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Does it distinguish a ''wantonly'' blank page from one whose lack of content came about from a feebler conviction ([[recklessness]],<ref>in that the author apprehended the risk the page would be bare and took it anyway.</ref> for example, or [[negligence]])?<ref>In that a reasonable person in the author’s position would have realised there was a risk the page would be blank</ref> Could the redundant page have been overlooked through no cognitive operation, actual or constructive, on the author’s part at all? | Does it distinguish a ''wantonly'' blank page from one whose lack of content came about from a feebler conviction ([[recklessness]],<ref>in that the author apprehended the risk the page would be bare and took it anyway.</ref> for example, or [[negligence]])?<ref>In that a reasonable person in the author’s position would have realised there was a risk the page would be blank</ref> Could the redundant page have been overlooked through no cognitive operation, actual or constructive, on the author’s part at all? | ||
Agonising over the writer’s [[mens rea]] obscures a better question: WHO CARES? What difference does it make ''why'' the page is blank? It ''is'' blank: that is a brute existential fact<ref>Or would be, had you not written that very thing on the page to contradict yourself. See below.</ref> | Agonising over the writer’s [[mens rea]] obscures a better question: WHO CARES? What difference does it make ''why'' the page is blank? It ''is'' blank: that is a brute existential fact.<ref>Or would be, had you not written that very thing on the page to contradict yourself. See below.</ref> | ||
A [[ | A [[legal eagle|diligent student]] pipes up from the back: “But, why, can’t you see? A blank page is an omission. It is a ''failure'' to say something. A fellow can infringe her [[neighbour]]’s rights by omission just as well as she can by action.” | ||
Just so. But the semantic content of an empty page is null. It is neither action not omission, but a formless void. It is inert. It is neither [[alpha]] nor [[omega]], nor anything between. It lacks the divine breath of a creator. It conveys no premise and permits no conclusion of [[any type, kind or nature]]. An ''omission'' to say this or that cannot be imprisoned within the margins of an empty page but is universal, inhabiting every page, however densely entexted, on which that thing is not said; riding every honeyed breath upon which that utterance does not pass. | Just so. But the semantic content of an empty page is null. It is neither action not omission, but a formless void. It is inert. It is neither [[alpha]] nor [[omega]], nor anything between. It lacks the divine breath of a creator. It conveys no premise and permits no conclusion of [[any type, kind or nature]]. An ''omission'' to say this or that cannot be imprisoned within the margins of an empty page but is universal, inhabiting every page, however densely entexted, on which that thing is not said; riding every honeyed breath upon which that utterance does not pass. | ||