Edred's most recent post in this conversation is quite interesting and clarifying.

I decided to post this separately because I think it goes beyond the interesting conversation occurring on Edred's post and might add clutter if posted there,

I suppose my understanding of "isolate intelligence" comes mostly from Edred's works, and I guess I see it as a thesis in a Hegelian dialectic.  This is, naturally, not the only answer possible where very abstract concepts like consciousness are concerned.

I think Havamal 138 provides a couple of important paradoxes which I interpret as including isolate intelligence, some sort of intelligence unified with the world, and the synthesis of the two.  My own interpretation here is that Odhinn sacrifices himself (isolated intelligence) on himself (the Tree/Universal Consciousness) to himself (what he will become/the synthesis).  This is read through the filter of Voluspa 17-19 as mentioned before.

I suppose the main influences in my reading of the myth this way is "Psychosynthesis" by Roberto Assagioli, though "Paradox Games" by Waldo Thompson has strengthened that conclusion for me.  Also, while I formed this conclusion before reading the Upanishads, I have concluded that the same approach is taken there regarding Atman and Brahman.

Naturally, if one looks to other thinkers, the conclusions might be different.   How do others approach this process?  More interestingly, where do others part ways from my approach?

I would like to thank Edred for his insightful response.  I am still struggling to understand some of it.

Edred (and anyone else), could you further elaborate on how and why you equate Odin and Set?
What do you see to be the roles of philosophy and scholarship in approaching mystery?

Structuralism and Functionalism represent two fundamentally different ways of approaching the study ofthe humanities.  In this post I discuss both of these and also address some of the issues with "structural functionalism" and its relatives.  Towards the end I will offer my own synthesis.  I would note that structural functionalism is often a workable synthesis to some extent as well but I would prefer to detach the structuralist from functionalist approaches a bit more than that school of thought tends to do.

Edred Thorsson's Conclave talk (available here) was very interesting and thought provoking.  I highly recommend it.  However, it it he posed an important thought I disagree with, namely that there is Odin and Set are identical.  While this is the Yrmin Drighten's subjective understanding (and the thought was portrayed as such), and he is entitled to it, I want to explain why I don't personally see this sort of hard identification between gods across traditions to be very helpful.

UPDATE (11/11, 4:10pst):  Inserted word "personally" to paragraph above to help show that this is a matter of my own approach.  Added mention of tomorrow's post at end.