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.
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Gödel's late manuscript ontological argument — modal-logical reconstruction of the Leibnizian argument
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Gödel's Ontological Argument (Late (private manuscript)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Curved |
| 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 | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| 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 | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Gödel's Ontological Argument
c. 1941-1970 composition (Gödel had been thinking about the proof since at least 1941, with substantial development in the 1950s through early 1970s); shown to Dana Scott 1970; published posthumously 1995.
Space
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Gödel kept the proof private throughout his lifetime, sharing it only with a few trusted philosophers (Scott, Tichý) shortly before his 1978 death.
Matter
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Single manuscript page (in the most compressed version). The proof is extraordinarily condensed: roughly a dozen formal lines of S5 modal logic plus a few definitions.
Observer
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Late Gödel. The observer is the same logician who had proven the consistency of AC and GCH (1940) and the incompleteness theorems (1931) — now applying his rigorous formal methods to the philosophical-theological question.
Energy
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Late-philosophical-religious energies. The proof is the most concentrated expression of Gödel's lifelong philosophical-theistic convictions (he described himself in correspondence as a theist).
Information
Gödel's Ontological Argument
Single manuscript page (highly compressed). The proof has been the subject of extensive subsequent analysis, modification, and computer verification.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Gödel's most religiously-charged manuscript; the canonical late-twentieth-century modal-logical ontological argument. Continuously debated since 1995 publication: Sobel's modal-collapse objection, Anderson's modifications, the computer verifications, and the ongoing question of whether the proof is philosophically convincing (technical validity granted) or merely formally interesting.