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 Sophy Oliver, Andrew Yool, Lee de Mora, Stephen Kelly, Spencer K. Liddicoat, Alexandra Loveridge, Robin S. Smith, Ekaterina Popova
Year 2026
Publisher Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Kind of work article
Discipline Oceanography
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1029/2025JC023561
The North Atlantic phytoplankton bloom (NAB) forms the base of the food web upon which marine ecosystem services throughout the northern North Atlantic rely. The NAB's nutrient supply is predominantly driven by deep winter mixing, which is most pronounced in the subpolar gyre where it has been projected to abruptly decline within the next few decades. Here we use idealized experiments with an Earth system model to investigate how mixed layer depth, surface nutrients and chlorophyll concentrations over the gyre may respond to positive carbon emissions followed by both zero and negative emissions mitigation efforts initiated at various Global Warming Levels (GWLs). Results show a decline in all three variables during positive emissions, with the warmer the GWL the less likely the prospect of recovery back to pre-industrial conditions. In the scenario where carbon emissions are held at zero once reaching a GWL of 1.5°C, the NAB started to recover toward preindustrial conditions. However, zero emissions after 2.5°C and warmer showed a continued decline in the NAB. These results suggest a tipping threshold may lie between 1.5 and 2.5°C GWL, beyond which only negative emissions can achieve recovery of the NAB.
To test how the North Atlantic spring phytoplankton bloom and its physical drivers respond to different peak global-warming levels and to zero- or negative-emissions mitigation pathways.
Idealized Earth-system-model experiments simulating the North Atlantic subpolar gyre across a range of global warming levels and post-peak emissions pathways.
An Earth system model was run under positive emissions followed by zero- or negative-emissions scenarios initiated at different global warming levels, tracking mixed layer depth, surface nutrients, and chlorophyll concentration over the subpolar gyre.
The modeled bloom began recovering toward pre-industrial conditions when warming was held at 1.5°C under zero emissions, but continued to decline under zero emissions when warming exceeded 2.5°C, indicating a tipping threshold for bloom recovery lies between 1.5°C and 2.5°C of global warming.
The finding shows that a single continuous driver, peak warming level, can push a coupled physical-biological system across a threshold separating two qualitatively distinct long-term outcomes for the whole ecosystem.
Patterns it shows D, S, R
Added 2026-09-28
How to cite this Sophy Oliver, Andrew Yool, Lee de Mora, Stephen Kelly, Spencer K. Liddicoat, Alexandra Loveridge, Robin S. Smith, Ekaterina Popova (2026). The North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre and Phytoplankton Bloom Under Potential Future Climate Scenarios. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.