Chinese New Year is coming. Let's look up at the stars and talk about interesting things.
Although there have been many controversies recently, there is no denying that elon musk is a great man. Moreover, he mentioned more than once that his success in many fields comes from his thinking on the "first principle".
So what is the "first principle"? I found that this translation in China is inconsistent, so today we will talk about this topic.
Google can know that the "first principle" comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle 2300 years ago. This bearded old man in everyone's impression is a master of western philosophy and a teacher of the god of war Alexander the Great-the teacher conquered the ideological world and the students conquered the real world, which is absolutely awesome!
In Aristotle's book, the first principle is stated as follows: "In the exploration of every system, there is the first principle, which is the most basic proposition or hypothesis, and it cannot be omitted or deleted, nor can it be violated. From this passage, we can probably imagine that the "first principle" here is equivalent to the axiom in mathematics.
In fact, in Aristotle's eyes, "first principle" has the supreme status. He even said that the "first principle" was full of "divinity". He once said, "Divinity is everywhere, in that nature". This idea of pantheism is obviously contrary to the idea of God in early Greek mythology. Here, "God" is not a special race, but a kind of "nature" that permeates the nature of all things-Aristotle regards this nature as the noblest. If Aristotle knew that someone would call his knowledge of first principles metaphysics, he would probably say that metaphysics is his theology.
We can close our eyes and make some associations. The ancients more than two thousand years ago were equivalent to human childhood. They are full of fear and curiosity about the world around them, and natural phenomena such as lightning and earthquakes have plagued them for thousands of years. So their understanding of the world around them is nothing more than two forms: religion based on legend and philosophy based on reasoning. There is some mysterious connection between the two. For example, when Pythagoras discovered the famous Pythagorean theorem, he jumped and jumped with excitement, and then set up an altar to kill cattle to celebrate. There is no doubt that he saw the unspeakable beauty from this simple formula. Who but God can create such a subtle theorem?
Perhaps Pythagoras' behavior is ridiculous, but from another perspective, the ancients are happy, because they can think about the nature of the universe from scratch. They are studying a phenomenon and a formula all the time, just like Newton's children picking up shells at the seaside, simple and beautiful.
Stop here, let's go back to the beginning and see what the "first principle" in Musk's eyes is.
The following is what he said in a public interview:
It is very important that we think with "first-principles thinking" instead of "comparative thinking". We always tend to compare in life-others have done it or are doing it, so we will do it. As a result, only small iterative development can be produced. The way of thinking of "first principle" is to look at the world from the perspective of physics, that is to say, peel off the appearance of things layer by layer, see the essence inside, and then go up from the essence layer by layer. It takes a lot of brain power.
Here, Musk mentioned two different ways of thinking-"first principle thinking" and "comparative thinking". Today's people are faced with the same confusion as the ancients when facing the unknown business field. In an era of information explosion, our ears are full of too much information, and it is becoming more and more difficult to understand the essence through phenomena. People often abandon the most essential things and start with things that cover up the essence, such as experience, such as methods, and even rumors.
At this time, "comparative thinking" began to prevail. In my opinion, "comparative thinking" also has two dimensions.
The first is horizontal comparison-since I can't see where the end point is, at least I can't lose to the person I am with. So I can only continue to follow in the footsteps of others. We have made a score assessment in the education system, which is essentially a comparative thinking, while in the business world, we advocate competition, which is essentially a comparative thinking. The result of this competition is that only small iterative development can be produced, and subversive innovation cannot occur.
Having said that, I have to mention a book, which is very popular recently. From 0 to 1 by peter thiel (the Chinese version has been published by CITIC Publishing House). The author used to be Musk's sworn enemy in business, but the two later shook hands and became partners. Today, Thiel is the most famous venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
What is special about this book is that Thiel takes us to find something more essential in the commercial glitz. He wrote in the book:
What's important is that competition is an idea-this idea spreads throughout society and distorts our thinking. As a result, despite the increasingly fierce competition, we actually get less and less, and we are trapped in the competition.
After talking about horizontal comparative thinking, let's look at vertical comparative thinking-based on the comparison of past experience and history. For example, in the same interview, Musk gave the following example:
For example, some people will say that those battery packs are very expensive, and they will always be so expensive, about 600 US dollars/kWh. Because it used to be so expensive, it can't be cheaper in the future. So let's think from the perspective of the first principle: What material is the battery pack made of? What is the market price of these battery raw materials? The components of the battery include carbon, nickel, aluminum and some polymers. If we buy these raw materials from London Metal Exchange and combine them into TV sets, how much will it cost? God, you'll find that it's only 80 yuan/degree.
And Thiel also pointed out in the book that imitation based on past historical experience is meaningless:
Every moment in the business world will not repeat itself. The next Bill Gates will not develop an operating system, the next Larry Page or sergey brin will not develop a search engine, and the next mark zuckerberg will not create a social network. If you imitate the practices of these people, you will not learn from them.
I believe that people who really change the world will come from those who think with "first principles" because they can see the essence of things through the fog. Those crazy people in our eyes are not really crazy, but they just look at the problem from different angles. Whether we can solve a problem is often based on comparative thinking-"No one has done this, so this guy can't do it. What the Musk people think is-"This thing is feasible on the physical level. Why can't I do it? 」
So in the face of essence, all comparisons become meaningless. As Jobs said:
It is a simple fact that everything you call "life" around you is made by people who are not smarter than you. You can change your life and influence it ... Some people think that life has a destiny, so you just have to live according to your destiny, and you don't need to leave your mark. You must get rid of this wrong idea. Once you realize this, your life will be different.
Perhaps only with a strong inner and thinking power and a lot of training can we gain the power to see the essence clearly. When I first met Musk two years ago, I asked him, "Do you believe in fate and religion? 」
He shook his head without hesitation. "No, I only believe in physics. 」
Attachment: The following are some predictions that have been proved to be wrong. Maybe we should always take it out and see that these great men indulge in past experiences and slap themselves in the face:
I think there may be only five computers in the world that can be sold. Thomas watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.
Actors can just perform. Who the fuck wants to hear their voices? -Harry Warner, founder of Warner Bros., 1927
640K memory is enough. -Bill Gates, 198 1
Nothing can make cars develop. Over the years, the principle of internal combustion engine has not improved. -Scientific American magazine, 1909
Basically everything that can be invented has been invented. -Charles Deere, Director of the United States Patent Office, 1899
Any machine heavier than air can't fly. -Inventor of absolute temperature scale, proposer of the first and second formulas of thermodynamics, founder of modern thermodynamics, and Sir Kelvin, President of the Royal Society of Science.
Americans use telephones, but we don't need them in Britain. Because we have enough child ambassadors. —— william price, Chief Engineer of British Post Office, 1876.
Although TV is feasible in theory and technology, from a commercial point of view, TV is nothing and can't make money at all. -Lee Forrest, inventor of vacuum triode, father of radio and father of television, 1926.
The recent emergence of "horseless passenger transport" (old cars) is only a luxury for the rich. Of course, its price will drop in the future, but in any case, cars will never be as suitable for the public as bicycles. -Literary Abstracts, 1899
Physics will end in six months. -Max Bonn, Nobel Prize winner and one of the founders of modern quantum mechanics, 1900.
Air resistance is directly proportional to the cubic power of object velocity. In other words, with our current technology, the speed of an airplane can't be faster than that of a car or a train. —— astronomer william henry pickering of Harvard University Observatory, 19 10.
The plane will get faster and faster. But athletes can regard it as a competition, because airplanes cannot be commercialized. -Chanute, one of the inventors of the airplane and the aviation pioneer of the Wright brothers at the same time, 19 10.
The energy produced by nuclear reaction is very weak. If you want to get energy in this way, it's a dream. -Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, 1930
Now we don't even have the slightest evidence of using nuclear energy. —— Einstein, 1932
Alternating current is useless because it is too dangerous and can kill a person like lightning. Direct current is safe. -Edison, 19 15 (attachment from Zhihu)