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 Llored, Jean-Pierre
Year 2014
Publisher HYLE: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
Kind of work article
Discipline Chemistry
Secondary disciplines Philosophy
Applied false
To show, through the history and laboratory practice of quantum chemistry, how chemists negotiate the relationships between a molecule, its parts, and its environment, and to draw lessons for debates on emergence, reduction, and mereology.
Historical and philosophical analysis of quantum-chemical approaches (including Mulliken's LCAO-MO method and work associated with Pauling and Bader).
The author finds that quantum chemists use whole, parts, and environment simultaneously; that wholes and parts are co-defined (coefficients and atomic charges depend on the whole molecule); that the mereology in use is not classical transitive mereology; and that chemical practice shows co-dependent levels rather than a single fundamental level. Parts and wholes are described as depending on the mode of access, instrumental or cognitive.
A philosophy-of-chemistry study of how quantum chemists treat molecules and their parts. It finds that wholes, parts, and environment are defined together in practice, and that what counts as a part depends on how it is accessed.
The finding bears most directly on part-whole structure (S), with the dependence of part identity on mode of access touching perspective (P) and the mutual dependence of whole and part touching relationship (R). Caveats: the paper's non-classical mereology is its own formulation and does not use the four-structure vocabulary; perspective is inferred from the 'mode of access' argument, and the classification rests on a summary of the paper rather than a full reading. No DOI was found.
Patterns it shows S, R, P
Shows the structure is there
Added 2026-10-16
How to cite this Llored, Jean-Pierre (2014). Whole-Parts Strategies in Quantum Chemistry: Some Philosophical and Mereological Lessons. HYLE: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry.