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itishappy

First principle: How can we accomplish X?

Higher order: What if we accomplished X?

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Thinking from first principles would likely start with “Do we need X?”

Fair point, I'm skipping over the need itself. The titular first principle.

First principles: "We need X, how can we accomplish that?"

Higher order: "We need X, what would accomplishing that do for us?"

Yet another incompatible definition - here first principles thinking is define as "how do reach a solution?". If that were true, then it wouldn't be any different from "problem solving".

That's more-or-less the definition, no? First principles thinking and higher order thinking are both methods of problem solving.

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