Definition
The Core Foundational Principles are the small set of highly general, high-leverage truths that recur across domains when concepts are reduced to their first principles. They serve as the “vocabulary” for writing strong First Principles Perspective sections.
Why It Matters
Without a shared set of deeper principles, First Principles sections tend to stay at the level of “good mental models” or rephrased mechanics. By deliberately connecting specific concepts back to these core ones (non-linearity, causality, asymmetry, etc.), we create a self-reinforcing lattice: individual notes become more powerful, and the graph as a whole becomes more coherent and retrievable.
Core Concepts
- Non-linearity: Effects are not proportional to causes. Small changes can produce large, qualitative shifts (thresholds, feedback, phase transitions, convexity).
- Causality: Stable regularities that allow prediction and intervention. Includes temporal precedence, mechanisms, and the limits of correlation.
- Asymmetry: Upside and downside are not balanced. One side dominates in magnitude or consequence (convex vs concave payoffs).
- Optionality: The right (but not obligation) to act later. Creates asymmetric upside under uncertainty while capping downside.
- Duality: The same phenomenon can be viewed from two complementary perspectives that are mathematically or conceptually equivalent, often revealing different solution methods.
- Systems / Emergence: Properties of the whole that are not present in the parts, arising from interactions, feedback, and boundaries.
- Bounded Rationality: Agents have limited information, computation, and time, so they satisfice and use heuristics rather than perfectly optimize.
- First-Principles Thinking (meta): The deliberate practice of reducing claims to irreducible elements and distinguishing laws of nature from shared beliefs or assumptions.