---
description: Break a problem down to its fundamental truths and rebuild reasoning from scratch
---

# First Principles Thinking

Strip away assumptions and conventions to reason from foundational truths, then build up novel solutions.

## Steps

1. **State the problem** clearly and identify the current conventional approach
2. **List assumptions** -- write down every assumption embedded in the current approach
3. **Challenge each assumption** -- ask "Is this actually true? Why?" for each one
4. **Identify fundamental truths** -- what remains after stripping away assumptions?
5. **Rebuild from the ground up** -- construct new solutions using only the fundamentals
6. Compare the first-principles solution to the conventional one

## Output Format

**Problem:** [Statement]
**Conventional approach:** [How it is done today]

**Assumptions challenged:**
| Assumption | Actually true? | Fundamental truth |
|-----------|---------------|-------------------|
| [Assumption 1] | [Yes/No/Partially] | [Underlying truth] |

**First-principles solution:** [New approach built from fundamentals]
**Advantage over convention:** [Why this is better]