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 Quran
There is no god but God; the recitation is the direct, untranslatable speech of God; submission (islām) is the human posture before the divine
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Quran |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | 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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| 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 | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Quran
Time is the medium of divine action: creation, the line of prophets, the giving of the Quran, the day of judgement. God's decree (qadar) precedes time; the Ash'arite tradition reads Quranic predestination strongly. Linear, unidirectional, with a definitive eschaton.
Space
The Quran
Created, finite, substantival. God is "closer to him than his jugular vein" (50:16) without being spatially located. Mecca occupies a unique cosmological place — qibla, the direction of prayer.
Matter
The Quran
God's creation, repeatedly affirmed against pagan denigrations. The signs (āyāt) of God are visible in the created order: "And among His signs are the creation of the heavens and the earth" (30:22). Matter is real, substantival, and points beyond itself to the Creator.
Observer
The Quran
The Quranic observer is embodied, plural, and called to submission. Agency is both — Quranic exegesis on free will and predestination (Ash'arites, Mu'tazilites) is one of the central Islamic theological debates. Knowledge comes both immediately (through revelation and direct addresses) and through reflection ("Have they not travelled through the earth and observed?" 30:9). The metaphysical agency is unambiguously personal; moral authority is the Quran itself, mediated by the hadith and the consensus of scholars.
Energy
The Quran
Not thematised philosophically. The Quranic framework assumes substantival, conserved energy under the continuous sustaining will of God.
Information
The Quran
God's knowledge is total: "Not a leaf falls but He knows it" (6:59). The Preserved Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfūz) is the inscribed divine record. Personal information is conserved across death — the resurrection is bodily; the day of accounting is precisely the unveiling of every human's recorded life.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Quran is read across thirteen centuries of interpretation by Sunnis, Shi'is, Ibadis, Sufis, modernists, and reformists, and the interpretive disagreements are substantial. Predestination vs human responsibility (qadar vs ikhtiyār), literal vs allegorical readings of anthropomorphic verses, the application of the Quran in modern legal contexts, the relation of Meccan and Medinan verses on abrogation — each is the subject of major schools of tafsīr. The attribute fingerprint here reflects a broadly mainstream Sunni reading.