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 Yuval Feinstein, Gal Ariely, Daphna Canetti
Year 2026
Publisher Nations and Nationalism
Kind of work article
Discipline Political Science
Secondary disciplines Sociology
Read it at the publisher 10.1111/nana.70117
How is endorsement of a historical-persecution narrative related to minority exclusion during crises? This article argues that historical persecution narratives are durable cultural resources whose political implications are neither uniform nor constant. Using longitudinal surveys of Jewish Israelis, it compares the May 2021 Gaza war and intercommunal violence with the war following the 7 October 2023 attack, when Arab citizens were not involved in internal violence. Within-person increases in agreement with the historical-persecution statement were associated with stronger exclusionary attitudes towards Arab citizens, including after 7 October. Heterogeneity analyses show that this within-person co-movement was not uniform across the Jewish public: It was detectable in different national-belief clusters across the two crisis intervals. The article contributes to research on nationalism and collective memory by showing that crisis periods can coincide with upward shifts in endorsement of a persecution-centred historical narrative and boundary hardening towards internal minorities, patterned by national-belief configurations.
To examine how endorsement of a historical-persecution narrative relates to exclusionary attitudes toward a minority group during national security crises.
Longitudinal surveys of Jewish Israelis across two crisis periods: the May 2021 Gaza war/intercommunal violence and the war following the 7 October 2023 attack.
Longitudinal within-person survey analysis comparing agreement with a historical-persecution narrative to exclusionary attitudes towards Arab citizens of Israel across two crisis intervals, with heterogeneity analysis by national-belief cluster.
Within-person increases in agreement with the historical-persecution narrative were associated with stronger exclusionary attitudes toward Arab citizens of Israel across two separate crisis periods, with the strength of this co-movement varying across different national-belief clusters within the Jewish public.
The finding shows that strengthening endorsement of a persecution-centered historical narrative is associated with a hardening of the symbolic boundary distinguishing an in-group from a minority out-group, and that this relationship is patterned by underlying group-identity configurations.
Patterns it shows D, R
Shows it makes a difference
Added 2026-09-12
How to cite this Yuval Feinstein, Gal Ariely, Daphna Canetti (2026). Memory, Crisis and Boundary Hardening: Historical Persecution Narratives and Attitudes Towards Arab Citizens of Israel. Nations and Nationalism.