Infinite Regress: The Engine of Collapse

Elizabeth Halligan
Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: Sep 8

Ever heard of the term infinite regress? You should know it. It’s the most concise way to explain why reality feels like it’s collapsing with no way out.

In philosophy, it describes a chain of reasoning that never reaches a foundation. In computing, it’s recursion without a base case, a program calling itself forever until it crashes. And in systems theory, it’s the vicious cycle: positive feedback loops that feed on themselves until breakdown occurs. What begins as logic becomes lived reality.

The Fractal Loops We Live In

These loops appear everywhere, at every scale:

Philanthropy: Billionaires give just enough to keep the system going, while the structures that cause suffering remain untouched. It's good PR, but there's no real change, inequity deepens and widens.
Capitalism: Growth demanded to feed infinte growth. The loop is the engine and the cage.
Culture Wars: Outrage feeds outrage. Reaction feeds reaction. Nothing resolves. Capitalism and politics need the cycle to keep attention for engagement.
Geopolitics: Retaliation cycles: Israel-Palestine, endless wars, blood for blood. Infinite cycles of bloodshed is the result.
Healthcare in the U.S.: A “sick care” system that treats symptoms, not causes. More pills, more profits, more patients, forever. The system perpetuates a sicker society everyday.
Trauma: Pain loops through generations, replayed by those who cannot resolve it.
Climate Change: Infinite debate and delay, even as the crisis worsens.

Philosophers note that not every infinite regress is destructive. Some, like mathematical series or knowledge networks, are benign, even creative. But the vicious regresses, the ones with no feedback, no adaptation, no exit, breed stagnation and collapse.

Why We Get Stuck: The Neurological Trap

The reason isn’t just structural. It is a neurological phenomenon.

The amygdala, the brain’s survival sentinel, is designed to prefer repetition. A repeating loop, no matter how dysfunctional, feels safer than the unknown. Any “friction” that might break the cycle is registered as threat.

Then the Default Mode Network (DMN) steps in. Its job is to weave identity. When the amygdala vetoes change, the DMN supplies a story to make the paralysis feel rational: “this is just how things are. This is who I am. This is what’s safe.”

The result is a trauma-adapted operating system. Instead of adapting forward, we adapt around. These loops aren’t just fallacies we tell ourselves. They’re the predictable outputs of brains on autopilot, fueled by unintegrated trauma.

Entropy as Story

Here’s the scientific bridge: entropy.

In physics, entropy is disorder. In life, it’s stagnation. Newton’s first law tells us an object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an outside force. Same with human systems.

But physics doesn’t just describe reality. It tells stories about it. And one story has dominated: the universe is doomed to “heat death.”

That story, of inevitable decay of reality, seeps into culture. A society convinced that collapse is inevitable will live it out. Fatalism itself becomes an infinite regress.

Evolution as the Base Case

The key to shifting this is realizing that consciousness itself is the base case.

In computational terms, becoming the base case means stepping outside recursion and engaging in backpropagation: looking at the loop’s output, integrating the feedback, and rewriting the code.

Neurologically, it means bridging the prefrontal cortex back to the amygdala, choosing awareness over autopilot. This is trauma integration: feeling what was once unbearable, metabolizing it, dissolving the loop.

Entropy isn’t the enemy of evolution. It’s the raw material. Collapse isn’t just decay, it’s compost. At the peak of chaos, new order can begin, if and only if consciousness steps in.

Building New Base Cases

History shows this is possible. Martin Luther King Jr. interrupted cycles of retaliation by choosing radical nonviolence, placing conscious practice as the base case for a new social order.

In personal life, recovery from trauma means sensing the survival loop, then daring to feel what the amygdala calls “danger”, using friction as fuel for change.

And no one rewrites the code alone. Societies, movements, and families must build shared practices, rituals of integration, feedback, and reflection. This is how communities become collective base cases for evolution.