Turtles All the Way – Pramod 113

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Oil on canvas 45”x57”

Most of the early legends predicted a support to the earth
mostly in animal form. Turtle was one of them. What
supports the turtle? “Turtles all the way” was a wise answer
coined by Bertrand Russel.

Paradox of infinite regress is chicken – egg question. What came first? The chicken or the egg? Similar question is what causes what. If there is smoke, there is fire. If there is fire. someone lit it. If someone lit it, someone is there. If someone is there, someone must be cooking. This series of reasoning can be endless.

In cosmology, it was thought that earth needs support. Because earth shakes during earthquakes the support has to be live. Some imagined it to be ox, some thought it could be serpent, a demon, fish etc. Turtle was one of the answers. How does turtle gets supported? On another turtle. Turtles all the way is clever way a saying it is leading to regress of infinite paradox, Bertrand Russel has coined this phrase in his book Why I am not Christian.

Some species of sea turtles hatch their eggs in sand nest near sea shores. It happens so often that the eggs gets hatched simultaneously and thousands of baby turtles emerge out of the nest and reach the sea. The painting Turtles all the way has also been inspired by this event.

Nowadays sea turtles are protected, but it was not far in history that hunters would come and catch several baby turtles. The companion painting of this is related to this situation where hunter is barbecuing the turtles and the world ends with the feast.

Slow and Steady

Second accompanying painting of the series is Slow and Steady. World made a slow and steady progress like turtle going uphill.