Did this work?
I find it impossible to let a discussion of infinite regression without throwing this into the mix: St. Thomas Aquinas relied heavily on the concept of infinite regress (something he did not agree with) in his arguments/“proofs” for the existence of God. Essentially, the argument boils down to the necessity for an “unmoved mover.” That is, fire cannot create itself, a child can’t be it’s own parent, etc. He gets into a bit of a struggle (and, IMHO, pulls the ripcord on occasion) in trying to differentiate between a priori and a posteriori arguments. He remains one of the most notable Catholic theologians in history (and, interestingly, gives a ton of credit to his forbears… including pagans and Rabbis; Aristotle is always referred to as “The Philosopher,” for example). Dude has his own brand of theology named after him (the Thomistic tradition). The current pope has referred to him as “the Master and Patron of Catholic schools,” and he is one of only 35 Doctors of the Church. He’s also highly regarded by the non-Catholic/Protestant churches.
He ends up coming up with the Big Bang theory - without calling it that - and saying that because God is pure thought/will (and therefore in a$ state of unlimited potentiality), He is the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause, etc. In creating the Universe, God simply willed it into being (the Big Bang moment); this does not preclude the possibility of alternate/parallel universes referenced up-thread.
If you really want to dig into the concept of infinite regress, I highly recommend reading the five proofs… or, if you have a lot of time on your hands, all of Summae Theologica. Interesting stuff from a guy that’s been called a genius and a madman. I think the jury is still out on what happened with that incident where he was seen levitating in Church and speaking directly with God, having a rapturous moment, and then refusing to write anything ever again…
The topic is well-covered here:
Nice post, GiantRat. Good to remember that many people have confronted this in their own ways.
I’m sure a zillion mathematicians deal with this. Hell, calculus by exhaustion.
And Escher, of course.
Infinite regress pops up in the philosophy of consciousness a lot too. One is Higher Order Thought (HOT) theory, which is the theory that a “conscious” thought is conscious because there’s another thought in your head referring to it. Critics of it say that this gives the problem of infinite regress, because what if you’re conscious of that thought? What about that thought? These critics are usually “self-representationalists” which allows a thought what are effectively state transitions that allow a thought to move from unconscious to conscious without a new thought forming.
Great stuff, Jragon, thanks.
Allow me to get personal again. I can only speak about altered consciousness of pot and hash smokers. To elaborate on my quickie comment above, the phenomenon of becoming aware of “infinite” regression of consciousness–there’s a thought, there’s a thought about that thought (perhaps leading to the thought “who thought that last thought,” etc etc)-- has occurred, with unaccustomed force, at least once, I would hazard, to every pot smoker.
I had my worst, and most frightening, experience when very stoned going through this, a horrible mind/thought lock, when all that I could do to get through it was wait for the pot to wear off a bit. In the few times I’ve gotten too high since the 70’s, it’s still a pain.
I guess I’ll have to start self-representing. But those guys say I am already… (I wonder how many of the theorists you mention have thought through their ideas while high.)
“The Last Superstition” by Edward Feser gives a great intro into Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy and covers the topic of infinite regress.
As long as we’re talking about smoking pot and thinking about infinite regression, there’s a passage in Cosmos (second to the last paragraph in Chapter X) by Carl Sagan where he says, “There is an idea - strange, haunting, evocative - one of the most exquisite conjectures in science or religion. It is entirely undemonstrated; it may never be proved. But it stirs the blood. There is, we are told, an infinite hierachy of universes, so that an elementary particle, such as an electron, in our universe would, if penetrated, reveal itself to be an entire closed universe. Within it, organized into the local equivalent of galaxies and smaller structures, are an immense number of other, much tinier elementary particles, which are themselves universes at the next level, and so on forever - an infinite downward regression, universes within universes, endlessly. And upward as well. Our familiar universe of galaxies and stars, planets and people, would be a single elementary particle in the next universe up, the first step of another infinite regress.”
My thought after reading this was that this reminded me of something. It reminded me of the scene in the movie Animal House where people are sitting around smoking pot and discussing this theory. I wondered if Sagan smoked a lot of pot. As it happens, he did:
Incidentally, the theory above is sometimes called the theory of subatomic universes, although this could get confused with the idea of subatomic particles. One famous short story where it’s used is “He Who Shrank” by Henry Hasse:
The term isn’t used in that story, but it’s used, for instance, in this interview:
I thought of Animal House three words into the Sagan quote. 
I should really go to bed, but to take a stab, i’d guess that no two points in space have a temporal (timelike?) dependency.
Whoa, that even sounded like gibberish to me and I have no idea what I meant by it, but it sounds like it would probably violate relativity or be otherwise “bad” in the Ghostbusters sense of the word though. No idea. (ducking for cover)
I sometimes encounter infinite* regression at the supermarket. I’ll be heading toward the end of a checkout line, but someone will beat me to it; which makes the end of the line that much further away; so that someone else gets there first; so the end of the line is still further away; etc. I feel like I’m watching the end of the line redshift over an event horizon.
*****ok, not literally
Well I got two mirrors at work today and faced them toward each other. Stepped between them, then changed lanes. I’ll exit the freeway a couple of days ago and post to this thread. This should settle things once and for all.
Well just damn. Would you look at that? Neat.
Have you ever noticed that when you choose among basically even lines, you always pick the longest one? 