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.
Wang et al., 2026, Geology — Geology
Patterns: Systems
The same triggering event produces different whole-catchment erosion behavior depending on how the system is structurally composed (its topographic regime), showing system-level structure — not just the driving force — determines the output.
Comparing two New Zealand lake catchments along the same fault under near-identical climate and geology, the steeper catchment (median slope 47°) showed rock-organic-carbon erosion rise from 15% to 24% after a large earthquake, while the gentler catchment (39°) showed a much smaller response.
Physical erosion can impact the carbon cycle over a range of time scales. In mountains, widespread landslide-triggering events can remove significant quantities of soil from landscapes, yet isolating the spatial pattern and processes of erosion is difficult. Here we reconstruct the impacts of a great earthquake (Mw >8.0) on two lake sedimentary systems in New Zealand and use a combination of geochemical proxies to explore organic matter provenance and soil erosion. The two catchments differ notably in their geomorphic properties, with the median slope of the Lake Mapourika catchment of 47° (+11°/−18°) versus 39° (+9°/−13°) in the Lake Paringa catchment. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes, n-alkane abundance, and n-alkane hydrogen isotopes show that in the steeper Lake Mapourika catchment, landslides from the earthquake mobilized aged soil organic matter and rock-derived organic carbon by deep erosion. Rock organic carbon erosion increased from 15% (+14%/−10%) to 24% (+13%/−13%) in the Lake Mapourika catchment following the earthquake. By comparing the slopes, sediment connectivity, and stream power indices, we show that in the steeper Lake Mapourika catchment, erosion mobilized deeper soil and more bedrock than in Lake Paringa throughout the record, implying that bedrock landslides remained a key process both during and after the earthquake. Thus, we find that even along the same fault zone and under similar climatic, geological, and ecological conditions, topography strongly controls physical erosion as well as its response to widespread landsliding events.
These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.