0:00 If you say the sun came up over Clinch Mountain this morning, is that true because the rock got warm, or because we all agree to call it daylight?0:10 Ey up, Earl.0:11 Right out of the gate with the heavy boots on.0:14 Well, Bridget, last week we wrestled with pulling that trolley lever to trade one life for five, trying to weigh right against wrong.0:24 But this morning, sitting here watching the fog lift off the creek, I got stuck on summat even further back up the line: what does it even mean for a thing to be TRUE?0:36 Ooh, that is a proper knot, love.0:39 Most folks would say truth is just looking out the kitchen window and checking if it's raining on the cabbages.0:47 If your coat gets wet, it's raining.0:49 Simple as that.0:50 That's what the book-learning folks call the correspondence theory.0:55 Statement matches the dirt.0:57 If I say there is a four-pound crappie sitting under that willow branch yonder, and you drop a trotline and pull up that exact fish, then my words matched the world.1:09 It feels solid.1:10 It feels like iron rail laid on oak ties.1:13 Aye, but life isn't all cabbages and fish, is it?1:17 What about when you say someone was cruel, or when my old Auntie Maud swore down that her house had a friendly ghost in the pantry?1:26 You can't weigh a ghost on the butcher's scales.1:30 No, ma'am, you sure can't.1:32 And that is where the track splits.1:34 Because another bunch of thinkers say truth isn't about matching some bare rock out in the woods.1:41 It's about coherence.1:43 Whether an idea fits into the whole web of everything else we already know without snapping the threads.1:51 Like a giant jigsaw.1:52 If a new piece slides right into the sky part, smooth and snug, we call it true because it belongs with the rest of the picture.2:01 Exactly.2:02 But you see the trouble there, don't you?2:05 A tale can hold together tighter than a drum, every lie fitting the next one neat as a pin, and still be flat wrong about what's actually out there in the holler.2:17 Like a really good bedtime story that makes complete sense until you wake up.2:22 Mm-hmm.2:23 That's the danger of the web.2:25 It can trap you inside itself.2:27 Well, what about just asking what works, Earl?2:30 Down in Whitby, if the harbour master says the tide is turning, fishermen don't care about grand theories.2:38 If his words keep the coble boats off the rocks, that's truth enough for them.2:44 Now that's the pragmatist way.2:46 William James talked about the cash value of an idea.2:50 Truth is whatever pays out in real life, whatever guides your boots across the creek without you slipping on green moss.2:59 But Bridget, hang on a second.3:01 If a doctor gives a sick child a sugar pill, and believes it's medicine, and the fever drops...3:08 does that make the sugar pill a real antibiotic?3:11 Oh...3:12 see, now that stings a bit.3:14 It worked, but it was still a white lie, wasn't it?3:17 That's the rub.3:18 If truth is only what's useful, then a comforting fairy tale beats a hard, cold fact every day of the week.3:26 And I don't reckon any of us want to live in a world where power gets to decide what's true just because it keeps the wheels turning smooth.3:36 It makes you wonder what we're actually hunting for, doesn't it?3:41 Are we looking for something eternal carved in granite, or just a set of rules that lets us sit by the fire without quarrelling?3:50 I tell you what, that question keeps me rocking out here past sundown.3:55 If truth is just whatever our little tribe agrees on, we lose any ground to stand on when things go bad.4:03 But if it's completely out of our reach, cold and distant, then how can any of us ever claim we found it?4:11 Maybe it's not a prize you put on the mantelpiece, chuck.4:15 Maybe truth is just the promise to keep looking, even when the fog rolls in thick.4:21 Right then, love, snuggle down.4:23 Well.4:23 That is about the size of it.
