Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
On Nature (fragments)
The brain is the seat of thought and health is the balance of opposing powers — empirical medicine meets Pythagorean cosmology
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On Nature (fragments) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Implicit |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Fallible |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Variable |
| Information · Granularity | Implicit |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
On Nature (fragments)
Humans "perish because they cannot join the beginning to the end" (B2) — a cyclical cosmic time that humans cannot complete. The heavenly bodies are immortal because their motion is circular and continuous.
Space
On Nature (fragments)
The body is the spatial arena of investigation. Alcmaeon's dissections presuppose a local, three-dimensional space in which organs have definite positions and nerves trace paths.
Matter
On Nature (fragments)
Blood, marrow, brain, food, drink — the physician's matter. Health is material equilibrium; disease is material excess. The isonomia doctrine treats the body as a material system in balance.
Observer
On Nature (fragments)
The observer is an embodied brain. Thought is a physical process located in a physical organ. Knowledge is mediated (through the senses to the brain) and fallible: "of things invisible, only the gods have certainty" (B1).
Energy
On Nature (fragments)
The balance of hot/cold, wet/dry is an energy-like concept. Health is equilibrium; disease is excess. The balance is restorable — energy dispersibility is reversible.
Information
On Nature (fragments)
Understanding (xynesis) is an emergent function of the brain. It arises from perception but exceeds it. Personal information is variable — the soul may be immortal, but the fragments leave this uncertain.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The tension between empirical method (dissection, observation) and Pythagorean cosmological commitments (the soul as always-moving, the table of opposites) is never resolved. Is the balance-of-opposites an empirical finding or a metaphysical imposition? The fragments do not say.