Walk the Week - First Principles Thinking

I am a great believer in starting advice or presentations on complex topics from first principles, setting out the basics before exploring the more intricate issues. Even talking to an audience of so-called experts, it is quite hard to know precisely what level of knowledge everybody has reached in their occupation or profession. Time and again I have seen otherwise excellent presentations which have “assumed” the knowledge level of their audience. This results in a failure by at least some to grasp the more complex issuers and detracts from the value and effect of the overall delivery. The bible starts with the Book of Genesis without which a lot of the books which follow would not make sense.

The same is true when as professionals we are first presented with a new contract to negotiate or a patient to assess. It is easy to assume knowledge because you have “done it before” and therefore that this negotiation or diagnosis will be the same – jumping too readily to conclusions. To paraphrase, with apologies for a second week, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the “Ruler of the Universe” lives on a shack with his cat on a planet within an improbability field and ?“appears very deferential and largely uncertain on almost every front. He believes nothing unless he can prove it by seeing it himself”.

This may be going a bit far but working a problem from first principles is a powerful approach generally. See this article First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge which comments:

“First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.”

It cites Aristotle who defined first principles as “the first basis from which a thing is known.” ?and Elon Musk who said “You have to build up the reasoning from the ground up—“from the first principles” is the phrase that’s used in physics”. And “I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.”

See also this article First Principles: Elon Musk on the Power of Thinking for Yourself which commences:

“First principles thinking, which is sometimes called reasoning from first principles, is one of the most effective strategies you can employ for breaking down complicated problems and generating original solutions.”

It also quotes examples observing “…the process of first principles thinking ….is a cycle of breaking a situation down into the core pieces and then putting them all back together in a more effective way. Deconstruct then reconstruct.”

Elon Musk wanted to send a spaceship to Mars but discovered “the cost of purchasing a rocket was astronomical—up to $65 million” so he “said, okay, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”

As professionals we sometimes refer to having the “pieces all over the floor” when we know we have a lot of work still to do; but at least we then know what all the building blocks are.

If you are a true expert in your field, you will readily be able to construct a theory or a presentation from the ground up applying first principle thinking. See this article What Is First Principles Thinking? 3 Popular Approaches and How to Apply Them which says “Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” first principles thinking is the practice of questioning every assumption you think you know about a given problem, then creating new solutions from scratch. It’s one of the best ways to unlock creative solutions to complicated problems.”?

And describes the difference with analogy:

First principles thinking requires you to break down previous assumptions and barriers of problems to create a completely innovative solution.

In contrast, reasoning by analogy is solving problems based on prior assumptions and widely accepted best practices.

It also suggests using the Socratic method, a systematic approach to asking and answering questions This really resonates with me as an interrogative approach in the early stages of any project really helps to obtain a fundamental understanding of the problem and start to see possible solutions.

Thus, the true expert can start their talk or project from first principles and build on that platform. That person will truly understand the building blocks of their knowledge and be able to convey them ?to others. Also, if things do go wrong in a project or other professional situation, this expert will have a far better chance of correcting the situation as they will truly understand the fundamental building blocks and how they may be shifting.

This all sounds so obvious why don’t we always start from first principles? I suggest that the enemy to this approach, especially in this age of instant electronic communication, is – time. The problems we are presented with as professionals are expressed to be so urgent, we decide we don’t have enough time to think them through thoroughly. See this Harvard Business Publishing blog To Improve Critical Thinking, Don’t Fall into the Urgency Trap which observes that:

“Too often at work, people rely on expertise and past experiences to jump to a conclusion. Yet research consistently shows that when we rush decisions, we often regret them—even if they end up being correct.

Why we hasten decision making is quite clear. We’re inundated with incessant distractions that compete for our attention, and, at the same time, we’re facing profound pressure to go faster and drive our businesses forward, even when the path ahead is unclear.

In the aftermath of information overwhelm, evolving technology, and rapidly changing business environments, people often unconsciously fall into a pernicious paradox called the “urgency trap.””

It then recommends several ways to overcome this including:

·????????Question Assumptions and Biases

·????????Reason Through Logic

·????????Listen Actively and Openly

This is particularly pertinent if you use some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can be very useful in helping build a quick response, but can also “hallucinate” and provide the wrong answer as happened to some litigation lawyers in New York recently. If you have understood and grasped the issues at a first principles level it will be so much easier to evaluate this sort of input.

When we are children we all start learning from first principles, but we quickly get put in our place by adults who tell us this is how it is because I say so. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great analysed the factors which make an organisation not just good , but great. A great lawyer or doctor or commercial director will seek to understand the root cause of an issue they are dealing with. A good professional who is competent and diligent, but who nevertheless does not do this, will find it much harder if the going gets tough and some of the underlying “assumed” first principles shift or change.

As Plato sagely observed:

“There's no chance of their having a conscious glimpse of the truth as long as they refuse to disturb the things they take for granted and remain incapable of explaining them. For if your starting-point is unknown, and your end-point and intermediate stages are woven together out of unknown material, there may be coherence, but knowledge is completely out of the question.”