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 Fisher and Kiel
Year 2018
Publisher Psychological Science
Discipline Cognitive Science
Read it at the publisher 10.1177/0956797618792256
One of the mind’s most fundamental tasks is interpreting incoming data and weighing the value of new evidence. Across a wide variety of contexts, we show that when summarizing evidence, people exhibit a binary bias: a tendency to impose categorical distinctions on continuous data. Evidence is compressed into discrete bins, and the difference between categories forms the summary judgment. The binary bias distorts belief formation—such that when people aggregate conflicting scientific reports, they attend to valence and inaccurately weight the extremity of the evidence. The same effect occurs when people interpret popular forms of data visualization, and it cannot be explained by other statistical features of the stimuli. This effect is not confined to explicit statistical estimates; it also influences how people use data to make health, financial, and public-policy decisions. These studies ( N = 1,851) support a new framework for understanding information integration across a wide variety of contexts.
Humans have a tendency to be binary. This paper explores the binary bias.
The binary bias has a stronger influence on the formation of beliefs and attitudes than the previously documented factors of order and salience. The binary bias appears to be a pervasive aspect of cognition with extensive real-world implications. The human tendency to categorize things in a binary manner can impede the formation of accurate mental models of phenomena (as the world exists in shades of gray - not balck and white); see relationships (falsely) as only cause and effect (rather than webs of causality) and narrows our perspectives on things towards bivalency in lieu of multivalency.
Systems thinking (DSRP) shifts this paradigm away from the binary bias and towards a more spectrum-based thought process.
Fisher and Keil, 2018 explicate that humans have a tendency to treat evidence as binary. As a result, their beliefs that formed from binary evidence are distorted because they have inaccurately weighed the evidence, based on the severity of statistical estimate. Importantly this bias influences ”how people use data to make health, financial, and public-policy decisions.” They highlight this pervasive binary bias as one of the largest dangers of categorization, especially when applied to the serious issues above. In one study 154 participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups (scientific reports, eyewitness testimonies, social judgments, or consumer reviews). They were then shown 5 statements about the relationships between and among the materials they had observed. The results of the study were, “that the binary bias has a stronger influence on the formation of beliefs and attitudes than the previously documented factors of order and salience.” Binary thought tends to be damaging to both mental models
and deep understanding of concepts and problems. They wrote, “the binary bias appears to be a pervasive aspect of cognition with extensive real-world implications.” In other words, the human tendency to categorize things in a binary manner can impede the formation of accurate mental models of phenomena (as the world exists in shades of gray - not black and white); see relationships (falsely) as only cause and effect (rather than webs of causality) and narrows our perspectives on things towards bivalency in lieu of multivalency. Thus, systems thinking (DSRP) shifts this paradigm away from the binary bias and towards a more spectrum-based thought process.
Relationships (R) refer to the act of relating things using action and reaction. In other words, explicitly working with concepts while being aware of the relationships, systems, and distinctions between them. Infants show evidence of relating as early as seven months of age, while experiments with adults show the varied and sophisticated ways relating occurs across the lifespan. A review of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines indicates:
1. The existence of Relationships (i.e., R as a noun/object); 2. The act of Relating between and among things (i.e., R as a verb/action); 3. That the relationship between “action” and “reaction” (i.e., R(a ↔r)) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and, 4. That the human tendency is heavily weighted toward Di, Spw, and the relative absence of Relationships. Further, when relationships are identified they are often seen as linear causal rather than webs of causality. Finally, Relationships that are drawn are rarely identified (RDi) or Systematized (RDS). 5. Items 1-4 are fundamental “patterns of mind” agnostic to content area (across disciplines) and throughout the lifespan of humans. Yet, where Relationships are concerned, the difference between thinking (ie., cognition) and systems thinking (i.e., systematic metacognition) is not in the R(a ↔r) structure of cognition itself, but in the willful and purposeful attempt to see (i.e., be aware of) the R(a ↔r) structure that is at work when thinking.
Patterns it shows S
How to cite this Fisher and Kiel (2018). The Binary Bias: A Systematic Distortion in the Integration of Information. Psychological Science.