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 Wei et al.
Year 2026
Publisher Journal of the American Chemical Society
Discipline Chemistry
Secondary disciplines Materials Science
Read it at the publisher 10.1021/jacs.6c01463
The rational design of framework adsorbents for structurally diverse contaminants requires pore environments that can accommodate different molecular scales while preserving strong host–guest interactions. Here, we report a heteroporous covalent organic framework (COF) in which hierarchical pore architecture and local chemical functionality are jointly tuned through multicomponent reticular synthesis. The optimized ET-F1BIm5-iCOF integrates cationic and fluorinated motifs into a crystalline micro/mesoporous scaffold. In this architecture, mesopores facilitate molecular accessibility and transport, enabling rapid capture, whereas the smaller pores provide confined local environments that, together with the mixed cationic and fluorinated functionalities, can provide favorable binding environments for short-chain PFAS, helping compensate for their weaker hydrophobic driving force. This integration of heteroporosity and complementary chemical functionality distinguishes the material from adsorbents that rely primarily on surface area or isolated binding groups and provides a pore-level design principle for balancing accessibility, confinement, and interaction strength. Using perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (GenX) as representative PFAS compounds spanning conventional long-chain and emerging short-chain chemistries, ET-F1BIm5-iCOF exhibited rapid adsorption kinetics and high capacities, reaching 903 and 673 mg g–1, respectively. Spectroscopic analyses together with DFT calculations and molecular dynamics simulations support the cooperative contributions of electrostatic recognition, fluorinated/hydrophobic interactions, and heteropore confinement to PFAS binding. Incorporation of the COF into a chitosan aerogel further enabled continuous-flow PFAS removal in ultrapure and river water matrices. This work provides a hierarchical pore-engineering strategy for developing framework materials toward contaminants with different molecular sizes, geometries, and interaction requirements.
A heteroporous covalent organic framework with dual pore-size architecture and cationic/fluorinated pore chemistry captures both long-chain PFOA (903 mg/g) and short-chain GenX (673 mg/g) PFAS at high capacity, outperforming adsorbents built on a single pore scale.
Whole-material performance emerges from combining two distinct pore-scale parts (transport-optimized mesopores and binding-optimized micropores) that neither achieves alone (S), and the material is explicitly engineered around the categorical contrast between long- and short-chain PFAS (D).
Patterns it shows D, S
Added 2026-08-19
How to cite this Wei et al. (2026). Heteropore-Mediated Pore-Environment Tuning in a Covalent Organic Framework for Balanced Capture of Structurally Diverse PFAS. Journal of the American Chemical Society.