Origins on "First Principles"

I chose to call this blog “first principles” because I wanted to write pieces that break down ideas to their constituent parts. I admit it’s a big task. So far a lot of my stuff is sports and personal running goals. The blog has gotten pretty far afield since I started. I like to write light hearted stuff too, it’s a lot easier. But the idea of drilling down into core beliefs still appeals to me. I like the idea of thinking with first principles in mind.

I think the Cambridge English dictionary’s description is the best: First Principles “The basic and most important reasons for doing or believing something.”

In any age you need to know who you are and what you believe. What you believe should come through in the way you live. The core ideas about human nature and God, original sin and the afterlife come through in our views on existence. It isn’t intentional all the time but it’s there, running in the background like an app on your computer.

Here is a first principle: God created the earth and all life within. People are therefore His creation. Babies are people. Abortion kills a life that God created. I’m against abortion because the core of my first principle is that life is sacred because God made it so. It’s a belief that I link back to the Creation principle. The opposite argument also constitutes a ‘principled’ belief; there is no God and life is meaningless. Abortion isn’t a big deal because humans find their own meaning and create their own morality. Both are ‘principled’ in the strict definition of the word. Both trace an opinion on abortion back to a rooted value.

We don’t prove or disprove philosophical theories with first principles. We simply explain where the value comes from. We explain how an idea came to be. We explain how it runs through every significant view we hold like connective tissue.  

First comes the principle then comes the idea or view. Most political or philosophical reasoning comes straight from notions on human nature. I don’t mean that every person who votes for a tax increase to pay for local schools traces their opinion to Aristotle. But our governments, churches, schools and institutions have at their core, a view about human nature. Their functions are an outgrowth of their founding principles. 

Our government is broadly democratic because of the notion that “citizenship connotes responsibility. Citizenship is tied to the country’s founding and rooted in rights that are inalienable.  Since humans are born with these rights, the government must recognize them and protect them. Basic democratic norms begin with the principle that the individual is supreme.

Using first principles doesn’t mean mapping out connections with tacks and string on the wall like every killer in “Criminal Minds”. It’s more generally a way to think, a method of arranging mental parts. 

   

In the movie Money Ball Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) has an epiphany about finding value in overlooked baseball players. He puts together, along with his stat nerd, a list of players with high on base percentages (OBP) but low batting averages. Low averages mean they won’t cost the team much. The stats show that getting on base more frequently equals more wins, regardless of whether by hit or walk. So he rolled the dice on some bargain players past their prime. He didn’t have a choice anyway. The A’s had one of the lowest payrolls in the league. The Oakland A’s finished first that year, 2002. Beane used first principles to get wins by asking a basic question, how can we get more runs?

I think I envision doing more first principle type writing when I started the blog. Trying to find the basis for why people think the way they do has always appealed to me. I don’t always get it right and much of it is just opinion anyway. But I like to think if you go below the surface just a bit the image we all see can make a little more sense. In science, literature, film, religion, philosophy and countless other disciplines applying first principles helps us think clearer.