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 Aubry, Marie-Pierre and Berggren, William A and Van Couvering, John A and Steininger, Fritz
Year 1999
Publisher Earth-Science Reviews
Kind of work article
Discipline Geology
Secondary disciplines Environment & Sustainability
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1016/S0012-8252(99)00008-2
To examine the conceptual basis of chronostratigraphic units (stages, series, and their boundary stratotypes) and how they relate under the hierarchical principle of the International Stratigraphic Guide.
The five inter-series boundaries of the Cenozoic, each compared with the lower boundary of the lowest standard stage above it.
Review and critical analysis of boundary definitions and proposed Global Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs) against the stage hierarchy.
Chronostratigraphy is conceptually more advanced in the Cenozoic than in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic, where biostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy are often confused. For the Eocene/Oligocene and Paleocene/Eocene boundaries, the proposed GSSPs differ so much from the bases of the Rupelian and Ypresian stages that the hierarchical rule would need relaxing. The authors argue that stage boundaries should not be defined a posteriori to fit series boundaries, and they propose formalizing series and subseries with GSSP-defined boundaries while keeping stages in a two-step hierarchical framework.
The authors examine how the boundaries between geological time units are defined and how stages nest within series. They find that the proposed boundary definitions for the Cenozoic often do not match the stage hierarchy, and they propose a revised two-step scheme.
The paper bears on the Distinctions and Systems patterns. Boundary stratotypes are explicit decisions about where one unit ends and the next begins, and the argument about stage and series boundaries is an argument about how a nested hierarchy of units can be kept consistent. The authors also separate chronostratigraphy from biostratigraphy, a further distinction. Caveats: the work is a conceptual and methodological review, not an empirical test, and it does not treat parts and wholes in the abstract sense. This record rests on the publisher page only, not the full text.
Patterns it shows D, S
Added 2026-11-02
How to cite this Aubry, Marie-Pierre and Berggren, William A and Van Couvering, John A and Steininger, Fritz (1999). Problems in chronostratigraphy: stages, series, unit and boundary stratotypes, global stratotype section and point and tarnished golden spikes. Earth-Science Reviews.