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 Thiago V. M. do Nascimento, Julia Rudlang, Sebastian Gnann, Jan Seibert, Markus Hrachowitz, Fabrizio Fenicia
Year 2025
Publisher Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Kind of work article
Discipline Hydrology
Secondary disciplines Geology
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.5194/hess-29-7173-2025
Large-sample hydrology datasets have advanced hydrological research, yet the impact of landscape map details on identifying dominant streamflow generation processes remains underexplored. This study investigates the role of geology using maps of increasing detail, global, continental, and regional, each reclassified into four permeability classes. These geological attributes were used along with topography, soil, land use, and climate attributes to identify dominant controls on streamflow signatures across 4469 European catchments. To distinguish landscape influences from the otherwise dominant influence of climate, separate analyses were conducted on nested basins at three scales: large (63 nested basins), intermediate (the Moselle nested basin), and small (five nested catchments within the Moselle). At the large scale, dominant controls varied widely between nested basins, but landscape generally outweighed climate. At this scale, continental and global geology maps produced different correlation patterns, with neither consistently superior. At the intermediate scale, increased geological detail led geology to shift from the least to the most correlated variable for certain streamflow signatures. The small-scale experiment reinforced these findings, as the regional map highlighted controls more consistent with process understanding. This study underscores the benefit of integrating detailed, region-specific geological data into large sample hydrology studies, and demonstrates the utility of a nested basins design.
To determine whether the level of detail in geological maps, global, continental, or regional, changes which landscape and climate attributes are identified as dominant controls on streamflow behavior.
4,469 European catchments, with focused nested-basin analyses at three scales: 63 nested basins, the Moselle nested basin, and five nested catchments within the Moselle.
Comparative correlation analysis of streamflow signatures against geology, reclassified into permeability classes from maps of three resolutions, alongside topography, soil, land use, and climate attributes, using a nested-basin design across large, intermediate, and small scales.
Increasing geological map detail changed which variable was identified as dominant: at the intermediate Moselle scale, geology shifted from the least to the most correlated variable for certain streamflow signatures as map resolution increased from global to regional, and finer-resolution regional maps produced correlation patterns more consistent with known hydrological process understanding than coarser global or continental maps.
The finding demonstrates the Systems pattern through its explicit nested part-whole basin design across three hierarchical scales, the Relationships pattern through the correlations measured between geological attributes and streamflow signatures, and the Perspectives pattern because the same catchments yield different identified dominant controls depending on the resolution of the geological map used.
Patterns it shows S, R, P
Added 2026-09-28
How to cite this Thiago V. M. do Nascimento, Julia Rudlang, Sebastian Gnann, Jan Seibert, Markus Hrachowitz, Fabrizio Fenicia (2025). How do geological map details influence the identification of geology–streamflow relationships in large-sample hydrology studies?. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.