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.
Yoga Sutras
Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind (yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ) — the eightfold path leads to liberating samādhi
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Yoga Sutras |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Space · Curvature | Undefined |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| 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 | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Yoga Sutras
Time is the medium of mental modifications (vṛtti) and of karmic accumulation. The yogi works to still the flux of mind and to burn the seeds of future karma; liberation is precisely the cessation of further temporal becoming. Saṃsāra is the cyclic field; kaivalya is the stepping out of it.
Space
Yoga Sutras
Not theorised geometrically; the meditative space of the practitioner is the inner field of consciousness, analysed in great detail. The siddhis (extraordinary powers) of Chapter 3 include various forms of non-local awareness (clairvoyance, knowledge at a distance) that imply a non-Newtonian conception of spatial relation.
Matter
Yoga Sutras
Prakṛti — the material-mental flux — is substantival in the Sāṃkhya sense. Real, conserved across transformations, three-dimensional. The yogi does not deny matter's reality; he disidentifies from it.
Observer
Yoga Sutras
The Patañjalic observer is the puruṣa — pure consciousness, witness, distinct from all the modifications of prakṛti. Observer Number is Plural (each puruṣa is distinct, against Advaita's singular Self); the practitioner is embodied in this life but realises his identity with disembodied consciousness in liberating samādhi. Knowledge is total in principle at samādhi. Moral authority is tradition — the line of ṛṣis whose practical knowledge is transmitted.
Energy
Yoga Sutras
Prāṇa is the central energetic principle — the vital breath whose regulation is one of the eight limbs. Variable in distribution within the practitioner's subtle body, reversible across the in-breath and out-breath, substantival in its own right.
Information
Yoga Sutras
Karmic-saṃskāric impressions are the relational informational structure carried across lives. Personal information is conserved: the karma carries forward until the seeds are burned by samādhi. Information is discrete in the sense that distinct samskaras are distinct deposits.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Yoga Sutras are dualist (puruṣa and prakṛti are genuinely two), but the practical instructions overlap almost completely with the meditative manuals of metaphysically incompatible traditions — Advaita non-dualism, Buddhist no-self, Jain pluralism. Whether this is because the metaphysical claims are secondary to the transformative practice, or because the metaphysics is genuinely separable from the technique, has been disputed since Vyāsa's sixth-century commentary.