Not far from Big Goose Pagoda built in the Tang Dynasty (大雁塔, Da Ci'en ...) lies hyper-modern Xi'an.
We spotted this triple turtle model while biking in the area and decided to stop. It reminded us of the turtle we scanned the day before at the Great Mosque, but it conveyed something more complex.
Because of its triple structure, this public sculpture is also reminiscent of an anecdote associated with philosophers Bertrand Russel in collective imagination.
Lack of proof generally prevent one from being too assertive on the matter.
The story goes as follows : a great philosopher makes a great public lecture and addresses issues related to cosmology and the structure of the solar system.
At the end of the lecture, a middle-aged lady challenges his theory, and claims that the Earth is not floating in space, but rather situated on the back of a gigantic turtle.
The philosopher, sarcastically, asks the lady : all right. But in this case, what's below the giant turtle ?
The legendary lady responds : "Below ? It's turtles all the way down, sir."
According to the worldwide web and its search engines, "the first publication of "turtles all the way down" is attributed to Joseph Berg in 1854".
The story is famous in Western Philosophy as an illustration of the issue of infinite regression.
However, it bears strong resemblance with Hindu mythology, according to which the earth is supported by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle.
The Hindu deity Vishnu was reincarnated as the turtle Kachhapa that carried the weight of the world on its back.
