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 Martinez-Moyano I
Year 2023
Publisher Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-16
Kind of work article
Discipline Systems Science
Reading level technical
Kind of engagement scholarly
Read it at the publisher 10.54120/jost.000001
Decisions are made, actions are taken, and the world is changing constantly as a result. The consequences of past decisions create the information that affects future decisions in an iterative, continuous set of feedback processes. To better comprehend real-world systems, change, and complex interactions, identifying and understanding feedback is paramount. The system dynamics (SD) approach, part of the operations research field and identified by systems philosophers as part of the first three waves of systems thinking, emerged out of servomechanisms engineering and control theory. It has been applied to understand and manage a wide range of complex problems in natural, engineered, and social systems. The SD approach combines the theory of information feedback, human decision making, and computer simulation to create a computer-aided approach to policy analysis and design. The SD approach favors a point of view that originates from within—an endogenous approach—to explain and propose alternatives for change in complex systems. Feedback and endogeneity, core concepts in system dynamics, enable closed-loop thinking to understand complex systems which go beyond open-loop thinking and reveal, in a holistic way, not only how, but also why things change over time. Additionally, SD uses a broad system boundary to provide such endogenous structural explanations of system behavior, and embracesmethodological pluralism in order to evolve, adapt, and take advantage of advances in computer processing speed and storage, data availability and analysis, and social science research and analytical methods.
A chapter introducing system dynamics: feedback, human decision making, and computer simulation combined into a computer-aided approach to policy analysis and design.
Feedback and endogeneity enable closed-loop thinking that reveals not only how but why things change over time — with a broad system boundary and methodological pluralism keeping the approach evolving.
Explains the system dynamics approach, which studies how feedback between decisions and their consequences shapes change over time.
Published in the Handbook of Systems Thinking (Cabrera, Cabrera & Midgley, eds., 2023), a volume built on the premise that systems thinking now has a universal theory—DSRP-484. Its contents were selected on that basis by its editorial team in concert with a team of advisors.
Patterns it shows D, R, P
How to cite this Martinez-Moyano I (2023). System Dynamics in Action. Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-16.