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 Cornford, Cole and Collins, Michael
Year 2023
Publisher Secured (Galah Cyber), episode 20
Kind of work media
Discipline Cybersecurity
Secondary disciplines Business & Management
Kind of engagement public
Applied false
An interview with Michael Collins, then Chief Information Security Officer at Judo Bank, covering how he moved from a technical role into a CISO position and how systems thinking shapes the way he leads a security function and speaks to the rest of the business.
A roughly 45-minute recorded conversation hosted by Cole Cornford, published with a full transcript and a timestamped topic list. The DSRP segment runs from 17:40, following an earlier section at 16:30 on how a newcomer should get started in systems thinking. The host's topic list names the framework as "DSRP thinking (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives)" and names the source as "Systems Thinking Made Simple – by Derek Cabrera."
Collins presents DSRP as his primary framework and describes the four patterns as rules people already apply constantly without noticing, which is what produces biases such as seeing a problem only from one's own position. He says he arrived at DSRP after working through research on decision-making and cognition, starting from Senge's The Fifth Discipline, and recommends Cabrera's book as the one he would give a newcomer because "it's very simple and easy for understand" where "Often systems thinking is made overly complex and it puts people off." He reports applying the framework to security leadership — "you are consciously and simultaneously applying those four rules to everything you do every minute of every day" — and argues that doing so lets security staff "start conversing in language that they understand" when speaking to executives. He attributes a specific prevalence claim to no source: "almost 98% of people only look at something from their own perspective."
A bank CISO names DSRP as the framework he works from and explains all four patterns on the record, then describes how he uses them to run a security team and to translate security concerns into business terms. The episode carries a full transcript, with the DSRP segment beginning at 17:40.
This is DSRP arriving in an operational security role rather than in a classroom or a journal. Collins, then CISO at Judo Bank, traces his own route into systems thinking — Senge first, then work on decision-making and cognition, then the Cabreras — and settles on DSRP as what he actually uses, recommending Systems Thinking Made Simple as the book he would hand to a newcomer specifically because the four rules are stated simply enough to survive contact with practitioners. His account of the patterns is accurate and unembellished. Distinctions he describes as understanding "what the boundaries are, what you include and what you exclude." Systems he puts as "understanding the parts of the whole, and also that the whole could be part of another larger whole" — the nesting claim, stated correctly rather than reduced to decomposition. Relationships he gives as "for every relationship there's an action and a reaction," the action-reaction elements rather than a vague notion of connectedness. Perspectives he frames as the point-and-view structure and its consequence: "we see things from our own position, we have biases, we think we're right." The applications he describes draw mostly on relationships and perspectives. He asks his team to nominate an area of the business to invite in and present "Here's what we do, this is why we do it, here's how we do it," which is perspective-taking built into a team routine rather than a one-off exercise. He describes "building relationships before you need them, and being curious about what the business does" as the relationship pattern applied to a CISO's standing in an organization. His risk conversations use a waterline framing — "is this going to be below the waterline or above the waterline?" — and he argues the four rules are what let a security function speak in terms the business can act on. In a leadership talk he recounts, he uses ant colonies to argue that culture emerges from simple rules followed by many agents rather than from a single leader. The episode documents a senior practitioner treating the four patterns as a working habit and saying so in detail, with the host's topic list pointing listeners to the source.
Collins gets the content of all four patterns right, including the two that are most often garbled in secondhand accounts: he states the nesting claim for Systems rather than flattening it into decomposition, and he gives Relationships its action and reaction elements rather than treating a relationship as a line between two things. His framing of DSRP as rules already in constant use, with bias as the consequence of applying them unreflectively, matches what the theory claims about them. One figure should be read with care. The claim that almost 98% of people look at something only from their own perspective is offered without a source and does not come from the DSRP literature. The Cabreras' measurement work does report that Perspectives is the least-used pattern by a wide margin in observed thinking activity.
Patterns it shows D, S, R, P
Added 2026-10-20
How to cite this Cornford, Cole and Collins, Michael (2023). Systems Thinking in Cybersecurity: A Conversation with Michael Collins. Secured (Galah Cyber), episode 20.