This article is from WeChat official account:Chaos University (ID: hundun-university) , according to professor of curriculum Lishan “first principles” gathered from the author: Lishan ( “University of chaos” founder), head Figure from: “a beautiful mind” stills
There are two basic logic methods commonly used in human daily life: one is induction; the other is deduction.
Induction is the most basic and common form of human intelligence. It is a mindset built into human genes. People will generalize abstract knowledge from concrete experience.
In daily life, we usually call this law “experience”.
The deductive method is also a habit of thinking that we are very familiar with. According to Professor Wu Guosheng of Tsinghua University, deductive method is one of the main ways of rational thinking. It is a very strange thinking, in simple terms, it is a kind of logical self-evidence. As long as they have a meta-starting point, people can use deductive methods to show the future step by step.
Induction and deduction are the two main ways of thinking of human beings. Only by understanding these two ways of thinking can we enter the context of first principles and know where the first principles can be Fields play a role.
The law summed up by induction is not necessarily correct
Usually, when people use induction, they often set a certain reference first. From the inertia of human thinking, this reference is often space or time.
The so-called spatial induction, in simple terms, is that people will default to the law that is effective in a certain space, and it is also effective in other spaces or even in all spaces. It’s like an entrepreneur who has succeeded in a certain regional market will take it for granted that he can succeed in other markets as well.
We can use a more popular example to illustrate.
If all the swans people see in Europe are white, in AfricaAll the swans seen are white, and all the swans seen in Asia are white, so people will naturally assume that the swans all over the world are white.
Temporal induction, as the name suggests, is that people think that certain rules that were established in the past are also valid in the present and even in the future. It is like in our understanding that the sun always rises from the east, so the sun will continue to rise from the east in the future.
Induction is a way of thinking that extends the law within a certain time-space boundary to all time and space. For thousands of years, whether you are an Easterner or a Westerner, everyone has used this way of thinking by default. We can even say that 99% of human daily knowledge and experience are based on induction.
In the operation of enterprises, there are actually many examples of the application of induction, especially in startups. Why are entrepreneurs best at using induction?
For example, all start-up companies inevitably have to produce business plans during the financing stage, and in all business plans, there is bound to be an upward curve, whether it is the increase in the number of users or the increase in revenue , Or profit growth, and so on.
Behind this upward curve is actually what entrepreneurs want investors to perceive. In the current space and time, startups can maintain continuous growth, so in the future In a broader market, start-up companies will also achieve more brilliant performance. The thinking behind this is actually induction.
Induction is not only widely used by humans at the cognitive level, but also has an important position in the scientific field. In 1620, the British philosopher Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon) first mentioned the inductive method of scientism in the book “New Tools”. The method is called the “Bacon Method”.
He believes that “scientists should be like bees collecting nectar by collecting data, observing, experimenting and comparing in a planned way to reveal the mysteries of nature.” So far, induction is still one of the main methods used by scientists in laboratory work.
Since it is science, it is natural to convince everyone. In scientific experiments, scientists get some new discoveries through systematic operation, and they will inform the world by publishing papers. But for other scientists, whether this discovery is true or not requires a condition-the reproducibility of experimental results.
In other words, this new discovery must be successfully reproduced by other scientists in another time and space according to the experimental procedures to ensure the validity of this discovery. Independent repeatability is an important methodology for the scientific community to test whether the law holds. If it fails to pass the verification, the results of the experiment cannot be recognized by academia.
Although in the scientific field, induction uses the so-called “independent repeatability” as the standard to ensure the validity of experimental results, but this does not mean that the laws we summarized through induction are It must be true.
In the 18th century, the Scottish philosopher David Hume mentioned the problem of induction in the book “Study on Human Understanding”, which is also called the “Hume’s Problem”. He believes that “we cannot use prior knowledge to prove that the future will be consistent with the past, because (logically) can be thought out of obvious facts Yes, the world is no longer consistent.”
To put it simply, Hume puts forward the so-called “inductive fallacy”, which is actually emphasizing that the future world may not be the same as the past or present world, so the laws that are valid in the past or present may not be in the future. It is still true, that is, the small probability events within a certain time-space boundary cannot be generalized as the law shared by the entire class of things in time and space.
Actually, many mistakes made by human beings stem from improperly pushing the laws within the boundaries beyond the boundaries.
Take the cognition problem of swan we mentioned earlier as an example. The swan we see in Europe is white, and the swan we see in Africa is white, which really means that all swans are white. Is it? The answer is of course no, because in Australia, there are still a small but real population of black swans.
The fallacy of inductive method illustrates a terrible fact: in the past thousands of years, we have been using and will continue to use the mode of thinking that does not accurately interpret the laws behind things. Even if all the premises are correct, we cannot ensure that the results obtained by the summary are true. The existence of independent repeatability verification rules can only be used to determine whether there is a problem with the inductive results, but it cannot verify the correctness of the results.
In other words, the conclusion of induction is a hypothesis waiting to be overturned.
The continuity hypothesis is an implicit hypothesis of induction
I believe that before most people understand the induction method, they will think that the knowledge they have learned in their previous lives is the truth, and the laws obtained by induction have certain guiding significance.
This phenomenon is especially common among entrepreneurs, because self-confidence is one of the essential personal traits of people who can become entrepreneurs. People who are overconfident tend to trust their own perceptions.
In addition, the more real reason is that people always subconsciously ignore or tacitly accept implicit assumptions in the inference process. The so-called implicit hypothesis is the major premise of inference at the logical level.
In a fixed time and space, ignoring the verified premise to derive the result is effective to some extent. But in the inductive thinking involving the transformation of time and space, the implicit assumption of temporal induction is that the future is the same as the past; the implicit assumption of spatial induction is that the characteristics of one area are the same as another. Although these two implicit hypotheses have also been verified, they are summarized by induction.
So, to overturn a conclusion, do not start from the conclusion, but start from its implicit assumptions. If the underlying implicit assumptions do not hold, the conclusion will naturally not hold. This is also a common method for debate masters, starting from the cornerstone and structure, not from the content.
In our past experience, the sun always rises from the east, so we take it for granted that the sun will continue to rise from the east in the future. This assumption comes from our subconscious mind, tacitly accepting the implicit assumption that the future is the same as the past.
But must the future be the same as the past? Regarding this issue, I believe that most people’s proof is like this, because today is the same as yesterday, and yesterday is the same as the day before yesterday. Therefore, in our experience, the future is always the same as the past. In fact, we are just using inductive thinking to prove that this implicit hypothesis is correct. Induction can only falsify, not prove, so the implicit hypothesis that we consider to be reasonable is just a continuity hypothesis in time and space.
In the famous sci-fi work “Three-Body”, the author Liu Cixin describes a grand future in which the earth will struggle and communicate with other civilizations in the universe. The main clue is the “three-body” civilization of the earth and the alien world that wants to occupy the earth. The war between.
In the second chapter of the book, “Dark Forest”, Liu Cixin described a scene: as a “wall-facer” (the leader of the earth against the Trisolaran ) one of Professor Luo JiIn the evening, take his children to play under the signal tower connected with the Trisolaran civilization. The three-body man who was connected with Luo Ji asked him, “Why is the sun going down, but your child is not afraid?” Luo Ji replied, “Because the child knows that the sun will rise tomorrow.”
Although this answer is normal for people on Earth, for a three-body planet that moves irregularly around three stars, will one sun rise the next day, or two or three? , Or there is no sun at all, these are completely unknown. Therefore, it seems to us that the laws of truth do not necessarily hold in other time and space.
Although the future world described in sci-fi works is not necessarily true, it at least illustrates one point. The continuity hypothesis is the implicit hypothesis for the formation of the induction method. It is the premise hypothesis for the formation of the induction method, and the continuity The hypothesis cannot be proved by induction.
The evidence we need is the object we want to prove. From a logical perspective, we have no way to prove the continuity hypothesis. This is an infinite loop paradox.
The continuity hypothesis is not the result of a logical reasoning, but an illogical arbitrary assertion. It is an implicit hypothesis that is correct by default, not necessarily correct knowledge. Therefore, Hume said that the sun rises from the east is just a hypothesis.
Since the continuity hypothesis, as an implicit hypothesis formed by induction, cannot logically prove it, does it mean that all human knowledge based on empirical induction is not valid? Hume said that all knowledge based on empirical induction is not knowledge. This statement is accurate if we start from this thesis alone, but from the perspective of survival, induction is indispensable.
Suppose we want to ask the question “what color is a swan?” and find an answer that meets the standard of truth, then we need to count the data of all swans in the world, not only the current swan, but also the past and the future Swan. This is no longer a question of workload. It is almost impossible to find a real answer to this question before human science and technology can reach across time and space.
But what does it matter? Whether the swan is black or white, or other colors, does not have much impact on our lives.
When people summarize the small sample of swans into a rule, there is a loss here, but a temporary correct conclusion can be obtained.
So, in response to this problem, humans have evolved a reasonable cognitive habit, that is, to obtain the amount of information needed to maintain our survival with a relatively small cognitive cost. Of peopleSo we will do this because we can obtain relatively correct knowledge at the minimum cost. Therefore, induction cannot get the truth, but it can help us survive, or survive temporarily. This is the principle of human minimum force. This is called “seeking survival but not seeking truth.”
Although the thinking mode of seeking survival but not seeking truth guarantees the current survival of mankind, it also leaves fatal flaws. Any induction method has a boundary of time and space. Once it crosses the boundary, it will encounter a discontinuity node, and the original law will immediately fail.
For many people who are initially exposed to the theory of inductive legal philosophy, this kind of problem looks more like a trivial question. It must be admitted that when I first saw this theory from the book “World View”, I also felt that it was understandable and had no practical significance. Later, with the gradual enrichment of life experience, I discovered that this may be the fundamental reason for the rise and fall of all human affairs.
Back in the business scenario, managers usually predict the future based on experience, because we believe that there is continuity between the past and the future. For managers, experience is an important factor in determining business results; for employees, experience is a key indicator for determining work ability.
This kind of cognition seems to have become the consensus of the industry, so more and more companies will use experience as the main test item when promoting managers and recruiting employees. But almost no one has gone deep into it. Can the guiding significance of experience really run through the development of a company?
Actually, under the proposition “Past experience is still valid in the future”, the continuity of the future and the past is hidden in the time dimension. When the industrial cycle changes slowly, the industrial cycle in which the enterprise is located is continuity. In this case, the induction method is indeed the most effective management thinking-minimal consumption, resulting in extremely rapid output. In this case, you can usually predict the future based on past trends and averages. This is the case with the annual end-of-year budget. But the market industry is not always continuous. When the development of an enterprise enters a new stage or the industry market undergoes qualitative changes, the enterprise will face the problem of transcending discontinuity. At this time, using the laws summarized by the original inductive thinking to guide the future is not only useless, but harmful. This is the problem of the conversion between the first curve and the second curve that we often mention.
Moreover, when the development of an enterprise undergoes major changes and there is discontinuity between the second curve and the first curve, the experienced employees in the original business curve often perform poorly in the new business curve. Because they are within the system and are bound by the assumption of continuity, they can’t get rid of the confinement of their thinking inertia, just like we can’t hold ourselvesHis hair grabs himself the same.
Standing within the inductive method, it is impossible to get rid of the implicit assumption of continuity. This is the so-called “authoritarian mystery”, so we need to learn a higher-dimensional thinking model.
Logic is more real than facts
Since the induction method cannot ensure its validity in the discontinuous time and space, when we cross from the first curve to the second curve, we naturally need another mode of thinking as a guide. I think this method is deduction. law.
The deductive method is not a way of thinking that we are familiar with, and it requires a certain amount of thinking ability. Inductive method is to summarize the facts that can be seen by the eyes into laws, basically using perceptual thinking, while deductive method is the main intellectual form of rational thinking.
The deductive method originated from the deductive knowledge of ancient Greece. It is a way of thinking that uses the correct logic to derive new knowledge based on the meta-starting point.
The ancient Greek philosophers and scientists believed that there is always an inevitable and correct meta-starting point in the world. From this meta-starting point, people can obtain new knowledge through logical deduction.
Aristotle is the founder of the Western worldview. He established the discipline of “Logic” with his own power, which has had a huge impact on today’s scientific research. It is no exaggeration to say that logic is the language of all other sciences. Aristotle has an important characteristic expression in logic-inevitable derivation.
To put it simply, Aristotle believes that there is an inevitable derivation from one thing to another, and the process of this derivation is the so-called logic. Based on this cognition, Aristotle created the classic sentence pattern in deduction, that is, our common syllogism.
Syllogism, as the name suggests, has three components, major premise, minor premise and conclusion. On the basis that the major premises and minor premises are correct, the conclusion must be established. We can use a classic syllogism to illustrate.
All people will die,
Socrates is human,
So Socrates will die too.
In the above syllogism, if the major premise and the minor frontThe truth that the inexplicable logic must be true sounds a bit fanciful.
So, when you come to Chaos University to study, you must first change your thinking. After the change of thinking mode, you will find that there will be a qualitative leap in your mental state.
After understanding induction and deduction, I would like to ask you a question: For entrepreneurs, do entrepreneurs need deduction or induction?
I believe that most people will choose induction, gain experience through practice, and then promote and expand the experience. In fact, if the development of a company always progresses along the first curve, the induction method is indeed effective. But In reality, almost none of the companies that have become top enterprises will continue to develop by virtue of a curve. When companies transition from the first curve to the second curve, which is the field of innovation, what they need is the deductive method, that is, boldly proposing hypotheses and verifying them with practice.
The accuracy of the premise is an implicit assumption of the deductive method
First principles are the most important thing in philosophical thinking, because without first principles, the establishment of all rational systems would be impossible.
Starting from the first principles, we can deductively reason out the various superstructures in the system. According to the first principles at different levels, we can also establish close connections between systems at different levels. Although the first principles are usually hidden outside the system, it provides a steady flow of fundamental motivation for the progress of the system.
Although deductive thinking can efficiently solve all problems in a certain field from a logical dimension, there is a structural problem with deductive thinking—it cannot be falsified.
In the process of deductive derivation, only the premise is correct, the conclusion can be correct. But how do we confirm that the premise is correct? In the final analysis, the premise of the deductive method comes from the inductive method, so the deductive method is ultimately invalid. Examples are as follows.
All people will die,
Socrates is human,
So Socrates will die too.
In this proposition, the premise is that everyone will die. The challenge is, why do you say “everyone will die”? To answer this question, we can only sum up the world from the perspective of memory and experienceThe view that there is no immortal man is to verify the correctness of this premise.
Because the cognition as the premise comes from induction, and induction is not fidelity, we cannot determine the correctness of the results derived by deduction.
In syllogism, only the premise is correct can the conclusion be correct. From this perspective, the implicit assumption of the deductive method is the premise. The value of the deductive method lies in its fidelity. In fact, the fidelity depends on the premise being true, and the premise from the inductive method cannot be determined to be true. Therefore, the key to using the deductive method is to ensure the correctness of the premises, that is, the premises cannot come from induction.
At this time, there is only one way, that is, if the premise of the syllogism cannot come from induction, it must come from a conclusion derived from a higher chain of deductive reasoning. In general, in a larger system, a conclusion deduced by deductive reasoning, for the subsystems included in the larger system, this conclusion can be inherited as the major premise of the new inference, and at the same time it can be guaranteed This major premise is true.
At this time, the question comes again: How can we guarantee the certainty of the premise of the deductive method in a large system? In the same way, this premise cannot come from induction, so we can only find a deductive conclusion from a larger system and inherit it as the premise of the syllogism.
Of course, the chain of deduction cannot be pushed down indefinitely. In the end, there must be a cornerstone, that is, a self-determinable meta-starting point—first principles.
As early as 2300 years ago, Aristotle believed that in the exploration of every system, there is a first principle. It is a basic proposition or hypothesis that cannot be omitted or deleted, and cannot be violated. The “first principles” here are what we call first principles.
In Philosophy’s thinking, there is a formula of the lowest and most fundamental algorithm:
First principles + deductive method ≥ rational system
In other words, based on a given first principle, plus the deductive method of reasoning, we can reason out all other propositions in the system.
In other words, any rational system uses deductive methods to make inferences, and inferences must be based on first principles. I drew it as a model.(see Figure 1-1). Here I put the first principlesOutside the rational system, it is the major premise of the system, and the whole rational system is introduced by adding deduction to it.
I need to remind everyone that there is a very important “law of one-way”. The first principle is a directly given and self-confirmable meta-premise, not the result of inference in this system.
For a rational system, first principles are like a foundation buried deep underground. People usually only see the floors above the foundation and ignore the existence of the foundation; but the foundation is so important because there is only The deeper the foundation, the taller and more stable the building can be built. This is the meaning conveyed by first principles.
The characteristics of first principles can be expressed in many different ways. It is outside the system and is both self-determined and meta-starting point. It corresponds to the concept “axiom” we learned in middle school; it is the cornerstone assumption, the first cause in the whole reasoning process, and it is also called the logical singularity. Wait.
But in the actual application process, for us, as long as it is the meta-premise that determines the system, we can call it first principles.
The cornerstone characteristics of first principles have a broad cognitive foundation in the fields of science and philosophy. However, limited by the current level of human cognition, it is difficult for us to accurately find the final meta-starting point of all systems. Before I attended a philosophy class at Stanford University, the teacher said that everything has a reason, and the reason also has a reason, so a causal chain is formed. The causal chain cannot be reversed infinitely, so in the end, a first cause must be found. This first cause must be the only cause, it gives birth to all other reasons, and it also gives birth to itself.
The ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher Lao Tzu once put forward the saying that “Tao produces one, one life two, two produces three, and three produces all things.” The so-called Tao here is actually Taoist thinkingThe cornerstone hypothesis of thinking.
Let us once again set our sights on the field of science. In the field of cosmology, almost all scientists today believe that the universe originated in the Big Bang, but before the Big Bang, there was another state in the universe—the singularity. So, what is the singularity? Regarding this question, the scientific community has not yet given a standard answer. Because when the universe is in a state of singularity, there is no light and no information, but it does exist. Therefore, the Big Bang is not the first principle. The starting point of the Big Bang theory is the hypothesis called the singularity. It is the starting point of the meta.
Here we must pay special attention to the fact that when many people understand first principles, they often misunderstand it as the central idea of the system. In fact, the first principle is not the central idea of the system, but a meta-presupposition outside and before the system.
For example, at the business level, the business model of an enterprise is the central idea of its operation, but it must not be its first principle. The cornerstone assumption for the formation of a business model is the first principle. In the same way, the strategy of a company’s development is not the first principle of business operations. It is the cornerstone assumption that the strategy can be formed.
Another example, the central idea of Newton’s classical mechanics is F=ma, but its first principles are the hypothesis of inertia and the hypothesis of gravity. The central idea of Einstein’s theory of relativity is E=MC^2(energy=mass×the square of the speed of light). In fact, this formula comes from the speed of light. The hypothesis of the principle of change and relativity, so the speed of light does not change and the principle of relativity is the first principle of special relativity.
What is the role of first principles in business? The answer is to find the “one”.
When making strategic choices, first-principles thinking is usually more concise and powerful. Don’t work hard on the details, find the “one” and inject all the strength, such as Amazon’s “one” is “Customer”, Jobs’ “one” is “product”, with “one” dominating other elements, driving the flywheel of corporate growth and leveraging strategic leverage.
In the deductive method, the central idea of a large system can be used as the first principle of a small system, which means that the first principle is divided into levels.
Newton
For Newton, F=ma is his central idea derived from the assumption of inertia and gravity. For those of us who are later users, we can completely regard F=ma as the first principle, and use this formula to derive and solve other classical mechanics problems. For example, in the first industrial revolution, Watt took Newton’s classical mechanics formula F=ma as the first principle and applied it to the invention and manufacture of the steam engine, thus deducing the scheme for improving the steam engine, leading the era of big industry ‘s arrival
So, from the point of view of practical application, we don’t need to find the ultimate first principle. All the parent systems that are larger in scope and higher than the rational system we want to derive, the central idea or derivation The conclusion can be used as the source of the first principles of the subsystem.
In fact, every system has its own scope of application, and correspondingly, first principles have their own scope of action, and almost no first principles are universal. At the same time, we must also emphasize that each system does not have only one meta-premise. In many cases, it is possible that two or more first principles support the same rational system. In fact, First Principles is a plural word in the Western philosophical system-First Principles.
So whether it is Einstein’s theory of relativity, Newton’s theory of classical mechanics, or Darwin’s theory of evolution, there are actually 2 to 3 first principles as support. Therefore, everyone should not be misled by the word “first”.
In short, ask yourself what is “one”? Only by finding and practicing our own “one” can we live and work happily, confidently, and down-to-earth.
This article is from WeChat official account:Chaos University (ID: hundun-university) , according to professor of curriculum Lishan “First principles” gathered from the author: Lishan ( “University of chaos” founder) <