Q&A: Infinite Regress Analogy
Infinite Regress Analogy
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask: can the problem of infinite regress be compared to the case where someone is asked how he knows a certain fact, and he answers that it comes by way of an infinite chain of witnesses?
The analogy of a witness is that each witness, in and of himself, is not the source of his own knowledge, but rather, by definition, requires a source of knowledge external to him. If so, it seems quite clear that an infinite chain of witnesses would not help us establish knowledge.
(It just sounds to me like a much better example than the turtles parable.)
Answer
Yes, that is definitely a very good example. On the intellectual plane, the chain is not one of actions but of arguments. And there it is possible that this could work, because an argument takes no time, and if it is valid then it is valid regardless of whether we arrived at it or not. The same is true regarding the turtles, where each one carries the next on its back. There too we are not dealing with actions, because carrying on the back is a state, not an action. Actions, by contrast, have to be actually carried out, and therefore an infinite chain of actions is certainly impossible. And indeed, the creation of the world also involves an infinite chain of actions, not of arguments.