First principles reasoning and asking too many quesions

[Ban]

I've been wandering if there is a theme where autism lends itself to first principles thinking. I know Elon Musk talks about it alot and has previously said he has aspergers.
I certainly feel this way of thinking is how I approach almost everything.
It leads to causing me trouble for myself by asking too many questions though. For example at work (not science based jobs) when I am shown how to do something I am always shown the process but never why there doing it that way or sometimes why its being done at all. So I ask so many questions to try to figure out the basics of whats going on and I think people think I'm trying to be smart and catch them out or to show them up that they don't fully understand themselves. But to me it feels like its coming from a place of a lack of understanding on my own part, I can see what they're doing but I have no idea why, so I know that if any one small thing went wrong I wouldn't be able to adapt the process accordingly because I don't know the purpose of any of it.

 

[tree]

"First principles thinking is defined as a method of reasoning or a thought process in which we try and understand an effect such as a problem or a thing by breaking it down into its different causes including the most basic causes and building the argument up from there to create new solutions or things. The basic causes represent the most fundamental truths and are referred to as the first causes or the first principles.

When thinking about anything including a thing or a product or a problem in terms of causes, we can ask ourselves whether these causes are the original starting point for the thing or the problem we are dealing with. If not, the goal is to arrive at the most basic causes or first principles."
First Principles Thinking: Concepts & Examples - Data Analytics

 

[Ylva]

I do that. I don't feel that I understand a thing until I know its roots. Even regular expressions. It annoys neurotypicals to no end, but I must know.

 

[VictorR]

Hello and welcome!

I also like to get to see the "whole picture" since I like treating things as puzzles, and trying to identify whether there may be alternate solutions.

Of course sometimes the alternate solutions might not be feasible or implementable due to various restrictions or limitations, but then I'll turn my attention to whether we might be able to tackle any of those

 

[Ban]

Hello and welcome!

I also like to get to see the "whole picture" since I like treating things as puzzles, and trying to identify whether there may be alternate solutions.

Of course sometimes the alternate solutions might not be feasible or implementable due to various restrictions or limitations, but then I'll turn my attention to whether we might be able to tackle any of those

Yes, often if I'm thinking about what we could be doing better the parameters that we're working within very quickly become the limiting factor and then my focus turns to how can we widen them. In my head it seems worth doing but others seem to think I'm rocking the boat and just making things difficult.

 

[Jordy]

I've been wandering if there is a theme where autism lends itself to first principles thinking. I know Elon Musk talks about it alot and has previously said he has aspergers.
I certainly feel this way of thinking is how I approach almost everything.
It leads to causing me trouble for myself by asking too many questions though. For example at work (not science based jobs) when I am shown how to do something I am always shown the process but never why there doing it that way or sometimes why its being done at all. So I ask so many questions to try to figure out the basics of whats going on and I think people think I'm trying to be smart and catch them out or to show them up that they don't fully understand themselves. But to me it feels like its coming from a place of a lack of understanding on my own part, I can see what they're doing but I have no idea why, so I know that if any one small thing went wrong I wouldn't be able to adapt the process accordingly because I don't know the purpose of any of it.

I made a thread about this way of thinking before, but you described it better. It's a superior way of thinking, but it doesn't always go well in every level of education. High school educators are often lazy and want you to repeat as is demonstrated, they don't have time to explain the "unimportant" principles or inner workings. But's a great skill to have in independent study, you will gain a superior understanding in problems over people who are only concerned with the surface matters. It's also something that is appreciated in university level mathematics (working out proofs), physics and programming.

 

[Aspychata]

Everything to me lends itself to questions. I wish to see the entirety if possible. Because l believe our brains like schematics. People can become upset because of the speed we run thru in asking questions. It's almost like we have built in coding parameters or switches in our thinking process.

 

[Kalinychta]

Wow, I relate to this completely. But it’s always made me feel like maybe people see me as simple-minded (whereas you feel people have thought you were trying to be smart), because I need a thorough explanation of the basics, the roots, the full and entire details, before I understand the whole. Whereas they just assume the whole and have no questions about it.

 

[Ban]

Wow, I relate to this completely. But it’s always made me feel like maybe people see me as simple-minded (whereas you feel people have thought you were trying to be smart), because I need a thorough explanation of the basics, the roots, the full and entire details, before I understand the whole. Whereas they just assume the whole and have no questions about it.

Its interesting you say that because I have also experienced the reaction of people thinking I'm stupid too but I didn't really connect it to the same problem since its opposite reactions. I think its to do with how I come across that makes the difference, sometimes people discount the fact that I could be just asking the question sincerely so they assume I have some other agenda which is when they think I'm being smart. But when its something more simple to begin with and they've told me something and I'm still asking questions they tend to think I'm either not listening or they just can't understand how I'm so incompetent and just say something like "if your still asking questions like that after I've explained it to you then I don't know what else I can do to help you".

 

[Jordy]

I recognize the kind of thinking (analysis and learning) you describe. IMO it has advantages and disadvantages, so on balance I don't see it as better or worse than other ways of learning and approaching tasks.

It has some significant pitfalls though, and it seems like you've run into some. It's slower of course, but you must know that already. A couple of others that I think fit your OP:

1. You can get "tunnel-vision", and pay too little attention to the context. This means your analysis/learning process is inaccurate as well as a bit slower.
2. You can over-analyze, and try to figure out too much too soon. This delays getting anything done.

These two can lead to problems when you're being taught something. Think of it as denying your instructor the right to apply their experience and teaching method.

The instructor knows the best way to learn their subject ... probably (see below).

Your going off in different directions, or looking at details that don't matter in context, means it takes longer to move forward with the learning objective, or to get started using the knowledge productively.

People who learn differently may need to negotiate a different path with the instructor.
As with the general "spectrum" communication idiosyncrasies, you cannot expect NT's to have a strategy for dealing with your personal approaches. But you can usually find a compromise if you look for it.

Even if it is slower you still gain a better understanding, it's not wasted time. I genuinely see this style of thinking as the biggest advantage (one of the only) that autism can give. I have only seen this being in issue in certain styles of education. but I have read great books on physics and math that fit this perfectly. Being very concerned with why is what leads to scientific discoveries and deep insight.

Someone has to ask why shadows projected in the cave move as they do, and not accept "it's unimportant, just pay attention to the story" as an answer.

 

[Azul]

I do that sometimes. Not because I can't comprehend otherwise, but because I feel the lack of knowledge of principles impairs the full understanding of something. By definition it does, but if I want to dedicate to something, I don't feel satisfied until I have closed at least some gaps and found the whys.

I used to be more curious, but learned to keep quiet. People often think these kind of people are annoying. I was also called dumb a few times by other students because of that.

It can be because the genre of questions are uncommon to the group (such as conceptual questions on math uni disciplines), or misunderstood (like more abstract problems on high school), or deemed irrelevant (logical consistency), or too frequent (the one who makes the classes longer), or too difficult (the student avoided by the teachers), or any kind of question deemed of lesser value.

I'm also hard to be convinced and try to find exceptions and loopholes when I'm interested.

That coupled with the fact that I keep the discussion going until I'm satisfied makes the normal people uncomfortable.

I agree with the others that's a good quality. Just unfortunately not well received.

 

[Knit Hat]

I do this too, lol. It's never enough being told to do something. I have to know the entire end-game to the process.

 

[RichardS71]

I've been wandering if there is a theme where autism lends itself to first principles thinking. I know Elon Musk talks about it alot and has previously said he has aspergers.
I certainly feel this way of thinking is how I approach almost everything.
It leads to causing me trouble for myself by asking too many questions though. For example at work (not science based jobs) when I am shown how to do something I am always shown the process but never why there doing it that way or sometimes why its being done at all. So I ask so many questions to try to figure out the basics of whats going on and I think people think I'm trying to be smart and catch them out or to show them up that they don't fully understand themselves. But to me it feels like its coming from a place of a lack of understanding on my own part, I can see what they're doing but I have no idea why, so I know that if any one small thing went wrong I wouldn't be able to adapt the process accordingly because I don't know the purpose of any of it.

Fascinating to hear the responses to your question.

I'm pretty much the same. I have a strong need to understand things from the ground up i.e first principles or I struggle to work with them. If someone tells me what to do instead of how it works then they I will need to work out how it works from what I've been told to do. Monkey say monkey do doesn't work for me. Once I understand that I'll never forget. It's slower but it's deeper and infinitely more flexible. In software we call this sort of depth of understanding grokking.

On a side note I find there's degrees of depth of understanding something. To get going I can get away with approximate models of understanding something that I later refine as I need to.

 

[Knit Hat]

Oh definitely. I've noticed with a lot of autistic people, myself included that we get incredibly frustrated with surface level information, and aren't shown the whole process/reason from A to Z.