Idiots

... all the way down

“It’s just idiots, all the way down.”

My favourite show is a cartoon. Imagine The Office x Jason Bourne x Fifty Shades of Grey feat. Citizen Kane.

The show is called Archer and the quote above is from the matriarch of an hilariously dysfunctional spy agency.

Mallory Archer, original image here.

This phrase “all the way” down is one of many über-nerdy easter eggs. A philosopher will recognise it as the problem of infinite regress, usually referred to as “turtles all the way down”.

This problem is one where we ask about what sits of everything. “Turtles all the way down” comes from an ancient myth. In this myth the world was thought to be founded on a turtle, and held up by elephants standing on that turtle. But what’s underneath that turtle? Another turtle?

This philosopher’s question goes something like this: once you peel away all the layers of reality and experience, what’s behind it all? Can we ever really get to the foundation, the basic building blocks, of everything?

This problem - a…