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We've got a new post on Commonplace! 👉 How First Principles Thinking Fails

Thinking is split roughly into pattern matching against experience, and reasoning from first principles. Here's one argument for why you need both.

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A fascinating read

I am puzzled though. To reason from first principles, you should first break a question / problem down to its basic elements until you understand them. You asked, "Why are we making so much money?" without breaking it down.

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and

This is always a lot simpler in theory, I think. e.g. If you break things down to the 'base principles' how do you know you've got the right (useful) framing of things? The answer: you don't. You still have to test.

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and

I've noticed that those with less experience in a domain tend to break things down in bad/useless ways. That isn't really a problem. The problem is that they then fall in love with their own logic. Everything is so rational and built from first principles! Then it doesn't work.

3:16 PM · Dec 10, 2020TweetDeck