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Comment by pxc | Hacker News Reader

> Sadly people from the academia [...] equate [first principles thinking] with exam based memorization or delegation to authority.

In what departments and at what universities? The term "first principles" comes from academia. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a faculty member in any philosophy department doesn't understand what reasoning from first principles is. I'd be surprised if any working mathematician thinks of "memorization" or delegating to authority rather than axiomatization. What experiences led you to say this?

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Its so ubiquitous, you can pick random folks from most academia and see it first hand.

If this comes as a shocker to you, then I should be the one to enquire as to how you managed to stay blind in the face of the obvious.

Just strike up a discussion on some complex topic, and you can see many people resort to "because the author here in this book said" or "we are taught so and so".

A first principles reasoning can show you the steps that lead to a specific conclusion without invoking any author, teacher or course.

Cheers. Hope it helps.

A specialist discussing a complex topic uses that as shorthand based on shared context. Nothing would ever get done if every conversation required starting from "first principles" whether inside or outside academia.

What's missing in your claim is evidence that people in academia often mischaracterize this style of discussion from accumulated knowledge and shared context as "thinking from first principles". I don't see any plausible rationale for why they would.

Otherwise, using their typical mode of interaction from outside observations to infer they misunderstand first principles is not a standard anyone doing specialized work inside or outside academia would ever be able to meet.

The private sector would grind to a halt if discussing a specific IEEE 802.11 protocol implementation with a fellow SME required a lengthy preamble of networking first principles before answering in order to be epistemologically sound.

Similarly, using a conversation overheard at a conference to infer the experts lack first principles thinking would not be reasonable just because they appealed to IEEE documents instead of rearticulating the underlying decisions made by the standards committee.

Your reasoning that first-principles results in inefficient communication is false. It is a common misunderstanding.

You can always breakdown one layer on demand. And you only need to drop down as far as the other party insists.

My example was about striking up direct conversation with someone and not overhearing.

If someone pointed to IEEE protocol and I asked "but X, so why?" and if the answer is still IEEE protocol again, then the person does not have "first principles".

That is the test. It exposes the shorthand user from the legit first-principles capable user.

Knowing what first principles reasoning is isn't the same thing as being willing to re-teach a discipline from the ground up for a stranger rather than first pointing to the existing literature that, perfectly or imperfectly, already addresses a topic.

You don't acquire it by learning or teaching about it. You don't acquire it from literature or lectures. You acquire it by being forced to do it. It requires wrestling with the problem domain.

And as you said, pointing to literature just "addresses" a topic. Obtaining it is a different matter altogether.

I get what you're saying but I think what you're describing is more of a temperament more than anything else. Some people, inside and outside academia, have a kind of "root causes" or "first principles" temperament. Others are more inclined to build incrementally on existing knowledge, and less inclined to revisit the foundations.

I think you're right that lots of people with tons of training, expertise, or experience are (sometimes very disappointingly) disinclined to engage in first-principles thinking. But I would expect most academicians to at least know what it is.

You're describing the kind of first principles thinking that gave us the Tesla car door handle. It's Silicon Valley, tech bro, smarter-than-everyone, nothing-to-learn-from-anyone bullshit.

Complex topics are built on history, on those who came before us, on attempts and failures and successes. Ignoring it is garden variety stupid.

According to you, demonstrating steps that lead to a specific conclusion was only used in Silicon Valley to just build Tesla door handle.

Your first principles reasoning must then be deference to authority and course. Good to know.

> Complex topics are built on history, on those who came before us, on attempts and failures and successes

Tell that to Alan Turing, Godel, Tarski, Aristotle and a lot of other first principles thinkers.

> Ignoring it is garden variety stupid.

Bro, What about ignoring the original comment.

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