In order to participate fully in the ‘great conversation,’ you have to believe that it’s going somewhere, and that your contribution carries it (however slightly) forward, and that ultimately it would arrive at the whole Truth if carried forward forever. This belief cannot be based on evidence, not only because much of the conversation hasn’t yet happened, but also because it underwrites our very recognition of what counts as evidence. It’s a matter of faith, like the scientist’s faith that the universe makes sense, that the laws of nature are knowable; or like the singer’s faith in the song, the player’s faith in the play, performing as if it presented the whole moment of truth. This is what belief means in the act of meaning.
In the Great Dialog, the ultimate Truth is what you speak to; yet it’s equally true that you can only speak from the time you are living. So you strive to speak the last word for that time, to bring the Dialog up to date, even though the part of you observing the Dialog knows that your word is only one step along a way that leaves every step behind. You can also be sure that the Dialog will not last forever, and even if it did, no finite mind could ever comprehend its full text, let alone its full context. The whole of which the current conversation is a part is itself only a minute fragment of the greater Whole. Trying to catch the whole sense even of this fragment is realizing that we are like waves carried along the surface of the ocean of Thought.