This document was found in the libraries of the Mage Guild hidden among the texts in the Epistemology section.

Part 1: In Search of the Generic Being

It is very strange to consider that without the perception of being, things would be nothing. Although I think I have gotten ahead of myself a bit, so I will try to explain the origin of this conclusion that I reached.

Consider the following: if no one perceives the book I am holding, would that book exist? Clearly, it would, because I perceive it. But what if I were blind? I could still verify its existence through touch. Of course, the existence of the book would be indubitable in this case, although the subject matter of the book would not be present in my consciousness. The act of being at hand that the book allows me to exercise when it is in sight is lost as soon as I cannot meet the requirements it demands. This book becomes hostile to me, denying me entry to its entity, allowing me to glimpse its potential charm like a child watching a cake cool on the window. This book then becomes an object-book, a kind of generic being encompassing the book whose being is in question.

What knowledge does this book in my hands hold? Well, as long as I deny you, my dear readers, the privilege of knowing this information (for it is only that), the book as a specific being does not exist in this discursive universe of which I am the supreme ruler. Or can you tell me if this book I am holding exists and if I am truly holding it, or is it merely a saying?

As long as the text in question remains in this dubious, or non-collapsed state of existence, it simply exists as a generic being. For the book is, even in this discursive universe, since I refer to it as "is." What "being" is its being? It will only be generic as long as it remains in the category of book, a genre encompassing a plethora of similar beings in description.

Does this mystical generic being truly "exist"? Clearly, essences are only divided into subordinate genera and species, that is, beings are only specified further as we delve into these genera and species. There is no such thing as a pure being in reality, but animals, plants, minerals, to name a few, and the being of these genera is subordinated into even more specific branches. It does not seem that there is an essence that encompasses them all, yet being is predicated of each and every one of them equally. The being of an animal, the being of a plant, the being of a fungus, the being of a mineral. For all, it is the same "being." Following this line, then the existence of something like a generic book must be feasible. A book that in its genre is generic of its species or in its species.

Part 2: The Path to Nothingness

Having proven the existence of a generic being "book," it would be necessary to demonstrate how we access it. For this, we must understand the two ways by which we manage to glimpse or capture beings and possibly the beings themselves (if I were truly bold), these are the positive way and the negative way.

Through the positive way, it could not be that we encompass the generic being, because we would be adding properties to it, that is, we would make it specific. Although it could be said that the copies of the treatise in question make it one among many copies, only one of those treatises is on my desk right now, and only this treatise has the pattern of wear from the use I gave it, which makes it specific again.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Now, this generic being could only then be discovered through the negative way, that is, by removing the things that are not in its genre. But the way this is achieved in research is through the information we manage to elucidate about that thing, based on our possibilities. Then, when I see this hard-covered codex, with golden edges, and the title engraved in the same leather, I can say that I am seeing a book, with those characteristics, of a certain number of pages, dealing with certain topics, and titled "On the Nature of Magic," written by Trinitas. But as mentioned before, if I lose my senses, all the characteristics described above will not be accessible to me. What will happen to them then? Do they simply cease to exist because no one can perceive them? I say this because now the text itself, along with everything that lies in my study, mixes into a sort of amorphous conglomerate that would be nothing, with my consciousness being the only thing that exists for sure.

Thanks to the negative way, we manage to find the most generic being of all, nothingness itself, which as soon as I evoke its name on these pages, I lose in the definition loaded with meanings that the word "nothing" possesses.

Part 3: Conclusion

From all this, we can draw two clear conclusions:

1. Nothingness underlies all the possibilities of beings that lie within its nonexistent and unfathomable field, for it goes beyond everything we could comprehend.

2. Beings, as objects-in-nothingness, require rational beings like humans to perpetuate their specificity in the fields encompassed in nothingness, otherwise, their specific being would cease to be in favor of their generic being, which would encompass everything.

To understand this second point, think of a story, the contents of which no one knows. All the actions of the characters lying there would not exist. Those presumed characters who are but are not would not even be stuck in an eternal return to the same actions. This is because, in that case, my mind that conceives their adventures would make them possible, but by not having them present, they will not exist in the world, and the story as a story would not exist, but rather as a mere book in the library. I would like my readers to place or think of a book in their libraries whose contents escape them, and then one whose contents they know quite certainly. When seeing the second book, all the content of that book should appear in your world of significations, turning it into that specific book of stories, for example, with its characters going on their adventures over and over again, while you see the story in the library, making that world part of yours.

In contrast, the unknown book does not evoke more than those accidents that our senses reveal to us, provoking a void of meaning on its part within our world of significations. In the case of it being a story, our mind could not merge our horizons with those of that literary universe, turning the story into a mute voice trying to penetrate the void.

Finally, think if a text in its specificity could exist in a world of pure animals incapable of even understanding what that "I don't know what" that presents itself to me is. Clearly, that entity would not refer to anything and would mean nothing, being then a generic being nothing, an entity dissolved in the nothingness of insignificance or incommensurability.

It is finally concluded that the specific being requires constant updating by those who can place it in their worlds of signification, otherwise, it dissolves into nothingness like a balloon that so desires to go up, only prevented by the hand of the child who holds it.