Infinite Regress Quotes

Ergo, while the Argument from Design appears to be a nice, neat answer to account for the presence of a multifarious Universe, the truth is that it backfires on itself, shifting the need for an explanation back and back and back…and back…without end, without resolution. This is called an infinite regress, and its presence in the logic of the argument fails to prove the existence of God; if anything, it reveals that the idea of a designer is patently ridiculous, even more so than a godless Cosmos. The argument therefore answers nothing; it merely moves the mystery of origins to an even higher level, demanding that the Creator have his own Creator. ~ Michael Vito Tosto

Philosopher William Lane Craig reminds us that an infinite regress of causes is like trying to jump out of a bottomless pit. How do you start if you never reach the bottom? On the other hand, one might well ask, if every birth is a rebirth, what kamma was paid for in his first birth? ~ Ravi Zacharias

If there are no self-evident first principles, as a foundation for reasoning to conclusions that are not immediately apparent, how can you construct any kind of a philosophy? If you have to prove even the basic axioms of your metaphysics, you will never have a metaphysics, because you will never have any strict proof of anything, for your first proof will involve you in an infinite regress, proving that you are proving what you are proving and so on, into the exterior darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Descartes thought it was necessary to prove his own existence by the fact that he was thinking, and that his though therefore existed in some subject, how did he prove that he was thinking in the first place? But as to the second step, that God must exist because Descartes had a clear idea of him – that never convinced me, then or at any other time, or now either. There are much better proofs for the existence of God than that one. ~ Thomas Merton

I understand the mechanism of my own thinking. I know precisely how I know, and my understanding is recursive. I understand the infinite regress of this self-knowing, not by proceeding step by step endlessly, but by apprehending the limit. The nature of recursive cognition is clear to me. A new meaning of the term "self-aware."

Fiat logos. I know my mind in terms of a language more expressive than any I'd previously imagined. Like God creating order from chaos with an utterance, I make myself anew with this language. It is meta-self-descriptive and self-editing; not only can it describe thought, it can describe and modify its own operations as well, at all levels. What Gödel would have given to see this language, where modifying a statement causes the entire grammar to be adjusted.

With this language, I can see how my mind is operating. I don't pretend to see my own neurons firing; such claims belong to John Lilly and his LSD experiments of the sixties. What I can do is perceive the gestalts; I see the mental structures forming, interacting. I see myself thinking, and I see the equations that describe my thinking, and I see myself comprehending the equations, and I see how the equations describe their being comprehended.

I know how they make up my thoughts.

These thoughts. ~ Ted Chiang

The claim that there cannot be an infinite regress of contingent ontological causes raises a truly difficult challenge to pure materialism; but to imagine that it can be extended to undermine the claim that there must be an absolute ontological cause is to fall prey to an obvious category error. ~ David Bentley Hart

If God does not exist, then there is an infinite regress.But infinite regresses are impossible.Therefore, God must exist. ~ Anonymous

Consciousness itself is an infinite regress. This explains coincidences. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

I interrupted. "Okay, that points toward a Creator, but does it tell us much about him?" "Actually, yes, it does," Craig replied. "We know this supernatural cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being." "What's the basis of your conclusions?" "It must be uncaused because we know that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless, at least without the universe, because it was the creator of time. In addition, because it also created space, it must transcend space and therefore be immaterial rather than physical in nature. ~ Lee Strobel

Some people would much prefer the infinite regress of mysteries, apparently, but in this day and age the cost is prohibitive: you have to get yourself deceived. You can either deceive yourself or let others do the dirty work, but there is no intellectually defensible way of rebuilding the mighty barriers to comprehension that Darwin smashed. (p.25) ~ Daniel C. Dennett

As many critics of religion have pointed out, the notion of a creator poses an immediate problem of an infinite regress. If God created the universe, what created God? To say that God, by definition, is uncreated simply begs the question. Any being capable of creating a complex world promises to be very complex himself. As the biologist Richard Dawkins has observed repeatedly, the only natural process we know of that could produce a being capable of designing things is evolution. ~ Sam Harris

The embodied soul is eternal in existence, indestructible, and infinite, only the material body is factually perishable, therefore fight O Arjuna. ~ Anonymous

life is simply a vacation from the infinite ~ Dean Cavanagh

A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls. ~ Walt Whitman

There was something about playing with the same building blocks that invited encore after encore. What was that something? My guess is that it was the fact that we were interacting with other human beings, not with machines. We were tapping into infinite richness of human sense and emotions, challenging our imagination and human competitiveness, rather than the staccato rhythms and predictable rewards of programmed games. ~ Ralph Nader

As our planet takes action to cast out its manmade poisons and heal its man-caused wounds, many human inhabitants will no doubt give way to fear. Many will cling to seemingly powerful we're-God's-chosen-people religions, hoping that by so doing they will be saved from the wrath of a Vengeful God (not recognizing that the approaching "vengeance" will in reality be man's own actions coming back at him - and not recognizing that the Infinite Universal Power is far more than the narrow-minded gatekeeper of an exclusive Spiritual Country Club). ~ Benjamin Hoff

Saying that, he was suddenly himself again, despite his lunatic hair and eyes: a man whose personal dignity went so deep as to be nearly invisible ...
It was more than diginity. Integrity? Wholeness? Like a block of wood not carved.
The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

If our best efforts come to nothing often enough, we need consolation, and thoughts of unfolding, infinite destiny, or karma , are sometimes consoling. ~ Simon Blackburn

Likewise, however little man, in living, demands as just to himself, his duty toward justice remains infinite. The right to live cannot be paid by finite labour, only by infinite activity.
Because you participate in the violence of all things, all of this violence is part of your debt to justice. All of your activity must go toward eradicating this: to give everything and demand nothing; this is the duty - where duties and rights may be, I do not know. ~ Carlo Michelstaedter

The answer is simple: if you cannot find meaning inherent in life right now, as you live it in this visible world, the addition of an infinite amount more of the same isn't about to somehow make it any more meaningful! Add a whole string of zeroes to a zero and watch what happens. ~ Robert M. Price

The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just what particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation. ~ Stephen G. Breyer

The ability to reason the un-reason which has afflicted by reason saps my ability to reason, so that I complain with good reason of your infinite loveliness. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

[the writer] must copy, with his finite mind, the process of the infinite 'I AM. ~ John Gardner

Meditation is the progressive quieting of our mind, until we reach the source of thought, which in wisdom traditions are the realm of our soul and spirit. In this domain of awareness there is infinite creativity, synchronicity, the power of intention, and freedom from limitations. ~ Deepak Chopra

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. ~ John Green

It was certainly not by design that the particles fell into order, they did not work out what they were going to do, but because many of them by many chances struck one another in the course of infinite time and encountered every possible form and movement, that they found at last the disposition they have, and that is how the universe was created. ~ Lucretius

The smallest thing by the influence of eternity is made infinite and eternal. We pass through a standing continent or region of ages, that are already ebfore us, glorious and perfect while we come to them. Like men in a ship we pass forward, the shores and marks seeming to go backward, though we move and they stand still. We are not with them in our progressive motion, but prevent the swiftness of our course, and are present with them in our understandings. Like the sun we dart our rays before us, and occupy those spaces with light and contemplation which we move towards, but possess not with our bodies. And seeing all things in the light of Divine knowledge, eternally serving God, rejoice unspeakable in that service, and enjoy it all. ~ Thomas Traherne

The film industry is a great industry with infinite possibilities for good and bad. Its primary purpose is to entertain people. On the side, it can do many other things. It can popularize certain ideals, it can make education palatable. But in the long run, the judge who decides whether what it does is good or bad is the man or woman who attends the movies. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

He found himself thinking that maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other - maybe they're also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long.
And Colin thought: Because like say I tell someone about my feral hog hunt. Even if it's a dumb story, telling it changes other people just the slightest little bit, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change. And that infinitesimal change ripples outward - ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter - maybe less than a lot, but always more than some. ~ John Green

The world of imagination is the world of eternity. ~ William Blake

Those who have overcome self-will and become instruments to do God's work can accomplish tasks which are seemingly impossible, but they experience no feeling of self achievement. I now know myself to be a part of the infinite cosmos, not separate from other souls or God. My illusory self is dead; the real self controls the garment of clay and uses it for God's work. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Knowledge is unsettled by the idea of power. We see how it works in the worlds of business and politics, and we suspect that it works the same in the spiritual world. We presume it's a gift for the exceptional and the few. She can do it, but we cannot, people might say to themselves. He is the chosen one; I am not. He's a master, but I can never be. We have become masters of what we are not. We have made ourselves vulnerable to the belief that others have greater power than we do, because we won't acknowledge the power of us - the truth of us. Power, to the world-dream, is something small and self-serving. Power, from the point of view of creation, is infinite and selfless. ~ Miguel Ruiz

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect that private men enjoy! And what have kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? ~ William Shakespeare

Let the will embrace the highest ideals freely and with infinite strength, but let action first take hold of what lies closest. ~ Franz Grillparzer

To recite my poems to an audience is to be slapped awake by my limitations. I confront the infinite chasm between the audience's conception of Poet and the underwhelming evidence of me as that poet. I just don't look the part. Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space. We don't even have enough presence to be considered real minorities. We're not racial enough to be token. We're so post-racial we're silicon. ~ Cathy Park Hong

What is causing this mysterious perpetual air of inconvenience to slowly engulf the evening. It is not merely emptiness but an awakening in itself about nothingness.
Leave behind what was never yours and accept the fact that momentary pleasures and hideous treasures will perish too soon; so will your pride be snatched away by nothing. Mathematicians often say an instance tends to infinity. But, in actual sense, is anything even close to infinity?
Nullify yourself and disappear into zero, for that is what we call the beginning; the beginning of the end. ~ Ranjani Ramachandran

This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something - someone - worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him. ~ David Platt

For a long time now I'd been able to tell from the set of her shoulders if she was tense; but the way she'd left the door ajar indicated that she wanted company. There was a familiarity between us that seemed infinite, like two mirrors reflecting one another. ~ Benedict Wells

The gradations are infinite and the silliest mistake of all is to define people by their material possessions. It's even worse if people define themselves by money. When ~ Rita Mae Brown

As you take steps to expand your awareness, you will naturally find yourself harnessing your mind's infinite power to create greater health, happiness, and love in your life. ~ Deepak Chopra

Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. ~ Victor Hugo

Death may be peaceful but the circumstances leading to it are more often than not anything but. They slept that day with their eyes open, with death as the companion of their dreams. Maybe you would like to imagine that they were looking at each other, heads twisted at grotesque angles or at the fading sun.
Their bodies were just empty vessels and their eyes were windows that showed only a vacant home. Maybe it was because they had passed on into a world where the sun never set or maybe even a world where nothing existed but an infinite pool of darkness. You can choose to believe anything you want up to the time Death comes for you. After that, well, we can only imagin ~ Shitij Sharma

When we try to understand something, more often than not, we kill it, and now I can feel the dangers of this encroaching on me: cynicism, bitterness, and infinite sadness...It's impossible to live if you're too aware, too thoughtful. Take nature for example: everything that lives happily and too a ripe old age is not very intelligent. Tortoises live for centuries, water's immortal, and Milton Friedman's still alive. ~ Martin Page

Trying again is okay. Trying again and again and again is okay. It's sort of an infinite thing because the alternative is failure, and that's not okay. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! ~ Maria Mitchell

And when it becomes a matter of infinite importance to us, we're beginning to grasp the heart of leading worship. ~ Bob Kauflin

The use of method as the criterion of science abolishes theoretical relevance. As a consequence, all propositions concerning facts will be promoted to the dignity of science, regardless of their relevance, as long as they result from a correct use of method. Since the ocean of facts is infinite, a prodigious expansion of science in the sociological sense becomes possible, giving employment to scientistic technicians and leading to the fantastic accumulation of irrelevant knowledge through huge "research projects" whose most interesting features is the quantifiable expense that has gone into their production. ~ Eric Voegelin