 This is going to be a short video explaining the logic behind an infinite regress. So first of all, what the heck is an infinite regress and why should we care about it? That term comes up a lot in different fields of thought, especially in philosophy. I'll just give you a simple example of an infinite regress and then you can piece it together. Take any conclusion. It could be a conclusion that, oh, there's a cat sitting on the chair, or, oh, I have two feet, or, oh, the minimum wage causes unemployment. Take any conclusion and abstract away and say, this is conclusion D. We'll call it Proposition D. Somebody comes along and says, well, why do you believe in Proposition D? And you say, well, I believe in Proposition D because of Proposition C. I have reasons for my conclusion as Proposition C. It could be concretely, oh, I believe there's a cat sitting over there because I'm having a perception of a cat sitting over there. And somebody says, well, why do you believe in Proposition C? You say, well, I have Proposition B. And then, of course, I believe in Proposition B because of Proposition A and so on. So the question is this. Can you have an ultimately justified conclusion, conclusion D, with an infinite series of premises behind it? The answer is no, you can't, for simple logical reasons that I'll explain. So you can think of this infinite series of premises leading to this conclusion like a chain. The strength of a chain is determined by each link in that chain. And if you have a weak link, then the strength is not transmitted to the end and you have a broken chain. The same is true for this series of premises. If I have this elaborate series of premises leading to a conclusion and somewhere in the middle, one of my premises is wrong and the conclusion doesn't follow. So with the infinite regress, every link in that chain, every premise that is leading towards this conclusion, is essentially saying the following. This conclusion is fundamentally justified by the accuracy of the conclusion which precedes it. There is no self-evidence in this conclusion. It is 100% dependent on what precedes it. And the chain or the premise which precedes that says the exact same thing, that there is no inherent truth value in this premise. And this premise too is entirely dependent on whether or not the premise before it is true or false. And of course the same is true for that chain and the same is true for that chain and the same is true for that chain. So what an infinite regress means is that ultimately no link in the chain, no premise has its own truth value. No way in that chain of premises do you actually have truth to be transmitted to the end. I'll give you another analogy. It's as if each chain or each premise is a cup that transmits water. So they have this massive chain of cups. And the question is, can you get water transmitted to that final cup from an infinite series of cups? Which one is pouring the water into the one in front of it? And if it's an infinite series, the answer is no, because you have no water to transmit in the first place. By logical necessity of an infinite chain, every single cup is empty. If you ever have water in any of the cups, that implies that at some point you have the truth value to transmit. Which means that that premise is somehow self evidently justified. That the water in the cup or the truth in the premise is not something that's a function of the water in the cup of the premise which preceded it. One more example. Imagine that the truth is represented by the number one. And falseness, or not truth, is represented by a zero, okay? True is one, false is zero. Can it be that you can add up an infinite series of zeros of not true, not necessarily true premises, and end up with a one with truth? You have zero, you have an infinite number of zeros. By logical necessity of what we mean by an infinite regress, an infinite number of zeros. Can you ever get a one? And the answer is no, by definition. So the conclusion is twofold. One, any conclusion which falls into an infinite regress is there's no reason to believe it. There's no truth that could ever be transmitted to that final conclusion. There's no reason to ever believe it. Second of all, if you ever do find a true conclusion, it must be that somewhere in the chain of premises, there is some kind, there is water, if you will. There is some truth, there is some self-evident truth. This is, of course, related to the idea that I keep talking about, which is logical necessity. Eventually, you get to some premises that are like, well, existence is however it is, and things must be how they are. Things which are necessarily true, and that's the kind of reservoir of water from which all of these other conclusions follow. If you like the sound of this logic stuff, do make sure to subscribe and check out some of my other videos on the topic. And if you want to see more videos like this, head over to patreon.com slash Steve Patterson, and you can become a patron of philosophy.