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 Sanefuji and Haryu
Year 2018
Publisher Frontiers in Psychology
Discipline Human Development
Read it at the publisher 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00955
This study investigated the relationship between children’s abilities to understand causal sequences and another’s false belief. In Experiment 1, we tested 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children (n = 28, 28, 27, and 27, respectively) using false belief and picture sequencing tasks involving mechanical, behavioral, and psychological causality. Understanding causal sequences in mechanical, behavioral, and psychological stories was related to understanding other’s false beliefs. In Experiment 2, children who failed the initial false belief task (n = 50) were reassessed five months later. High scorers in the sequencing of the psychological stories in Experiment 1 were more likely to pass the standard false belief task than were the low scorers. Conversely, understanding causal sequences in the mechanical and behavioral stories in Experiment 1 did not predict passing the false belief task in Experiment 2. Thus, children may understand psychological causality before they are able to use it to understand false beliefs.
To study the Relationship between a preschooler’s development of theory of mind, and their understanding of causality.
There was some Relationship between successful picture sequencing and success in the false belief task. The children who performed better on the psychological stories in the first experiment, did better on the second false belief task. Overall, the study showed that, “the findings of the present study indicated that children who cannot understand others' false beliefs are able to understand and enjoy stories containing false beliefs.”
Conscious establishment of sequential relationships in the first experiment also increased the subject’s ability to take new perspectives and see alternatives to the sequence as it played out.
Sanefuji and Haryu 2018, studied the Relationship between a preschooler’s development of theory of mind, and their understanding of causality. They did two experiments, the first of which was designed to test if the children could arrange pictures in a predetermined sequence. There were different types of stories used that were about mechanical (objects interacting in a casual Relationship with each other), behavioral (people interacting), or psychological (people interacting with regards to mental state) causality. After performing this test, they did a false belief task as well. The results of the experiment indicated that there was some Relationship between successful picture sequencing and success in the false belief task. In the second experiment, the children that failed the false belief task were the subjects. They were given the same false belief task as in the first experiment. The experiment showed that the children who performed better on the psychological stories in the first experiment, did better on the second false belief task. Overall, the study showed that, “the findings of the present study indicated that children who cannot understand others' false beliefs are able to understand and enjoy stories containing false beliefs.” In other words, conscious establishment of sequential relationships in the first experiment also increased the subject’s ability to take new perspectives and see alternatives to the sequence as it played out.
Perspective-taking (P) is the act of looking at things using a point and view. In other words, explicitly working with concepts using one or many points and views, while being aware of the relationships, systems, and distinctions between them. Infants show evidence of Perspective-taking as early as three years of age, while experiments with adults show the varied and sophisticated ways Perspective-taking is used across the lifespan. A review of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines indicates:
1. The existence of Perspectives (i.e., P as a noun/object); 2. The act of Perspective taking (i.e., P as a verb/action); 3. That the relationship between “point” and “view” (i.e., P(ρ ↔ v) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and,
4. That the human tendency is to take one’s own Perspective and marginalize the Perspective of the other. 5. In summary, it shows that items 1-4 are fundamental “patterns of mind” agnostic to content area (across disciplines) and throughout the lifespan of humans. Where Perspective taking is concerned, the difference between thinking (ie., cognition) and systems thinking (i.e., systematic metacognition) is not in the P(ρ ↔ v) structure of cognition itself, but in the willful and purposeful attempt to see (i.e., be aware of) the P(ρ ↔ v) structure that is at work when thinking.
Patterns it shows R
How to cite this Sanefuji and Haryu (2018). Preschoolers’ Development of Theory of Mind: The Contribution of Understanding Psychological Causality in Stories. Frontiers in Psychology.