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 Megan Doherty Bea, Emily S. Taylor Poppe
Year 2021
Publisher Law & Society Review
Kind of work article
Discipline Law & Jurisprudence
Secondary disciplines Sociology, Economics
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1111/lasr.12553
The authors examine how legal classifications disadvantage certain groups by transforming social classifications into consequential legal categories, using intestacy laws as their case study. Their analysis of the Survey of Consumer Finances reveals that more than 21% of American families have forms that are marginalized by intestacy classifications, with these family structures disproportionately affecting individuals of color and those with lower wealth. The research demonstrates that many individuals with these family structures hold assets but lack access to mechanisms to avoid intestacy laws, highlighting how legal classification contributes to social inequality.
To examine how intestacy statutes, the default legal rules governing inheritance when someone dies without a will, categorize family structures, and whether these legal category boundaries disadvantage certain kinds of families.
U.S. households and families drawn from the Survey of Consumer Finances, classified by family structure and demographic characteristics.
Quantitative analysis of Survey of Consumer Finances data, classifying family structures according to whether intestacy law's categorical definitions recognize or marginalize them, then examining the distribution of marginalized structures by race and wealth.
More than 21 percent of American families have family structures that are marginalized by intestacy law's categorical definitions, and these marginalized structures are disproportionately found among people of color and households with lower wealth.
The finding illustrates the Distinctions pattern because a legal system's categorical boundary between recognized and unrecognized family forms produces unequal material consequences, and a Systems component in that family structures are classified as parts, such as partners, children, and kin arrangements, whose composition determines whether the whole unit is legally recognized.
Patterns it shows D, S
Added 2026-09-28
How to cite this Megan Doherty Bea, Emily S. Taylor Poppe (2021). Marginalized legal categories: Social inequality, family structure, and the laws of intestacy. Law & Society Review.