First principles is the principles we use to build understanding on top of them.
If we never learn to take something apart, test our assumptions about it and reconstruct it, we end up bound by what other people tell us, trapped in the ways things have always been done.
When the environment changes. we just continue as if things were the same, making costly mistakes along the way
There are two main techniques to establish first principles,
title: Socratic Questioning
date: 2020-08-07 00:00:00
Socratic method 🔗
- Clarifying your thinking. Why do I think this, What exactly do I think?
- Challenging assumptions
- Looking for evidences
- Considering alternative perspectives (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?)
- Examining consequences and implications ( What are the consequences if I am wrong?)
- Questioning the original questions (Why did I think that? was I correct?)
title: None
date: 2020-08-18 00:00:00
Five Why’s 🔗
It’s a way to depth on what you know, and what you don’t know. trying to understand the world as a 5 year does. Asking compulsively Why every time.
The idea is to get the main idea we want to deep, and ask Why is this true? and what ever the answer is, ask again: Why?
If in any of the answers you get to a “cause this is how it is” or Cause yes. You found an assumption that you need to check.