What is the First Principles Thinking

First Principles Thinking

 Induction is to deduce conclusions through practice and extend the continuous experience to all time and space. However, not everything has continuity, and the inherent thinking will lead you into the "fallacy of induction". To break the cognitive boundary and realize the innovation of the second curve, you need a new mode of thinking - the deductive method. However, the deductive method must have a cornerstone, a meta starting point that comes from outside the system and can be logically self-consistent. This meta starting point can be called either the first premise, logical singularity, or the first principle.

Before specifically explaining the first principle, we need to understand the two basic logical methods commonly used in human daily life: one is induction; The other is the deductive method.

Induction is the most basic and common form of "wisdom" used by human beings. It is a thinking pattern built into human genes. People will generalize abstract knowledge from concrete experience. In daily life, we usually call this rule "experience".

The deductive method is also a kind of thinking habit that we should be very familiar with. According to Professor Wu of Tsinghua University, the deductive method is one of the main ways of rational thinking. It is a kind of strange thinking. In short, it is a kind of knowledge that logic proves itself. As long as we have a meta starting point, people can deduce the future step by step.

Induction and deduction are the two main ways of human thinking. Only by understanding these two ways of thinking can we enter the context of the first principle and know what fields the first principle can play a role in.