I am not sure this is considered as a thing its own. Learning by principles is not a common practice. Maybe it will be a "Thing" after this article. I have heard the above phrase in some uncommon places. Like from university lecturers. Before it became a common term after Elon Musk talked about it. As you can see, the world is looking at this guy, to cling onto every word he says because he is backed up with billions of dollars. However, I cannot agree more on this, Hence I will try to explain this with good examples. My version of this learning is called "Pattern recognition" which is more common term than Learning by Principle.
What is First Principal thinking:
Read the following summary of First Principle thinking and, try to understand anything makes sense. To me it does not directly. At first glance it seems just an illusionary vision. What do you think about it?
First principles thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach that involves breaking down complex issues into their most basic, fundamental truths, and then rebuilding solutions from those core principles. Here's a breakdown:
Breaking Down Assumptions:
It involves dismantling pre-existing assumptions and conventional wisdom. Instead of relying on analogies or how things have always been done, it focuses on what is undeniably true.
Identifying Fundamental Truths:
The goal is to identify the "first principles" – the basic facts that cannot be further reduced. These are the foundational elements of a problem.
Rebuilding from the Ground Up:
Once the first principles are established, solutions are constructed by reasoning upwards from these fundamental truths. This allows for the creation of innovative and unique solutions.
Key aspects:
It is about, questioning "why" repeatedly, to get to the root of a problem.
It promotes independent thinking.
It helps to create novel solutions, instead of just incremental improvements.
In essence, first principles thinking encourages you to move beyond accepted norms and create your own understanding of reality by starting with the most basic facts.
First principle thinking example.
Imagine you are in the ground. And you see some kids playing with a ball. I have done it before. The catching the ball game. We divide ourselves into two groups and from either side of the ground throw the ball up in the air, at the other group. And they try to catch it. And some are very good at catching while some are very good at throwing. And if you throw, it higher, the catching is more difficult when it comes down, obviously as it has higher energy and faster speeds. If you do not throw it too high, it will be much easier to catch. Obviously, there are so many things we can learn from this. We can calculate the exact speed of the ball, given the initial speed and the angle of throw, and air resistance etc. All the rocket scientists at space X started learning trajectories just like solving similar small problems. But is there anything else we can learn from this?
We can observe with mindfulness. And one principle I gather from this is,
"Higher the ball goes, greater speed it will come down"
Let's make it more fundamental principle.
Higher something goes, faster it will come down.
Higher the action, larger the reaction.
Now we are getting somewhere with our first principle. Now, this is good thing to keep in mind. And if you look at this simple fact, I can show you thousand things where this can be applied. Following is a few, you can name some more.
Using the first Principle
Deeper the sea retreat, bigger the wave, the Tsunami. Ask from Japanese if you do not know this.
Bigger a company is, riskier if they start to crash one day. This is why it is mandatory for any company to go into share market and become public. More people will lose their jobs, unless backed by public itself.
Bigger the atomic bomb, that detonate, longer will be the peace that follow.
Larger the bank you are going to Rob, will give you a longer sentence in jail.
More famous you are, bigger the consequences of your unethical actions will be.
Not only that, but this will also provide you insane wisdom even for everyday things. Imagine this.
Bigger the car you buy, Higher will be maintenance costs.
Bigger the house you buy, Higher will be numbers of empty rooms.
Higher your expectations in life, more will be the suffering, when you find your zero.
This is why more bankers suicide than of Beggers?
But as you can see, not all of them are true. But we have a perspective to think about things. We just started with a simple thing like a falling of a ball, but argue about global peace?
Someone might argue. It is just looking at the negative side of it. I would not disagree with this. Infact, bigger the car, you can be more satisfied with it, with comfort. Yet, this principle will let you understand and take a calculated risk in doing something. Bigger the action bigger the reaction - > both pros and cons will be multiplied equally.
Following are More examples of first principle thinking.
Drifting jellyfish -> Everything is in motion.
What is time-> a falling leaf is a continuous function.
Technical drawing ->You can never fully describe something.
Where is my right -> Right is always relative
Do you follow any first Principles? What are they?
Great examples.
There’s a parenthood saying that also applies here (although the size is more referring to age)… Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems.