Question · Questions from the manuscript
What does what each register forgets change?
Investigate this without forcing a slogan answer. The source passage keeps the evidence, uncertainty, and limits visible.
What this page is for
This question is meant to be investigated, not answered with a slogan. The book passage below keeps the uncertainty visible.
What this does not prove
A useful question can widen the field. It does not guarantee a single correct answer.
The five registers do not form a hierarchy from subjective to objective. The internal register may hold significance and lose chronology; the somatic may hold readiness and lose cause; the social may hold plural witness and lose independence; the institutional may hold procedure and lose lived cost; the digital may hold precision and lose context.
Any one of them can be the strongest available checkpoint for a particular question.
Jonah's memory may be best evidence of what he intended. The traffic video may be best evidence of sequence. The medical image may be best evidence of fracture. Tomas may be best evidence of what was shouted. The officer's report may be best evidence of what the institution initially recorded, which is not necessarily best evidence of the collision.
No register is simply the true archive. The better questions are: What can this register establish? What is it likely to miss? Who controls it? Which other register can check it?