The surveyor's guide to reality

There is a fundamental difference between two questions we often confuse. The first is: What is truth? The second is: What is true in this specific case? The first question is surprisingly easy to answer: Truth is simply the correspondence of the mind with reality. The second question—the one that requires us to get our boots dirty - is the “hard” question. It is the work of the surveyor, the researcher, and the writer.

As I look at the landscape of the American West, particularly the stretch of California State Route 46 I’ve been documenting ¹, I find that “finding the truth” requires a specific set of tools.

The Surveyor’s Toolkit: Axioms and Perception # #

To determine what is true, we rely on two different types of foundations, as Aristotle first laid out.

First, there are self-evident truths (axioms). These are things that are true by their very nature, such as the principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time. If my map says a bridge exists at a specific coordinate, but my eyes see an empty ravine, both cannot be true. One is a “Royce Liar” - a misplaced predicate of reality.

Second, there are truths of perception (matters of fact). These are the details we gather through direct observation. For a landscape photographer or a researcher, this is the “ground truth.” It doesn’t matter what the consensus is or what a digital model predicts; if the lens captures a specific geological formation or a decayed structure, that is a matter of fact that must be reckoned with.

Consistency is Not Enough # #

One of the greatest traps in both digital research and creative writing is the lure of “coherence.” It is possible to build a mental model that is perfectly consistent - where every piece fits together logically - and yet have that model be entirely false because it fails to correspond to the actual ground.

A map can be beautifully drawn, internally consistent, and mathematically precise, but if it doesn’t match the territory, it is useless for navigation. This is why we, as “surveyors” must constantly check the internal logic of the project against the external reality of the field.

Writing as an Act of Public Inquiry # #

Truth is not a private possession. It belongs to no one and, at the same time, it is a public matter. Truth is often the outcome of the exchange of ideas.

The act of documenting a place - whether through long-form writing, photography, or cinematic animations - is an act of inquiry. It is an attempt to reduce my own ignorance and move toward a shared grasp of reality. By publishing these observations, the goal isn’t just to share an “opinion” or a “perspective,” but to contribute to a public record of what is actually there.

The Immutable Ground # #

The road doesn’t care about our political discourse or our algorithmic probabilities. The 115 miles of CA-46 remain what they are, regardless of how we choose to represent them.

Truth is immutable. People change their minds, and societies pass from knowledge to error and back again, but the truth of the matter itself does not shift. Our job - as writers, thinkers, and citizens - is to ensure our minds are the ones doing the shifting, moving ever closer to a correspondence with the world as it truly is.