Steps for First Principles Thinking
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FPT helps us to view everything in this world in the form of cause and effect relationships thereby demystifying the causes to understand the most fundamental reasons why a thing or a problem exists and how they can be innovated
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Recognising that there are fundamental causes of reality is the first step in FPT
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The primary goal of FPT is to acquire true knowledge about the existence of the things
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Aquire knowledge about a thing or problem by knowing its first causes
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Axioms are FP in Maths - self evident truth - any number * 0 = 0
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When viewing from the lens of Physics, the goal of the FPT is to arrive at the fundamental truth about the existence of the thing in terms of the most elementary particles such as atoms/energy and how it interacts with other things.
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Anything in this world including a thing, a product, a problem, a solution to a problem, an activity or a set of activities can be seen as an effect
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An effect comes into existence because of one or more causes - Its the reasons or the causes that need to exist for the effect to come into existence
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the most basic(first cause) cause can be considered as the fundamental truth related to why the effect exists
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The new cause-and-effect chain including the changes to different causes at one or more levels can be termed the innovative or creative solution.
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The process of breaking down the things or problems(effects) into different causes is core to the FPT.
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Primary causes - Substances - Person or Entities - Methods or Processes - Purpose or end user needs.
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Primary causes can be broken down to get cause-effect chain until first causes are arrived