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 Soter, Steven
Year 2006
Publisher The Astronomical Journal
Kind of work article
Discipline Astronomy
Secondary disciplines Physics
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1086/508861
To propose a definition of a planet based on formation and dynamics rather than on size or shape.
The eight planets and selected minor bodies of the solar system, and 164 catalogued exoplanetary systems.
The author computes a planetary discriminant (a body's mass divided by the aggregate mass of other bodies sharing its orbital zone) and a scattering parameter for solar-system bodies, and examines exoplanet systems for orbital intersections and resonances.
The discriminant shows a gap of four to five orders of magnitude between the eight planets and the asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects (Mars about 5,100; Ceres about 0.33; Pluto about 0.07). A threshold of 100 separates the two groups, though any value from about 10 to 1,000 would serve. Mercury and Pluto differ in mass by about 25-fold but in the discriminant by about a million-fold. The definition needs no upper or lower mass limit. The author rejects hydrostatic equilibrium as a criterion because the thresholds are arbitrary.
The author defines a planet by how strongly it dominates the other bodies in its orbital zone, and shows a wide numerical gap between the eight planets and everything else in the solar system.
The paper is an explicit exercise in drawing a category boundary, and it rejects intrinsic properties such as mass or shape in favor of a measure taken against the surroundings (D). A body's status depends on its relation to the other bodies in its orbital zone and its ability to clear them (R), and the author proposes a scheme nesting tertiaries within secondaries within primaries, with planets as end products of disk evolution (S). Caveats: the author does not name these as structures. The classification is the central claim of the paper, while the relational and nesting readings are the reviewer's. This record rests on the arXiv text and not on the journal version.
Patterns it shows D, S, R
Shows the structure is there
Added 2026-10-12
How to cite this Soter, Steven (2006). What is a Planet?. The Astronomical Journal.