One way to figure out how to balance between first principles thinking and pattern matching is to invert the question: how might either type of thinking fail?
This week’s Commonplace post is the more interesting qn: How First Principles Thinking Fails.
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Do you have an example of starting with the wrong set of base principles, even if they are all true? In that scenario, I don't think you can end with a wrong conclusion. If anything, you may not have complete information, so your initial conclusion was not inferred properly.
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I do have an example, and I'm considering writing it up next week. It was supposed to be in this week's piece. I burnt out on it — couldn't get it to work because it requires a lot of exposition.
We'll see if I have the intellectual power/stamina to pull it off in a few days.