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.
The Ancestor's Tale
Dawkins's 2004 evolutionary-pilgrimage — backward from contemporary humans through forty rendezvous to the origin of life
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Ancestor's Tale (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Bi-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Variable |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Ancestor's Tale
The 4-billion-year evolutionary time-scale.
Space
The Ancestor's Tale
The biological-evolutionary setting; the global geography of evolutionary history.
Matter
The Ancestor's Tale
The biological lineages whose evolutionary history the book traces.
Observer
The Ancestor's Tale
The proper-naturalist-evolutionary scientist as proper subject.
Energy
The Ancestor's Tale
The selective-evolutionary energies across geological time.
Information
The Ancestor's Tale
The cumulative-genetic content of evolutionary heredity across the tree of life.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Ancestor's Tale has been universally cited as major popular-evolutionary synthesis; the 2016 revised edition with Yan Wong updates specific evolutionary-biological claims in light of more recent research.