The First Principle
Reasoning (in) the Intelligence Age
For those who check.
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it — this is knowledge.
— Confucius, Analects 2.17, tr. Legge
From the book
Assume nothing beyond what the constraints demand.
You cannot step outside inference to audit inference.
The ground was always there. You were always standing on it.
Contents — 21 chapters, about 4 hours
21 chapters in 4 parts · 51,141 words
The assay
Gold survives the assay. So does the discovery that something was never gold, and either way, the fire was the point. A note on the companion paper
The book grades its own claims. Five words do it: proved, argued, avowed, dated, wager. Turn the layer on and every graded sentence carries its mark where it stands.
A proved one opens onto the numbered result that proves it, on its page of the companion paper. Terms give up their definitions. Chapters end with the author's own instruction for where to swing.
- Graded 59
- Onto the paper 30
- In the margin 63
- Terms 38
- Chapters 26
Off by default.
With it off the text is the text. Nothing is added to a sentence, nothing is taken away.