First Principles (Reductionism)
It’s taking problems and breaking them down into their smaller parts.
Also read this article: https://jamesclear.com/first-principles
I think I need to organize my notes more from a first principles perspective. Really break down things to fundamentally what they are.
When you look at engineering concepts, you should study how these came about. Build intuition for why people came up with these.
Elon Musk seems to be the biggest proponent of this.
First principles thinking is basically the practice of actively questioning every assumption you think you ‘know’ about a given problem or scenario — and then creating new knowledge and solutions from scratch. Almost like a newborn baby.
Physics is great for first principles.
On the flip side, reasoning by analogy (BAD) is building knowledge and solving problems based on prior assumptions, beliefs and widely held ‘best practices’ approved by majority of people.
3 Steps for First Principles:
- Identify and define your current assumptions
- Breakdown the problem into its fundamental principles
- Create new solutions from scratch
STEP 1: Identify and define your current assumptions
_“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
Albert Einstein
Here are some examples of assumptions:
- “Growing my business will cost a lot of money.”
- “I have to struggle and starve to become a successful artist.”
- “I just can’t find enough time to workout and reach my weight loss goals.”
When next you’re faced with a familiar problem or challenge, simply write down your current assumptions about them. (Note: You can stop here and write these down now)
STEP 2: Breakdown the problem into its fundamental principles
“It is important to view knowledge as sort of semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.” - Elon Musk
Example from Elon Musk: Somebody could say, “Battery packs are really expensive and that’s just the way they will always be… Historically, it has cost $600 per kilowatt hour. It’s not going to be much better than that in the future.”
With first principles, you say, “What are the material constituents of the batteries? What is the stock market value of the material constituents?” It’s got cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers for separation and a seal can. Break that down on a material basis and say, “If we bought that on the London Metal Exchange what would each of those things cost?”
It’s like $80 per kilowatt hour. So clearly you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell and you can have batteries that are much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.”
STEP 3: Create new solutions from scratch
“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” — Mortimer Adler
Assumption: “Growing my business will cost too much money”
First principles thinking: What do you need to grow a profitable business? I need to sell products or services to more customers. Does it have to cost a lot of money to sell to new customers? Not necessarily, but i’ll probably need access to these new customers inexpensively. Who has this access and how you can create a win-win deal? I guess I could partner with other businesses that serve the same customer and split the profits 50:50. Interesting.
Assumption: “I just can’t find enough time to workout and achieve my weight loss goals.”
First principles thinking: What do you really need to reach your weight loss goal? I need to exercise more, preferably 5 days a week for an hour each time. Could you still lose weight exercising less frequently, if so how? Possibly, I could try 15 minute workouts, 3 days a week. These could be quick high intensity full body workouts that will speed up my fat loss in less time.
Assumption: “I have to struggle and starve to become a successful artist”
First principles thinking: What do you really need to create great work and make a good living as an artist? I would need a reasonably sized audience that will appreciate and buy my artwork. What do you need to reach a larger audience? I probably need to do some marketing, but I don’t like self-promoting so I’d rather not do this. Ok, is there any way for you to promote your work without being sleazy? Yes, if the focus of selling my artwork is meaningful with a purpose of serving the audience — then I could make more money to make more art, so I can serve more people. Interesting…
Other random thoughts
There is a right tool for the job. But you need to understand what is the job in the first place.