The Vault of Heaven
` ` A wandering Muslim merchant stopped a Hindu Brahmin who was lecturing on the structure of the universe. It was, said the Brahmin, supported on the back of an elephant. What supported the elephant, asked the merchant. A turtle, answered the Brahmin. What supported the turtle, asked the merchant. Another turtle, answered the Brahmin. What supported that turtle, asked the merchant. Suppose we stop asking questions, suggested the Brahmin. ' '
2004 BURNING MAN ART THEME: VAULT OF HEAVEN
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And although I cannot help but refer to Discworld, which is also supported by elephants standing upon the back of a Cosmic Turtle... this particular story is perhaps best known through the anecdote about an encounter between a scientist and a little old lady that Stephen Hawking refers to in his 1988 book _A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes_
` ` 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!” ' '
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I first heard this story through Robert Anton Wilson...
There are many other references to this idea...
Like the immense variety of cultural depictions of turtles, this particular story has many different incarnations...
Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia
TurtlesAllTheWayDown - AndStuff
A similar concept is found in Iroqouis cosmology
In the 1987 book titled _Turtles All the Way Down,_ John Grinder and Judith Delozier explored the interrelationships between NLP and the threads of culture, community, art, aesthetics and epistemology.
Many of us had been talking about the concept since the second movie, and I eventually titled one of my posts about _Matrix: Revolutions_ "it's turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down!", without even knowing that Roger Ebert had referred to this idea in his review of _The Matrix Reloaded_
Glorianna Davenport uses the idea in her essay, Interactivity and the Language of Storytelling
_Turtleback Rider,_ by Cheryl Hunt uses the idea in a research paper concerning "metaphor as a vehicle for reflective practice"
Anne Edgeworth wrote a book called, _Turtles All the Way Down,_ which contains 52 poems on themes of "environment, politics, relationships and cats."
The idea is also referred to in Jordan Blackman's Midterm concerning Nietzsche, "Morality at Daybreak"
Leading by Example, by Charles MacInerney includes a reference to the concept, as well.
Dr. Seuss's book, _Yertle the Turtle_ contains the line:
` ` And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid. ' '
And Richard P. Stanley believes that he can provide a solution to the problem in _An Application of Set Theory to Cosmology_
and as often as the turtle comes up as a significant symbol in my life, perhaps i shall just have to adopt it as another of my totems... although maybe "tetrapod" or even "amniote" may be more appropriate to encompass my perspective on evolution?