Cartesian Doubt

Even if you aren't trying to develop innovative ideas, understanding the first principles of your field is a smart use of your time. Without a firm grasp of the basics, there is little chance of mastering the details that make the difference at elite levels of competition.

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One of the primary obstacles to first principles thinking is our tendency to focus on making slight iterations on the same theme. The problem is that, old conventions and forms are often accepted without question and they set boundaries around creativity.

Optimize t...

Different solutions present themselves at different layers of abstraction. Depending on how deep and thorough is your breakdown of the situation, putting them all back together may yield different solutions.

Is the act of deconstructing something to the fundamental parts that you know are true and building up from there.

Also called reasoning from first principles, it effectively helps many great thinkers (or entrepreneurs like Elon) to break down complicated p...

Many groundbreaking ideas have been a result of boiling things down to the first principles and then substituting one of the key parts for a more effective solution.

The best solution is often not where everyone is already looking. After getting to the fact...

A first principle is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced any further.