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 Nemoto, Junko and Suzuki, Katsuaki
Year 2019
Publisher Learning, Design, and Technology: An International Compendium of Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, eds. J. Michael Spector, Barbara B. Lockee and Marcus D. Childress (Springer, Cham)
Kind of work chapter
Discipline Education
Secondary disciplines Systems Science
Kind of engagement scholarly
Applied true
Read it at the publisher 10.1007/978-3-319-17727-4_94-1
In this chapter, we will introduce a systems thinking approach with examples of curriculum improvements implemented by the authors. In the third year of the new graduate school master's program, we introduced the story-centered curriculum (SCC) to create a place to keep sharing graduate school conducting research activities over time. In order to formalize the purpose and functions of this activity, we organized this curricular change utilizing three systems thinking approaches: (1) the DSRP framework (Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2015) Systems thinking made simple: new hope for solving wicked problems. Odyssean Press, Ithaca); (2) the expected change process diagram (Spector JM, Yuen AHK (2016) Educational technology program and project evaluation. Taylor & Francis, New York); and (3) a causal loop model (Senge PM (1990) The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday/Currency, New York) underpinning our design. In such a complex set of activities and curriculum design efforts, we included many stakeholders. Our systems thinking approach to program change creation is supported and accompanied by a visualization of the current state and the ideal state, confirming the validity of our change activity. At the end of the chapter, we include findings for the future application of our tested systems approach to curriculum design and development.
To introduce a systems thinking approach to curriculum improvement through the authors' own curricular change, and to report findings for applying that approach to future curriculum design and development.
One curriculum: the third year of a newly established graduate master's program in instructional systems at a Japanese university, together with its many stakeholders. Participant counts are not stated in the accessible material.
A practice chapter reporting a curricular change organized by three named systems thinking devices: the DSRP framework, an expected change process diagram, and a causal loop model. Visualizations of the current state and the ideal state were used to support and check the change.
The authors report that organizing the curricular change with the three approaches made it tractable and checkable with many stakeholders involved, that visualizing the current and ideal states confirmed the validity of the change activity, and that the chapter closes with findings for future application of the approach.
Nemoto and Suzuki organize a graduate curriculum redesign at a Japanese university with three systems thinking devices, DSRP among them, citing Systems Thinking Made Simple directly, and use before-and-after visualizations to check the change.
The chapter puts DSRP to instrumental use rather than citing it. It is one of three named devices for organizing a curricular change, and it is cited to Systems Thinking Made Simple rather than through a secondary account. Pairing it with a causal loop model is a sensible division of labor: a loop diagram renders the relationship pattern and almost nothing else, while DSRP supplies the boundaries, the part-whole structure, and the stakeholder perspectives that a loop diagram presupposes without drawing. Which of the four patterns the authors developed, and how, is not visible outside the paywalled text, and the accessible material does not say.
Patterns it shows D, S, R, P
Shows it makes a difference
Added 2026-11-02
How to cite this Nemoto, Junko and Suzuki, Katsuaki (2019). A Systems Thinking Approach to a Story-Centered Curriculum Design and Application in Japanese Higher Education. Learning, Design, and Technology: An International Compendium of Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, eds. J. Michael Spector, Barbara B. Lockee and Marcus D. Childress (Springer, Cham).