Reasoning from first [[Principles]] («resonere fra grunnprinsipper» in Norwegian) is an approach that was established by [[Aristotle]] in his work _Physics_. > In every systematic inquiry (methodos) where there are first principles, or causes, or elements, knowledge and science result from acquiring knowledge of these; for we think we know something just in case we acquire knowledge of the primary causes, the primary first principles, all the way to the elements. [[Aristotle]] revised this later in _Metaphysics_: > The first principle is the first basis from which a thing is known. [[Richard Feynman]] was known to reason from first principles: > I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! Sometimes people stray so far away from first principles that they become pessimistic about how to solve problems. Their vision is clouded by their past experiences. This is why it is useful to have junior people in a [[Team composition]]. The limitations of computing is binary (see [[Bits]]) calculation, which means that everything is possible. Every layer on top of this can cloud your judgement. The limitation is nature itself. From [Resources from a16z for Understanding Crypto](https://a16z.com/2020/04/30/explaining-crypto-from-a16z/): > Software is simply the encoding of human thought, and as such has an almost unbounded design space. Farnam Street: [First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge](https://fs.blog/2018/04/first-principles/).