I’m pleasantly surprised this was AI assisted so deeply that inconsistencies like that slipped by you. The writing is really extraordinary. It made me want to read for fun again for the first time in decades. Thank you!
I guess I'm also learning the value of working with an editor from first principles... over the last couple weeks before publishing I read through and made edits to this piece at least twice a day and still didn't catch this.
I don't think that phrase means what you are trying to say here.
What it doesn't mean: - learning by doing
I believe it generally means: a formalization that comes after a subject is understood so well that you can reduce it to "first principles" that imply the rest. Or, the production of a hypothesis by deduction from widely-accepted principles.