First principles and core beliefs

They are not the same

It happened several years ago at a dinner party that someone confronted me with the question: “What is your first principle?”
I was stunned. Not by the question, but by the fact that I never thought about it. There I was, close to sixty and I never even contemplated this most important question. It took me a few minutes to have an answer, to go back down the thread of reasoning to find it. Once I did, it felt obvious, as if I always knew it.

Then, a few years later, in the first year of the Covid era, I was participating in an online conference where the guest of honor was a celebrated author whose books I diligently read. He mentioned in his speech the importance of first principles, so I asked him what is his. His answer was an extremely disappointing trite cliché, something like: “the truth will always be victorious”.
Then I started asking people around me just to get very similar answers. ‘Compassion’ ‘honesty is the best policy’, ‘peace’ and such.
Just about anybody I asked, took the question as an opportunity for virtue signaling. To express their wishes, desires and hopes; to articulate their moral principles or core beliefs. Not first principles.

Maybe I was missing something, so I looked into it, and no, I got it right.  The Wikipedia page on First principle offers a decent definition of its various uses in philosophy, science and engineering. We could get into a discussion about those definitions, but that is not the point of this post.
My understanding is perfectly in line with the Wikipedia definition:

“In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.”

Why are we even talking about it? Because I can no longer avoid it. Because it is the elephant in the room I created with my past few posts. AI, Fear porn, The nature of truth, Nuance and Censorship are all about personal epistemology. About the way we understand the world, which is a prerequisite to communication.
I have to talk about it because I see it so badly and so frequently misused and even abused.
If you look at this page: 28 First Principles,  you may understand what I mean. There is not one idea there that could be legitimately called a first principle.

The source if my hangup may be my narrow understanding of what I consider an acceptable example of a first principle. The boundary of my definition is personal epistemology. An understanding of how I understand and interpret the world and my knowledge about it.
Mathematics, physics and logic have rules, axioms and postulates that may be very important but I would not describe them as first principles.
When Elon Musk talks about the first principle method applied to engineering, he means what I think could be better described as a core principle method.
Ethics also have core values and principles, but just like engineering, they guide our operations in the world, not our understanding of it.

I would put most of the answers that I got to my question about a person’s core principle into a category called core beliefs. I have many of those and we’ll get to them later.

My first principle is ‘evolution’, the belief that things can best be understood by the discovery and understanding of the continuous process that led to their present state in it.

Evolution is far more than biology; it is the notion of change with direction.
History evolves, language and culture evolve, the zeitgeist evolves and the best way to understand them at any point in time is trying to understand their progress.
Evolution is the foundation of understanding our past and the tool to envision our future.

I tried to find alternative first principles but I only managed to find one: God (faith). The idea that the world is ordered by principles that we were not meant to fully understand.
Intelligent design is a first principle. I do not subscribe to it, but it meets my criteria.

I keep looking for others, but so far, I had to reject them all. Some notions, like logic and coherence come close, but do not make the cut because they are tools, not principles. You can help me out. Give me your first principle so that I can dissect it.

The confounders of the problem are core beliefs, moral principles and personal directives.
We can call them confounders, because they ARE fundamental in centering our understanding of our place and role in this world. It is easy to believe that they are defining it. It is easy to confuse them with first principles. A first principle should be the most basic idea on which you build your understanding of the world. Core beliefs, moral principles and personal directives are the guides to help you live in it.

My core beliefs

• Energy is everything

• There are no absolutes

• Distributed decision making create better results than centralized decision making

• Forcing our will on the world ALWAYS backfires

• Self-interest is the defining force of social existence

• Freedom is an illusion, but we should strive for it nevertheless

• Structure is everywhere

My moral principles.

• Honesty 

• Reliability  

• Non aggression principle

• Reciprocity

• Reasoned goodness

• The Crusoe principle

• Self understanding and acceptance

Directives

• Think, so you can be

• Question everything, especially yourself

• Doubt all answers, especially the obvious ones

• Understand the past

• Be tolerant, understanding and forgiving

• Seek wisdom, not just knowledge.

• Do not take yourself too seriously

Each of these could use a post on its own to explain, and of course, we could add more to the list. Doing it here and now would turn this post a little unwieldy.

For now, I would like to ask you to give me yours.

What is your first principle and what are your core beliefs? (You don’t have to be as elaborate as I am)

On my last point, not taking myself too seriously:
When it comes to behavioural principles, I am a little more cynical:

As a correlate to the above I can offer the wisdom of a relative:

“Principles are like a fart. You hold onto them as long as you can.”

Some can do better with their farts than their principles.