The Universal & Atomic Elements of Organization
A falsifiable scientific theory proposing that the same irreducible structures organize both thought and reality — from the quantum to the social scale.
O-Theory proposes that four irreducible structures — Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives (DSRP) — form the universal grammar of organization. Rather than being merely useful ways of thinking, these structures are hypothesized to be the atomic elements from which every organized phenomenon emerges, whether in cognition, biology, physics, mathematics, society, or the cosmos.
| D | S | R | P |
| Distinctions | Systems | Relationships | Perspectives |
| Identity ↔ Other | Part ↔ Whole | Action ↔ Reaction | Point ↔ View |
| D := (i ↔ o) | S := (p ↔ w) | R := (a ↔ r) | P := (ṗ ↔ v) |
This is a living scientific evidence compendium: an open, continually evolving collection of independent empirical research, formal theory, mathematical proofs, cross-disciplinary analyses, applications, critiques, and proposed falsifications. Every entry is included because it supports, refines, challenges, or attempts to falsify the theory.
Scientific theories are strengthened not only by evidence that confirms their predictions, but also by surviving attempts to falsify them. This compendium brings both together: independent evidence from researchers who were not testing DSRP and proposed counterexamples evaluated against the formal theory.
One counterexample is enough to falsify O-Theory. Until then, the question remains: do the same four structures organize everything from quantum systems to human thought?
Independent convergence is one of the strongest forms of scientific evidence because researchers arrive at the same conclusion while investigating different questions for different reasons.
The number is not the point. Researchers in different fields, studying different questions with different methods, repeatedly arrived at the same structural predictions—almost always without testing DSRP or using its language.
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This compendium began as the peer-reviewed literature review “A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition,” published in the Journal of Systems Thinking with 109 studies. That paper is the peer-reviewed foundation. What you see here is its living, continuously updated version . New studies are checked before they are added, and the collection now holds and keeps growing. Open any card to see what the researchers found, why it bears on DSRP, and where the original review discusses it, the fuller account.
The collection is updated continuously, so the citation carries the date you consulted it rather than a study count — the count changes weekly, and putting it in the reference would make the same collection look like a different work to everyone who cites it. To cite a single claim or study, use its own address: every one has a permanent link.
This is the adversarial half of the compendium. Where the evidence track asks what converges on DSRP, this one asks what would end it: a single organized phenomenon whose structure needs a fifth pattern, a ninth element, or a fifth structural dynamic. It holds written up from candidates across territories, and resolutions — the general answers those cases settle against. Every case is published whether it held or failed, including the ones still open.
Cite this rather than the evidence collection when the point is what survived attack. The two are separate works with separate addresses: one asks what converges on the theory, the other asks what would end it, and a reference to the first does not support a claim about the second. Case and resolution numbers change when the record is revised, so cite a case by its own permanent link rather than by number.
This collection is meant to keep growing. Send us a study, paper, book or critique that bears on DSRP, whether it supports the theory or cuts against it, and we will read it and decide whether it belongs.
Authors Bentley et al
Year 2017
Publisher Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Discipline Cognitive Science
Read it at the publisher 10.1016/j.jesp.2017.06.008
How does inclusion/exclusion affect a person?
When the subject was excluded from the ingroup, they retained significantly more information related to themselves than they did about the other. However, when included, the participant remembered as much information about the other as they did the self.
Inclusion can be added to self identity, and the other can become a part of the self. Identity and other engage in a dynamic dance.
Bentley et al 2017 examined the effect inclusion and exclusion had on both the self, and one’s retention of information about the self and the other. He conducted an experiment with 169 first year psychology students on the effect inclusion and exclusion had on the retention of information about oneself and others. They used a computer-based experiment in which participants completed a questionnaire about themselves, and then played a computer game with another person. Before they played they viewed the other player’s (fake) questionnaire results. As a result, participants classified their opposing player as either matched or opposite to their own results. This assigned either an ingroup or an outgroup status to the subject pairs. They then tested each subject's memory of their opponent’s questionnaire results. Between-subjects, one-way, ANOVA test, showed significant effect on the “psychological need satisfaction.” In the inclusion condition, reported need satisfaction was highest among all other conditions. In summary, they found that when the subject was excluded from the ingroup, they retained (in a memory retention test about the experiment) significantly more information related to themselves than they did about their opponent. However, when included in the ingroup, the participant remembered (within an appropriate margin of error) as much information about the other as they did themselves. The authors concluded that it was possible that inclusion added to their self identity, and that the other also became the same as a part of the self when the two are perceived to be in the same group (ingroup). Identity and other, or inside and outside classification, are important underlying factors to our perceptions of ourselves and of others.
Systematizing (S) is the act of organizing things or ideas into parts and wholes. In other words, explicitly grouping a concept into a whole made up of parts or breaking something down into its constituent parts. This reinforces the idea that every whole has parts while simultaneously being part of a larger whole. Systematization of things or ideas is evident in both monkeys and infants as early as three months of age. Similar experiments with adults show the varied and sophisticated ways systems-part-whole is used to understand concepts across the lifespan.
A review of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines indicates:
1. the existence of Systems (i.e., part-whole groupings); 2. the act of Systematizing (i.e., splitting into parts and/or lumping of parts into wholes);
9 With a p-value of p<0.001. Between-subjects, one-way, ANOVA test, showed they found that there was a significant effect on the “psychological need satisfaction” through social context manipulation.
Patterns it shows D
How to cite this Bentley et al (2017). Cognition in context: Social inclusion attenuates the psychological boundary between self and other. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.