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 Hazen, Robert M. and Papineau, Dominic and Bleeker, Wouter and Downs, Robert T. and Ferry, John M. and McCoy, Timothy J. and Sverjensky, Dimitri A. and Yang, Hexiong
Year 2008
Publisher American Mineralogist
Kind of work article
Discipline Geology
Secondary disciplines Chemistry, Evolutionary Biology
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.2138/am.2008.2955
To describe how the mineralogy of terrestrial planets has changed over geological time through physical, chemical, and biological processes.
The roughly 4,300 approved mineral species and their paragenetic and temporal records, from pre-stellar dust through meteorites to Earth's crust.
Historical synthesis organized into three eras and ten stages, tracking mineral diversity at each stage.
Mineral diversity rose from about a dozen refractory minerals in pre-stellar dust to about 60 in chondrites, about 250 in altered meteorites, about 1,500 in the crust by 2.5 billion years ago, and more than 4,000 after the Great Oxidation Event, reaching about 4,300 species. The authors attribute this to three mechanisms: separation and concentration of elements, wider ranges of pressure, temperature and chemical activities, and far-from-equilibrium conditions created by life. 57% of approved species are hydrated products, many from weathering in an oxygen-rich environment.
The authors trace how Earth's minerals grew from a dozen in stellar dust to about 4,300 species, showing that planetary, chemical, and biological processes successively opened new mineral possibilities.
The staged account of a planet's mineralogy treats the planet as a nested system whose parts change as processes act on them (S), and the causal drivers, including life acting on rock chemistry, are relationships (R). Caveats: the mineral-species classification (a distinction) is taken as given rather than examined, so D is not ticked; the record is based on secondary summaries of the paper and has not been read in full.
Patterns it shows S, R
Shows the structure is there
Added 2026-10-15
How to cite this Hazen, Robert M. and Papineau, Dominic and Bleeker, Wouter and Downs, Robert T. and Ferry, John M. and McCoy, Timothy J. and Sverjensky, Dimitri A. and Yang, Hexiong (2008). Mineral evolution. American Mineralogist.