Tuesday 14 May 2013

All the way down




-  After giving a lecture on the solar system, William James, the American psychologist and philosopher, was approached by an elderly lady. 'We don't live on a ball rotating around the sun', she said, firmly. 'We live on a crust of earth on the back of a giant turtle.' James was a kindly man. 'If your theory is correct, madam, what does this turtle stand on?' he asked patiently. 'The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger turtle, of course!' she snorted. 'But what does this second turtle stand on?' pressed the philosopher. 'It's no use, Mr. James', crowed the old lady triumphantly, 'it's turtles all the way down!'.  -


I found this paragraph in my usual source of quotes (have to keep it secret otherwise P&P is ruined). I find the punchline very funny. What I like much less is the way of depicting the philosopher as the patient gentleman who possesses Truth and the old lady as an ignorant and arrogant Cow. For all I know, we are living in the left nostril of a giant turtle.

7 comments:

  1. If one is to believe in coincidences, then it is a great coincidence that I have been pondering this photograph deeply for some time now, and have just writ a note to you about it, over in another place, Marie.

    And now, as I am it seems given by nature to leaping upon any worry and making the best (worst) of it, I find that I am pondering something else: as turtles have slippery backs, what happens if we slip from the back of the first turtle in the pile, and thence downward to the second, and then slipping again down, and...

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  2. (As I believe I told you in that note, it's the mysterious temporal element in the photograph that I find so strangely affecting...)

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  3. Very happy you like this photo, Tom. You are unbelievably observant. And so is Kiwi san. I will write more about this through the backchannels.
    I like the image of the inevitable slippery slope. How far down are we already? Is it possible to climb back up? (of course not). This reminds me of another blog where you said that things speed up towards the end. Slipping down from back to back builds up thrust. That would explain a lot of things...

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  4. Now I am beginning to understand why the turtles are piling up like that.

    They are awaiting takeoff.

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  5. nice :-) thats' what we call a la queue leu leu. Literally.

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  6. Nice to find this here Marie (thanks to Tom!), what beautiful photos. you might like to take a look at the daily photos I'm posting together w/ poems at stephenratcliffe.blogspot.com.

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  7. Thank you very much for dropping in, Stephen. Tom has such a nice way of bringing people together. Temporality is now in the blogroll on Marie's Mailbox, thank you for sending the link!

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