Benjamin Mossé Thinking in systems. Reasoning from evidence and logic.

The Benefits, Universality and Limits of DSRP Theory: Part 2 of 3

14 Dec 2025

In the first post, I focused on the practical benefits of DSRP Theory and why it has had a meaningful impact on how I think. In this second post, I step back and examine a deeper question: why does DSRP work so broadly across domains?

To answer that, I look at the internal logic of the theory itself.

In particular, I explore the structural dynamics of DSRP, the Love–Reality Loop, and the stronger universality claims made by Derek and Laura Cabrera - culminating in O-Theory.

This post explains why DSRP appears to apply almost everywhere, and why that universality is both its greatest strength and the source of its most ambitious claims.

Part 2. The Universality of DSRP Theory

Why is learning the Six Mental Moves - and DSRP Theory more broadly - so effective?

2.1. The Logic of DSRP Theory:

First, we need to look at a study titled A Mathematical Theory of Organization.

In this work, Derek Cabrera presents a table that explains DSRP Structure and Dynamics. The table shows two key ideas: co-implication and simultaneity - how the elements imply one another and operate at the same time.

Cabrera argues this structure enables structural predictions, and the broader research program tests whether DSRP awareness improves performance on specific tasks.

Each pattern is equally important. You cannot organize or understand information properly if one is missing. Any complex idea requires all four: making distinctions, understanding systems, recognizing relationships, and considering different perspectives.

DSRP argues that omitting any one of the four patterns makes models more brittle - less complete, less coherent, and more prone to blind spots.

Co-implication (⇔) means each element comes with its counterpart: identity implies other, part implies whole, action implies reaction, and point implies view.

Simultaneity (✷) adds that any element can be interpreted through the other seven elements at once (even if we don’t consciously track every path in the moment).

Here’s DSRP’s logic in practice: (4)

With that, the Cabreras make two distinct claims about DSRP’s universality:

  • Universality-as-grammar: DSRP as a minimal set of patterns for organizing information.
  • Universality-as-reality: the stronger claim that reality itself is organized by DSRP.

2.2. The Love-Reality Loop:

Next, we need to understand a core idea in DSRP Theory called the ST/DSRP Loop in earlier work, and later formalized as the Love–Reality Loop (LRL). (2, 4)

The Love–Reality Loop describes how models improve: we form a mental model, act on it, and reality pushes back with feedback.

If we “love reality,” we let that feedback correct the model rather than forcing reality to fit our preferences.

We update our mental models when we find better explanations or new evidence. Acting on these models tests them against reality, whose feedback provides the criticism needed to improve our explanations: approximation → test → incorporate feedback → iteration.

DSRP Theory provides a disciplined way to build stronger mental models from the outset. It does this by forcing attention to all four co-implied patterns of thinking - Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives.

By deliberately accounting for each pattern, a systems thinker constructs models that reflect the structure of the whole system, rather than a partial or fragmented view.

The result is a mental model that is more complete, more coherent, and intended to improve model–world fit (and can be evaluated with task-specific measures).

2.3. Wide Applications of DSRP Theory:

Taken together, several parts of DSRP Theory make it an effective and practical tool for improving how we think and understand reality.

  • The Love–Reality Loop encourages us to map our mental models, test them against reality, and continuously update them.

  • Knowing that DSRP elements are co-implicated and simultaneous means when we notice one D/S/R/P pattern in our description of something, DSRP’s rules prompt us to generate the missing structural predictions (the other patterns/elements).

In one paper, Derek and Laura Cabrera describe DSRP as “a different kind of theory of everything”. (1)

Their argument is compelling:

“A ToE (Theory of Everything) should not only apply to everything, it should also be useful to everyone. A quilter, a skateboard, a physicist, a chemist, biologist, cognitive scientist, psychologist, sociologist, computer scientist, economist, geologist, astronomer, and to business leaders and policy wonks, auto-mechanics and quantum mechanics should all find a ToE equally useful to their trade.

It must bridge both the material-physical domains as well as the material-conceptual domains. It should therefore be not only a theory of physical things but also a theory of information, concepts, ideas. It should be a theory that bridges theory and practice and is used by all to understand and do all things. Because, after all, everything should mean, everything.”

DSRP largely fits this definition. It has an emerging empirical base that includes both basic research on universality and applied studies on efficacy (i.e., whether DSRP awareness improves performance on specified tasks).

2.4. O-Theory as the Grammar of reality:

In a 2025 paper, Derek and Laura Cabrera introduce O-Theory. (2) This theory aims to unify epistemology (how we know) and ontology (how reality is) through a shared law of organization.

The core claim is that reality organizes itself using the same patterns as human cognition. On this basis, they propose a more precise version of the Love–Reality Loop:

Notice that the structure on the left mirrors the structure on the right.

reality (R) provides feedback to our mental models. In response, our Mental Models (M) update themselves - what the authors call fitback - to better align with reality.

The deeper claim is ambitious: that DSRP Theory does not just describe how we think, but how reality itself is structured.

I’m skeptical of this deep claim and will challenge it in the next post.

Conclusion

On the Cabreras’ terms, DSRP is “universal” because it aims to describe the underlying grammar of how information is organized - across domains, scales, and contexts - in both mind (mental models) and nature. (4)

This universality is grounded in co-implication (paired, co-implied elements) and simultaneity (the presence of any one D/S/R/P implying the presence of all).

In their ToE framing, “universal” also means pragmatically usable: a theory that can be applied by any person to any study.

The Love–Reality Loop frames improvement as iterative alignment: model → action → feedback → revision.

What remains controversial, in my mind, is the ontological step: moving from “this is a powerful grammar for organizing information” to “this is the grammar reality itself uses.”

  • Universality-as-grammar = a claim about organizing information / mental models
  • Universality-as-reality = an ontological claim (O-Theory) that requires additional argument + evidence

In the final post of this series, I examine where this claim holds, where it becomes under-constrained, and why the limits of DSRP matter just as much as its strengths.

The open question is whether DSRP is (i) a universal meta-grammar for models or (ii) an empirical law of nature. Those require different standards of evidence.

References

  1. Any Person, Any Study : A Different Kind of Theory of Everything (ToE), October 2023, Derek Cabrera; Laura Cabrera

  2. O-Theory : The Science of Organization, November 2025, Derek Cabrera; Laura Cabrera

  3. A Mathematical Theory of Organization : DSRP as Universal Code of Mind and Nature for Organizing, Evolving, and Understanding Information, July 2024, Derek Cabrera

  4. DSRP Theory: A Primer, March 2022, Derek Cabrera; Laura Cabrera

Thank you for reading. If any errors or misunderstandings appear in this article, they are entirely my own and should not be attributed to Derek and Laura Cabrera or their work.