# Coty Austin Trout American independent researcher and author of **CAT'S Theory**, a self-published research program built on the formula Reality = Pattern × Intent × Presence, and of [Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism](/codex/triadic-meta-ontological-realism/), an argument from that formula to the Christian Trinity. ## Intro Coty Austin Trout is an independent writer who publishes outside the university system. Since late 2024 he has developed a single idea across dozens of papers: that anything that exists needs three things at once, a definite structure (Pattern), something that settled on this arrangement over others (Intent), and actual existence (Presence). He calls the formula CAT'S Law and the larger project CAT'S Theory. ![Diagram of Trout's triadic invariant R = P x I x Pr not equal to zero, with Pattern, Intent and Presence mapped to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit](/codex/assets/tmor-triadic-invariant-diagram.svg) *Trout's triadic invariant and his Trinity mapping. Codex diagram drawn from his 2026 paper.* By his own account the framework came first and faith followed: he dates the first CAT'S Theory paper to November 2024 and his baptism to February 2025. Since then much of his work has turned to apologetics, arguing that the triad points to the Trinity and debating atheists, mythicists and Calvinists online. ## In full Trout publishes as an independent researcher (ORCID [0009-0003-3401-8815](https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3401-8815)). His work appears as open-access preprints on Zenodo, gathered in a "CAT'S Theory Complete Repository" community, and in a self-published book. As of October 2026 his ORCID profile lists more than 90 works, from 2025 and 2026. None has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and no academic literature has yet engaged the program. The corpus falls into four broad groups: 1. **Philosophy and apologetics.** The *Minimal Bases and Minded Worlds* series and *Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism* argue that the triad is a precondition of existence and that its necessary ground is a self-knowing, trinitarian Person. See [Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism](/codex/triadic-meta-ontological-realism/) for the argument and an assessment. 2. **Physics.** Papers claim to derive particle masses, the Higgs value, mixing angles and gravitational coupling from torus-knot topology on a three-sphere, and offer CAT'S readings of the measurement problem and the hard problem of consciousness. 3. **Cosmology.** Several 2026 papers defend a flat-surface cosmology and model the Moon as a local "crystalline luminary." These positions are at odds with standard astronomy. 4. **Critiques.** Replies to named critics, and polemical reviews of mythicist and skeptical scholarship, including Richard Carrier's minimal mythicism and Britt and Wingo's *Christ Before Jesus*, and of Calvinist theology. ## Books - *The Structure of Reality: CAT'S Theory of Everything* (self-published, 2025). ISBN 979-8344522305; second edition ISBN 979-8285211839. The full text is also distributed with the collected corpus on Zenodo. ## Selected works Philosophy and apologetics (all Zenodo preprints): - "Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism: From Invariant to Trinity, A Complete Argument for God" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.22769193](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22769193) - "CAT'S Theory as Transcendental Proof: The Triadic Meta-Law, Intelligibility, and the Triune God" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.19679933](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19679933) - "Minimal Bases and Minded Worlds: Why a Triadic Meta-Law is Required for Conscious Agents" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.19656735](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19656735) - "Minimal Bases and Minded Worlds: The Ontological Closure Theorem: Triadic Structure as a Necessary Condition for Existence as Such" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.19714522](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19714522) - "The Structural Autopsy: Why Every Major Atheist Argument Collapses Under the Triadic Invariant" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.22885932](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22885932) - "The Manufactured Christ: A Structural Autopsy of Richard Carrier's Minimal Mythicism" (2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.20262942](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20262942) Collected corpus: - "CAT'S THEORY: The Complete Research Corpus, The Structure of Reality: Pattern x Intent x Presence" (2025, updated 2026). [doi:10.5281/zenodo.17685631](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17685631) - Full list of works: [ORCID profile](https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3401-8815). ## Assessment Trout's central intuition, that reality is shaped, specific and actual and that this demands an explanation, stands in a long Christian tradition running through [Augustine](/codex/augustine/)'s triadic analogies for the Trinity and the classical arguments from contingency. His critiques of materialism and eliminativism press real weaknesses in those views. The main problems lie in how the argument is built: a key term (Intent) that is defined without mind at the start but carries a self-knowing mind at the end, appeals to thermodynamics and biology that go beyond what the cited science says, and a Trinity mapping that illustrates the doctrine rather than deriving it. The detailed case is on the [Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism](/codex/triadic-meta-ontological-realism/) page. ## See also - [Triadic Meta-Ontological Realism](/codex/triadic-meta-ontological-realism/), Trout's argument from the triad to the Trinity, with an assessment - [Transcendental Argument for God](/codex/transcendental-argument-for-god/), the established argument TMOR is most often compared to - [Trinity](/codex/trinity/), the doctrine his work aims to defend - [Augustine](/codex/augustine/), the classical source of triadic analogies for the Trinity