The basis from which a thing is known - Aristotle (on First Principles)
While researching this topic of First Principles, I was able to make an observation about myself which I would have otherwise not been able to make. That is, I was always conditioned on being taught ‘why’ to think in a certain way, and very rarely taught ‘how’ to think or ‘what’ was the reason to do something. Life was just so instructional that the mind application was not needed in the formative years.
This conditioning is a result of external and internal factors that have influenced my life in a small or large way but more importantly, I have allowed it to play a passive role in limiting my thought process over the years. As you read on, you will be able to relate to my concluding introduction to this piece.
What are First Principles?
First Principles is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. In layman terms, it is the method of thinking which requires you to break down the problem or issue to its basic foundation. To the point where the thought or idea is completely pure, i.e. a place where assumptions are not required or do not work.
A very popular story that encompasses this concept is of Elon Musk and SpaceX. Elon has been a great ambassador of First Principles Thinking. In 2002 when Musk wanted to begin working on sending a rocket to Mars, he was faced with a challenge big enough to shatter that thought process almost immediately. To send a rocket to Mars, you first need a rocket. So Musk decided to go shopping for one of the most expensive machines money can buy and soon discovered that the cost for one of those machines can go up to 65 million dollars. Around this point, this is what he said on what his next move was and how he came to think of it.
“
I tend to
approach things from a physics framework,” Musk said in an interview. “Physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. So I said, okay, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”
So Musk chose the option that most people would not have thought of at that point. He decided to create his own rockets. In a few years, SpaceX cut the costs of launching a rocket by 10x while making a profit and creating a much better solution to the then norms of manufacturing aerospace machines.
Where do we start?
Sahil Bloom once stated that when we encounter difficult situations or problems, we tend to rely on base-level assumptions. These assumptions can be created by us or could be told to us and hence we believe them to be true. The issue with assumptions is that they act as barriers to open source thinking.
If you allow someone to think for you or make your assumptions based on some random factors, what you are doing on a passive level is using their analogies and conventions without realizing that it is actually restricting any pure thought that could come to you. What you need to remember is that just like your fingerprints - your journey, your outcomes, and most importantly, your thought process is different.
Allow yourself to think freely.
Take a minute and now think of any inventor, whether it is Steve Jobs inventing the iPhone or Thomas Edison inventing the Light Bulb, every invention can in some shape, size, or form be attributed to the thinking of First Principles. It is only when you step back to reassess the commonly accepted beliefs, do you realize that there is scope to disrupt them while innovating to help make something better. This is also the very reason, people in academia can write new studies every few years on the same subject or topic that factually show progress and improvement over the previous versions.
Learn from the five-year-olds
If there is one thing that almost any kid and any great inventor have in common, it is curiosity.
Any adult who has had a conversation with a child for over five minutes will realize that kids like asking a lot of questions. They don’t do this to intentionally irritate us. Instead, they do this because of their hunger to know something. Kids, in general, are curious because they know little and understand even less.
Hence, every time you tell them to do something they question it with a ‘Why’ or ‘How’ or ‘What’. The underlying reason for this approach is usually that kids do not have any barriers or assumptions in their thinking hence they just question things. As adults, with time and experience, we tend to have a lot of barriers and assumptions in our thought process, and hence when we cannot answer the third or fourth consecutive ‘Why’ that a child asks, we tend to get irritated and close the conversation with something like ‘Because that’s how it is’ or ‘Because I said so’.
In effect what we as adults are doing is that we are closing the part of the mind where the child thinks and analyses the world from First Principles. They breakdown everything to the last detail with their questions. Since we do not have the answers or the inclination to match that curiosity we tend to close those conversations. Sometimes it closes for good if our response comes from a negative or aggressive standpoint.
The open-ended questions
Another method that seems to work well is that of open-ended questions. I first learned about open-ended questions in Chris Voss’ Negotiation Masterclass. He talks about the importance of using a ‘What’ or a ‘How’ in your conversations way more than using a ‘Why’. The reason to avoid using a ‘Why’ is that these questions usually tend to have a tone of accusation while making the person feel cornered into giving a response. Also, they are very close-ended questions, which means they rarely lead to keeping the conversation going.
For example, Next time you want an answer from someone, try asking them ‘What was their reason to do what they did?’ instead of ‘Why did they do something?’. The former statement makes the person reflect on their actions while giving them the feeling of control about their will to answer. The latter just feels like they are going to get shouted at for doing something stupid.
The point here is, next time you want to move away from analogies and assumptions, try asking yourself questions that make you reflect and dive deeper into something. It helps breakdown whatever it is you are working on much more effectively. Each ‘What’ or ‘How’ can have an open-ended response even when you answer them yourself.
So is using analogies not a productive way to think?
Well, there is no fixed way to do anything. While thinking in first principles has a lot of advantages, what you need to ask yourself is what would you want your outcome to be. If you are looking for an outcome that leads you towards doing something for the first time or dealing with some form of complex problems then First Principles should be your go-to strategy as it helps you break down things to the fundamentals of the subject.
However, if you are someone who is working on improving something which does not need any changes from the ground up or just requires some minor adjustments and refinements then using the continuous improvement method where analogies play a significant role would work better for you. The key is to first understand the problem and choose the path that you think would lead you to the desired outcome.
Please remember that different approaches will usually lead to different layers of depth. It is just important to know when to implement the method of thinking in First Principles as it has the ability to make a profound difference in helping you view the world from a non-linear lens.
These are the reasons for my concluding statement at the beginning of this piece. I think as kids whether we are in school or at home, we should all be taught to think in First Principles. And, if you are like me that did not learn it as a child, you can always start today.
Until next time…
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