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 Selfish Gene
Genes are the units of selection — and bodies are vehicles by which genes propagate themselves
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Selfish Gene |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| 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 | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| 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 | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Selfish Gene
Real evolutionary time — billions of years of gene-level selection. Linear and unidirectional.
Space
The Selfish Gene
Standard physical space; not theorised philosophically.
Matter
The Selfish Gene
Real, substantival. Genes are physical molecules (DNA segments). Conserved at the standard biological level.
Observer
The Selfish Gene
The Dawkinsian observer is the embodied human animal — plural, active, with no metaphysical agency. Moral authority is reason.
Energy
The Selfish Gene
Standard thermodynamic-biological energetics. Irreversibly entropic at the local level.
Information
The Selfish Gene
Genes are units of information; information is substantival, discrete, conserved across generations (with variation). Personal information not conserved across death.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Selfish Gene's "selfish" rhetoric is often misread as endorsing ethical egoism; Dawkins responds in the 2006 introduction and elsewhere that the title refers to genes, not organisms, and that the book argues against ethical egoism. The relation between gene-level selection and higher-level phenomena (group selection, multi-level selection) has been the central debate in evolutionary biology since 1976.