Stickman Charles — First Principles
Hello, I'm Stickman Charles.
What are first principles?
Aristotle argued that within any system of knowledge there exist the most fundamental truths—truths that require no prior assumptions. These are called first principles. If you understand them, you can derive the rest of the logic within that domain.
The physicist Richard Feynman advocated a similar attitude: do your own homework. Instead of blindly trusting authority, work through the reasoning yourself and derive the result.
When Jeff Bezos was building Amazon, he asked his team to return to the fundamental question of user experience rather than competing through proxy metrics—numbers created within an existing framework rather than objective reality.
In the early days of SpaceX, Elon Musk ignored the industry assumption that rockets must be extremely expensive. Instead, he examined the price of every raw material on the London Metal Exchange. The result: the material cost accounted for only about 2% of the market price of a rocket.
From these examples, first-principles thinking can be understood as a way of thinking that combines independent reasoning, returning to fundamentals, and challenging conventions.
These three elements reinforce one another. None of them stands alone.
How can you develop first-principles thinking?
Step 1: Ask one more "why."
Much of what you believe to be knowledge is actually borrowed experience. Ask yourself one more "why."
Our brains—especially the instinctive and emotional systems—prefer analogical thinking. We rely on the experience of others because it saves energy. But this does not mean every question must be pursued endlessly. The goal is to find a balance between training your thinking ability and managing your cognitive energy. Save your effort for the problems that truly matter.
Step 2: Learn across disciplines.
Study the fundamental laws of fields such as physics, mathematics, and biology. These disciplines provide the underlying structure that will help you in the next step.
Step 3: Deconstruct the problem.
Use what you have learned to break a problem down until it cannot be reduced any further. Then separate the constraints you discover into two categories: human constraints and physical constraints.
First-principles thinking focuses on physical constraints and questions everything that is merely human convention.
Step 4: Search for the shortest path.
Once the facts are clear, ask yourself: what is the most efficient path to the goal?
During this process, external opinions matter less. First-principles thinking, by definition, often challenges existing norms.
How I apply first-principles thinking
Cognition can be seen as a system built from many clear and accurate concepts. My goal is to explain, compress, and help people master these concepts.
Reduce ideas to their essence.
Simple is everything.
Let's simplify thinking and action down to their fundamentals.
Finally, thank you for reading. If you have thoughts or suggestions about first-principles thinking, feel free to contact me at:
charlesisworkinghard@gmail.com
Keep thinking, and take care.