophy]]? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Interesting. Made a redirect page. --Martey 08:22, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: It was elephants when I first heard the tale, back around 1974. A turtle standing on an elephant seemed less of an affront to reason than the other way 'round. I'm not a big fan of Brief History of Time, so I'm not surprised Hawking got it backwards. LightSpeed (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tortoises vs Turtles 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Major revisions 

message: 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)
thread_title: Dawkins

message: 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)
thread_title:  split off [[infinite regression]] (?) 

message: If one can accept that our universe is space all the way out, why not turtles all the way down?
Cheers :p
I take it the turtles are invisble... much like space.
...why down?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.86.127 (talk) 16:04, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's wrong? 

message: 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
See also - 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_King_(novelist)#Turtles_all_the_way_down_...>
49.176.97.4 (talk) 01:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Native American story 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Fair enough, now.  SnowFire 04:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related concepts change. 

message: Does anyone know if Dr. Seuss' book Yertle the Turtle was somehow inspired or influenced by the expression "Turtles all the way down"?
Anon Answer: 
No, it doesn't. It's about how a ruler's excessive greed/vanity can lead to his overthrow. 
You could make a case for the anecdote in Dr. Seuss' book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? about the Bee-Watcher-Watcher.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.135.33.67 (talk) 02:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Unrelated concepts

message: 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)
thread_title:  Infinite regression of turtles? 

message: 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)
replies: text: I would like to know this myself. Where does this idea of giant space turtles originally come from? Drutt (talk) 12:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: More information at the World Turtle article. Danceswithzerglings (talk) 12:48, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification 

message: IIRC, most of this is in relation to Chukwa, who (as Pratchett pionted out) is swimming through the Ocean of Milk.  It's only necessary to have something for the turtle to stand on if one already asserts the relatively modern idea of empty space as we know it.  So, it's a misinterpretation, attempting to make the believer look foolish.  A sensible (and far more likely) answer would be "The turtle is swimming", or "The ocean of milk, which is bottomless".  
It is about as humorous as asking a Christian creationist - "So, what day was it before Monday" - and the reply being - "Oh, every day was a Monday before that". Quite funny, if you aren't a creationist. I haven't yet met a Hindu who takes the Chukwa myth as anything other than a mythic metaphor, even though I've met plenty of creationists who really believe that the Universe was created in seven days.. 
If we accept the Chukwa myth on it's metaphorical basis, then it's not dissimilar from all those marbles-on-mattresses pictures used to show the curvature of space-time under gravitational fields; if we were to update the metaphor, we could say that the child Chukwa is swimming around a whirlpool caused by the mighty Surya-Chukwa (the sun-turtle), while the baby Chandra-Chukwa (moon) is swimming around a similar 'whirlpool' created by our own Chukwa. 
So, just because current science prefer marbles and mattresses, it doesn't make it particularly funny if someone else uses turtles and oceans.  What makes it sad is when someone takes another myth and ridicules it in a short-sighted, and arrogant, manner. Moreover, the (rather tired) scientific misogyny comes out in naming the person in question as being a woman.  
An big, fat white scientist goes to Kumbh Mela, and joins in a conversation with a group of Sadhus listening to a Yogi who is discussing Chukwa.  After listening for a while, the scientist pipes up and tells them "Actually, you are all wrong - the earth is a marble on a mattress"  - the Yogi gave a superior smile and asked "what is keeping the mattress dry?" - the response came rushing back "It's not wet - because God never got laid!" (20040302 (talk) 10:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And how does this help the article? Darrenhusted (talk) 11:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derogatory misinterpretation 

message: —Chowbok ☠ 15:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: People didn't like the last image that was added... AnonMoos (talk) 20:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Kurma turtle swims in the cosmic ocean called Garbhodaka. Pic from "Vedic Cosmos" DVD cover: http://akincanaforum.eponym.com/DVD-inlays-&-cd-2.jpg  82.208.2.200 (talk) 18:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The current picture has a caption which reads "turtles all the way down" underneath a picture of a lot of tortoises. Is that reason enough for it to be replaced with something else? Quoth 31 (talk) 14:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the point is that it should be an infinite pile of turtles.—Chowbok ☠ 00:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image wanted 

message: just read through entirety of hitchikers guide series, my brain hurts now, but no mention of turtles all the way down. Man was mostly harmless messed up! 
-forgot ,y username i'll put it in later
* Hey man, it's OK: It happens to ev'ryone; ya start out stoned, and end up wasted. Mebbe ya learn "Never mix, never worry"; I settled on "Jes' letcher head be straight", but what it comes down to is if yer brain doesn't stay at about the same pain level, you're doing it wrong. 72 years young; the hep in the ch. chip cookies was the worst of it, but in fact it's a gas. Keep on trucking, mebbe check out David Deutsch; <bold>He</bold>'ll put a hurt on yr brain pretty good!--Jerzy•t 10:11, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hittchikers guide mention nonexistant 

message: At the beginning of the "In popular culture" section, someone posted a complaint that reads as follows:
"Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (October 2009)"
I think this complaint should be deleted.  I think that the list of references in that "popular culture" section are entirely appropriate -- the references show exactly what the heading says the section is about.  It should be left as is. Worldrimroamer (talk) 18:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment about "In popular culture" section 

message: Russell tells the story in his autobiography, it should not be that hard to find a source. I don't have my copy here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.68.68.32 (talk) 02:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. See the quote from Russell's lecture included in the article. It involves nothing (or something unspecified) below the tortoise, but not "turtles all the way down". And it's a thought experiment, rather than a description of an incident. Does it appear as an incident in his autobiography? Shreevatsa (talk) 04:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it comes from Russell's biography, which I read many years ago.   As I recall he said he was on a train talking to an old woman.   I don't remember if he told her anything about  cosmology himself, or just listened to her explanation that the world was flat and sitting on the back of a giant turtle.  He asked what it stood on and she replied that it was another turtle.  He asked what that turtle was standing on, and smiled as if she saw him looking for a flaw but missed the obvoius; she said "it's turtles all the way down".    I have to say it was a rather boring book and I didn't finish it, and I don't know if I still have it or not, but this should be fairly easy for someone to look up and verify.  Eric Myers 14:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  It comes from Bertrand Russell's autobiography 

message: Terry Pratchett operated a personal website under turtlesalltheway.com for many years. Now it redirects to a merchandise page for official Discworld stuff, including many items personally signed by Terry Pratchett. He is still listed as the active registrant for the domain. Is this something to add to the existing Pratchett section? I find it interesting and relevant, but I'm quite the convinced Pratchett-reader.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.239.104.5 (talk) 20:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I am also deeply disappointed that Terry Pratchett is not mentioned in the article. 185.66.206.79 (talk) 09:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Terry Pratchett is mentioned in the "See also" section. His world turtle swims through space and doesn't stand on top of another turtle, so it would be off-topic to mention it in this article, which is about the phrase "turtles all the way down", which Pratchet never uses as far as I know. He is mentioned in other articles, such as world turtle. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:17, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pratchett's domain name 

message: There are a few seemingly irrelevant links in the see also page.  Should definitely be cleaned up.
I don't think simply also referring to a turtle warrants inclusion, e.g. 'Kurma' and 'Post turtle'.
Also, I don't personally see (or understand) the connection to Hilbert's Paradox, or Holon.
All Clues Key (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted these references. All Clues Key (talk) 18:34, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  'See Also' section needs cleaning 

message: for one, it doesn't even demonstrate the infinite regression of turtles going all the way down-- instead a stack of only 7 of them is sitting on the ground. secondly, the tone of the image just seems a bit silly for a Wikipedia article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.160.80.245 (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can get a commons image of an infinite regression of turtles, I would be happy to replace the current image in this article. As for the tone, the article has 13 footnotes, and all of the relevant information is cross-referenced. Is there anything in particular that you would recommend be changed? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 19:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is page image appropriate? 

message: [UPDATE: I removed the disputed accuracy tag I originally placed based on the claims I made below. Now I see that the claims were already incorporated into the text - Locke is indeed cited properly as referring to the myth. Perhaps the article could be cleaned up a bit to show the reader quickly where some of the earliest mentions to the myth arise. My apologies for misreading the original version.]  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyncvm (talk • contribs) 15:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate origin information - please revise based on this evidence 

message: Isn't "Turtles all the way down" a kind of homunculus argument, only in reverse? — Matthew Raymond (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homunculus Argument? 

message: I was tempted to rebuild the "history" section in chronological order, beginning with the earliest references to Hindu world turtles, but it seemed too fitting to begin with the now-familiar form of the story and then regress to its earlier variants. 
But it now seems the story does first appear in 1599 as "the Hindus put the world on an elephant, and when asked they put the elephant on a turtle, but when asked again they cannot say what the turtle is standing on"; this form was used early (17th and 18th centuries) on as an illustration that infinite regress was (supposedly) a fallacy, but only in the 19th century (not coincidentially with the development of valid methods of infinite regress?) the all the way down form appears. 
--dab (𒁳) 08:38, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin

message: Currently the article says 'The earliest known version of the story in its "turtle" form appeared in 1854', but while the citation supports the quote it does not support the fact that it is the earliest know version. The claim either needs a citation or it neads to be change to "Another version of the story..." -- PBS (talk) 17:18, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  1854 

message: According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the primary function of the lead section is to summarize what's discussed in the main body of the article. It says in particular, "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." 
In light of this, I decided to remove two paragraphs from the lead section. The specific passage I removed is:
I decided to remove these paragraphs because the topics they bring up (i.e., Anavastha, the "chicken and egg problem", and the Münchhausen trilemma) are only discussed in the intro and not elaborated on in the main text. This is a clear breach of the policy I mentioned above. 
I've already incorporated the second paragraph into §2, "Notable modern allusions or variations". I think it would also work to integrate the paragraph on Anavastha into the section on  Hindu mythology, although I haven't done that yet. 
What do you all think?
Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 08:51, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to lead section 

message: I recently removed a good chunk of material from §2. With the exception of the sentence on Clifford Geertz's book (which I removed because it did not fit the flow of the section), all of the material I removed was unsourced. The material I did keep (e.g., the excerpt from Scalia's Supreme Court opinion, the sentence on John Green's book, and the sentence on the song by Sturgill Simpson) was all reliably referenced. I believe any new material added to the section should be sourced in a similar manner. Besides upholding the bedrock Wikipedia principle of verifiability, this would guard against the section becoming a collection of superfluous trivia. As is mentioned in WP:Notability, insisting on verifiability is probably the best way to avoid an indiscriminate inclusion of topics. 
I also moved the quotes from Hawking and Russell from the "History" section to §2. Those quotes were out of place in the history section. Hawking, in particular, is an indisputably modern author; it doesn't make sense to feature a quote from him in a section where all the other excerpts are from the 19th century or earlier (or, in the case of Ross, discussing a story from the 19th century). While an argument could be made for keeping Russell's quote in the history section, I decided to move it as well because Hawking explicitly mentions Russell in his excerpt, so separating the two could lead to confusion. 
Finally, I moved the paragraph from the lead section discussing the Münchhausen trilemma and the chicken and egg problem into §2. I'm not sure if this paragraph should be kept. It doesn't fit well into the overall scheme of the article and it is unsourced. However, I was hesitant to delete it because it does seem somewhat relevant (the Münchhausen trilemma in particular). I'm just not sure the best way to integrate it into the existing structure of the article. 
Any thoughts? If anyone disagrees with the changes I made I would be happy to discuss them further. 
Regards, Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 05:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to §2, "Notable modern allusions or variations" 

message: Thanks for the explanation in your revert—I missed the parenthetical when I skimmed through the source initially. I still think the source should be removed from the article though. A parenthetical of "turtles all the way down" just isn't comparable with the mentions of the phrase from David Hume or Bertrand Russell that are described in the body of the article. Not only are Hume and Russell considerably more notable than whoever wrote the Medium article, they actually devote more than a parenthetical to the phrase. The Medium article feels painfully out of place as a result. Would you oppose me removing it? Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 18:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds reasonable and I wouldn't oppose, seems a very esoteric reference. Sorry if my revert was heavy-handed, I wanted to make sure you didn't miss the parenthetical. Opencooper (talk) 02:24, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok, I'll go ahead and remove it. The source is interesting reading, but it doesn't really fit in the context of the article. Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 09:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Machine learning