What does the terms “turtles all the way down” and “infinite regress” mean?

Question

What does the terms “turtles all the way down” and “infinite regress” mean?

In: Other

Answer 1

Basically that almost everything has a foundation, and that one thing leads to another.

The original quote is supposedly from an astronomer who was confronted by a woman that claimed the earth existed on the back of a giant turtle, and when asked what was underneath it, responded another turtle, ie “its turtles all the way down”.

So generally if we ask why X, its Y, but then we ask… well why Y, and its Z, and so on.