I think this is great overall. However, I think he's wrong at the very end. People aren't just hardware and software; they're hardware, software, and the thinking they have done (call it "free will" if you want). That accounts for a lot of the differences in people.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj9b1h_selfish-reasons-to-h...
So who are you to say that you're right and I'm wrong? Maybe your determined thoughts happen to be flawed, and mine happen to be correct.
In other words, a complete and utter denial of "free will" (which is vaguely defined, hence my "complete and utter" qualifier) is a self-defeating argument.
Where do you get your first principles from?
If you get them from observing the world around you, how do you decide what parts to pay more or less attention to?
While you're deciding things from first principles (and coming up with those first principles), how do you make decisions in the mean time?
Note that in physics, computing things "from first principles" is often done to attempt to recreate a result that's already been reached by other approaches, to attempt to verify that you've got the right set of first principles.
Unfortunately, understanding your world view is a daunting task. This is why most people don't start with first principles. They have yet to know them.
Descartes was a logician. Bacon was an empiricist, Descarte a rationalist reasoning from first principles, beginning with "cogito ergo sum": I think, therefore I am.
Of course this isn't unbiased, but at least you're thinking for yourself.
I don't think it's just about thinking from first principles, it's also about being able to change your first principles as you go along and understand that you need to reassess everything else that depends on it.
"First principles"... Must be that our interpretation of physics is THE first principles.
I recently began teaching in a school where students are required to write extensively in every class, including "extras" like PE, Music, or Art. I've found that, generally, students who have been subjected to that system for a number of years are far better at reasoning (and expressing that reasoning, naturally) than those who are new to the school. (It is astonishing how quickly new students, who inevitably struggle with complex reasoning at the beginning of the school year have made leaps and bounds in this area, and are far more skilled at verbal reasoning by the end of the school year).
All of which is to say: I think that this style of thinking is greatly buttressed by enhanced linguistic ability, as language is critical to higher-level thinking.
Very interesting video, and the interactive transcript was extremely cool.
To do it, you have to venture into the unknown without a map. You have to make the map yourself, and you have to figure out how to do that. You don't know how long that will take, but it is likely to take quite a while. While you're working at it you will not have a very clear understanding of exactly what your position is, and you won't be able to articulate it clearly to others. And of course you will have to go against what "everybody knows" (but really just think they know).
There's so many barriers to this that come from our social and institutional norms, where it's generally expected that you can explain what you're doing, that you can say why it is better, that you can estimate how long it will take, etc, and where it's frowned upon if you can't do these things. And where it's generally frowned upon to "have the arrogance" to "go against" what people of high-standing came up with or take to be true.
That's not first principles just to be clear.
