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 Abdullah et al.
Year 2020
Publisher The Astrophysical Journal
Discipline Mathematics
Read it at the publisher 10.3847/1538-4357/aba619
We derive cosmological constraints on the matter density, , and the amplitude of fluctuations, , using , a catalog of 1800 galaxy clusters we identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-DR13 spectroscopic data set using our GalWeight technique to determine cluster membership. By analyzing a subsample of 756 clusters in a redshift range of 0.045 ≤ z ≤ 0.125 and virial masses of M ≥ 0.8 × 10 14 with mean redshift of z = 0.085, we obtain (systematic) and (systematic), with a cluster normalization relation of . There are several unique aspects to our approach: we use the largest spectroscopic data set currently available, and we assign membership using the GalWeight technique, which we have shown to be very effective at simultaneously maximizing the number of bona fide cluster members while minimizing the number of contaminating interlopers. Moreover, rather than employing scaling relations, we calculate cluster masses individually using the virial mass estimator. Since is a low-redshift cluster catalog we do not need to make any assumptions about evolution either in cosmological parameters or in the properties of the clusters themselves. Our constraints on and are consistent and very competitive with those obtained from non-cluster abundance cosmological probes such as cosmic microwave background, baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO), and supernovae. The joint analysis of our cluster data with Planck18+BAO+Pantheon gives and .
To determine how much of the universe is made up of matter.
They determined that 31% of the universe is made up of matter, while the other 69% consists of dark energy.
Their Distinction-making between matter and dark energy lead to a greater understanding of our universe. In fact, using the identity-other rule, we can even say that most of our universe is not matter, or an “other” to matter.
Abdullah et al. set out to measure the total amount of matter in the universe. They determined that 31% of the universe is made up of matter, while the other 69% consists of dark energy. Their
Distinction-making between matter and dark energy lead to a greater understanding of our universe. In fact, using the identity-other rule, we can even say that most of our universe is not matter, or an “other” to matter. In order to measure this, they used a part-whole Systems mentality, where they measured the mass and number of known galaxy clusters, and used numerical predictions to extrapolate to the whole universe showing the utility of both the Distinction and Systems rule to answer complex questions that have huge implications.
Patterns it shows D
How to cite this Abdullah et al. (2020). Cosmological Constraints on Ω m and σ 8 from Cluster Abundances Using the GalWCat19 Optical-spectroscopic SDSS Catalog. The Astrophysical Journal.