“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” 

Einstein

In life, a person with fewer blindspots wins. Removing blind spot means, see, understand and move close to reality. 

If we never take something apart, test our assumptions about it and reconstruct it, we end up believing what others tell us, trapped in that way how always things are done. 

Anything which is not law of nature is a shared belief. Like money. 

Analogy Thinking:

In normal day life we reason by analogy because it is easier. Reasoning by analogy is by compare two objects with respect to their similarity.

“We are doing this because it is like something else what was done” 

“It is like what other people are doing” 

• copy what works
• don’t try to re-invent the wheel
• identify and apply the best features from other solutions
• good artists borrow and great artists steal

First Principles Thinking: 

A way of thinking in which you break down things to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

It is a tool to clarify complicated problem by separating the underlying ideas or fact from assumptions. What remains are the essentials. 

We break down things to their most basic forms. 

we have to actively question every assumption we think we know about the problem, till we reach the core of the problem. Then find the solution from scratch. 

Building solution on prior assumptions can leads to bad decisions. Just doing how every one does is not a good strategy. 

• reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility.
• one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself
• cut through the fog of shoddy reasoning and inadequate analogies to see opportunities that others miss
• it is a hammer to break the “it is what it is thinking” from authority figure. As children, we learn to stop questioning when we’re told “Because I said so.” As adults, we learn to stop questioning when people say “Because that’s how it works.” 
• It takes a lot more mental energy but it results in creative opportunities and innovation.

Example: logical deduction

we can define first principles as undeniable basic truths. 

logical statements are either true or false. 

statement 1: all humans age

statement 2: you are human

statement 3:  you age

statement 3 can be deduced by statement 1 and 2 therefore it is not first principle, where statement 1 and 2 are. 

Example : We want to improve the energy efficiency of a refrigerator then the laws of thermo dynamics can be taken as first principles. 

Example : People say : Battery packs are expensive and they will always do because thats the way it has been in the past. It sounds dumb. Battery cost 600$ per kilowatt per hour and it is not going to be better in future. 

We apply first principle reasoning here and ask, what are battery made of ? what are spot market value of the material constituents ? It is cobalt, nickel, aluminium, carbon, some polymers for separations and a steel can. Then we ask what if we bought that all in London metal exchange then what each of thing will cost? we find it is 80$ per kilowatt hour. Clearly we need now to find clever ways to combine these materials in a shape of cell and then you can have batteries which are much cheaper than anyone realised it. 

Techniques to apply first principle thinking include asking 5 whys and socratic questioning.