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.
Try a different term or clear the filters.
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 Mulyono Y, Sukhbaatar U, Cabrera L, Cabrera D
Year 2020
Publisher Handbook of Systems Thinking
Kind of work chapter, article
Read it at the publisher 10.54120/jost.000009
In this chapter, we provide the basis for why a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) approach is critically important to solving problems. As a naturalistic reality, a theoretical framework, or a heuristic device, CAS is a powerful tool. Agent Based Modeling (ABM), too, can be a powerful way to discreetly model a CAS understanding of phenomena. When ABM can be used, it is a powerful tool. However, ABM has drawbacks that make it an infeasible method some of the time. These drawbacks should not preclude us from using CAS as an alternative, ‘mixed,’ ‘qualitative,’ or ‘heuristic’ method. For this reason, we have outlined a new approach—the Agent Based Approach or ABA—which can be used the majority of the time when CAS analysis is indicated. ABA was developed by Drs. Derek and Laura Cabrera at Cornell University with an expressed focus on the analyses of CASs leading to specific policy recommendations, although it is quite possible that many aspects of ABA can be applied outside of a policy context. This is especially true in light of more nuanced and expanded definitions of ‘policy’ and/or ‘policy analyst.’ Where one might think of ‘a policy’ as a statement or document presented in a legislative, legal, or bureaucratic context, we promote that an understanding of CAS means that a ‘policy’ is simply a set of guidelines for understanding how agent action (the following of simple rules) will affect emergent properties. In other words, policy can be defined as “a statement of the simple interaction rules that one predicts will lead to desired systemic change.” In this regard, ‘a policy’ is something any person might utilize anywhere, not merely something a policy analyst in the halls of Congress might use. To understand and effect change on any CAS—even if the CAS is your family, your classroom, your team, your organization, the state or federal system, or a global crisis—requires you understand the system, to identify the types of actions that can be taken to alter it, and then codify those generalizable actions into specific recommendations. The steps to doing this are the same regardless of the venue or scale. The degree, scale, resources available, timeline, stakeholders, and relative complexity may change, but the basic process does not. In other words, policy analysis is a fractal pattern and ‘the analysis of policy’ is for everyone (i.e., not limited to legislative personnel). Therefore, ABA is a tool that anyone can use, and is well-suited for the formally trained policy analyst. ABA provides another tool in the systems scientist’s tool belt and is an invaluable means by which policy students or scientists can better understand and effect complex adaptive systems.
Published in the Handbook of Systems Thinking (Cabrera, Cabrera & Midgley, eds., 2023), a volume built on the premise that systems thinking now has a universal theory—DSRP-484. Its contents were selected on that basis by its editorial team in concert with a team of advisors.
Patterns it shows D, S, R
How to cite this Mulyono Y, Sukhbaatar U, Cabrera L, Cabrera D (2020). 'Hard' and 'Soft' Methods in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS): Agent Based Modeling (ABM) and the Agent Based Approach (ABA). Handbook of Systems Thinking.