Turtles (a joke)

[Guaranteed]

Probably my favorite joke of all time (next to the one about the shrink and the naked guy):

A Westerner went to the mysterious East to find out the meaning of life and Earth's true place in the universe. The man climbed up a high mountain, where an Eastern sage sat in a cave, meditating. After a respectful wait, the Westerner asked, "oh, Sage, can you tell me? What is Earth's true place in the universe?"

The Sage replied, "The Earth stands on the back of the Great Earth Turtle."

"Aha!" said the Westerner. "And what does the Great Earth Turtle stand on?"

"The Great Earth Turtle stands on the back of the Great Universal Turtle."

"Hmmmm!" mused the Westerner. "And, oh, Sage, what does the Great Universal Turtle stand on?"

The Sage replied, "These are very perceptive questions, mister, but they'll do you no good. It's turtles all the way down."

-A Treasury of Humor

[foo_bar]

1. wait, Stephen Hawking didn't write that joke?

On edit: nevermind:
http://www.the-funneled-web.com/Hawking.htm

[Guaranteed]

2. Not sure who wrote it originally, but

this version is from this book edited by Eric W. Johnson. I just like this version better.

Yeah, it's an old one.

[hfojvt]

3. I thought Carl Sagan told it in the first person

Russell was not an astronomer was he?

[foo_bar]

4. it's not an astronomy joke per se

Given the meaning indicated by the OP, I think aldi's got it. The story he (and happydog, and xsjsx) refer to is pretty widespread, and predates Hawking's Brief History. I know Sagan used it, and I'm pretty sure that Hofstader and Asimov did too. (I wonder if Dr. Seuss heard it somewhere, before he put Yertle so high in the air.) It's sometimes invoked to symbolize a putatively infinite regression of ever-more-profound structure underlying the universe, as in:
matter is made of atoms
atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons
protons and neutrons are made of quarks
quarks are made of...?
...

http://p098.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm1.showMessage?topicID=11840.topic

[Guaranteed]

5. Bingo.

I actually interpret the point of the joke being that the method itself is flawed.