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.
I Ching
The patterns of change in the cosmos read through sixty-four hexagrams — the oldest extant systematic Chinese cosmology
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | I Ching |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Both |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Non-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Curved |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Variable |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| 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
I Ching
The cosmic cycle of change is non-directional in principle: yin and yang alternate, hexagrams transform into other hexagrams, the cycle continues. Local trajectories are real, but the cosmic pattern is cyclic.
Space
I Ching
Heaven and Earth (qian and kun) are the foundational opposed-but-complementary spatial principles. Space is relational, structured by the dynamic of yin and yang.
Matter
I Ching
The ten thousand things arise from the interplay of yin and yang. Matter is relational, conserved across the cycling.
Observer
I Ching
The sage who consults the I Ching is embodied, plural, both active (in interpretation) and passive (in receiving the hexagram). The cosmic ordering works through patterns the sage attends to but does not create.
Energy
I Ching
Qi flows through the hexagrammatic transformations. Variable in distribution, reversible across the cosmic cycle.
Information
I Ching
The hexagrams are discrete informational units; the cosmic patterns they encode are conserved across all transformations. Personal information is not conserved across death.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The I Ching's status as either divination manual or philosophical cosmology has been disputed for over two millennia. The textual layers (Zhouyi core vs Ten Wings) represent fundamentally different intellectual projects, and modern critical scholarship (Shaughnessy, Smith) has emphasised this stratification. Twentieth-century Western reception via Jung and Wilhelm has sometimes psychologised the text in ways its Chinese commentarial tradition did not.