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.
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Vanity of vanities — all is vanity; the most searching meditation on meaninglessness in the Hebrew Bible
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | not engaged |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Cyclical: "What has been will be again … there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). God's time is infinite — "He has made everything beautiful in its time" (3:11) — but human time is finite and relentless.
Space
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
The world "under the sun" is finite, substantival, three-dimensional — rivers, wind, the sea, the court.
Matter
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
"All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return" (3:20) — non-conserved; matter dissolves at death.
Observer
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Qohelet is the paradigmatic active, embodied observer who has tried everything and found knowledge partial: "no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end" (3:11). Personal metaphysical agency: God is personal but inscrutable.
Energy
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Divine creative power sustains the natural cycles (sun, wind, rivers) — infinite, conserved, reversible.
Information
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Wisdom is substantival and conserved as tradition, but personal information is not conserved: "there is no remembrance of former things" (1:11); "the dead know nothing" (9:5).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The tension between "all is vanity" and "fear God and keep his commandments" — between radical disillusionment and pious submission — is the engine of the book. Whether the epilogue resolves or merely suppresses this tension has been debated for two millennia.