A Short Introduction
Imagine a world of wisdom. A place where people have a deep understanding of the world and of themselves. A place where people are able to deal with challenges in both their private lives and in their societies, and create a life of well-being and a world of harmony. A world where everything just makes sense.
This is the world that the project “A Wiser World” strives towards. It is a world of wisdom. Humanity has always strived towards a better understanding of themselves and of the world, but it is a difficult task to understand a world that is as complex as ours. Things that were thought to be true by everyone at one point, later turned out to be false. Things that are seen as obvious by some people, seem completely wrong to others. It is no wonder that the idea of a world of wisdom seems so unattainable. But there might be a way to achieve it: by finding the “first principles” of the world.
First principles are the most fundamental laws or facts of a topic. They are general facts that can be used to explain or even predict specific facts and events. For example, we can explain why rainbows appear by using the fundamental facts that:
-light from the sun consists of light with many different wavelengths
-light of different wavelengths bend to different degrees when they pass through material
-when there are water droplets in the sky these wavelengths spread out to different degrees when they pass through the raindrops
-this separates the different colors in a circular shape that appears as a bow
By having knowledge of such general facts about how light works, we can explain not only rainbows but also other phenomena where light is involved, like why the sunset looks the way it does. When we have the first principles of a topic we understand the topic at the deepest possible level. We can apply the knowledge to a wide range of situations, and few things will surprise us or confuse us. Imagine now if we could have such knowledge in all fields of life. Everything would make sense, and we could act in ways that we could be sure would make life better. So the purpose of A Wiser World is to find and explain the first principles of all topics.
The question is if this can be done. The concept of first principles has a long history, going back all the way to Ancient Greece, and they form the backbone of our natural sciences, in particular physics. But there have also been difficulties finding the first principles in other fields. To get a better understanding of what first principles are and how to find them, let us look at the history of this concept and where we are at the moment in this endeavor. Then we can begin to look at how we might finally be able to solve the challenge.
Next: First Principles – A Brief History
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