principles/index.html at main · LumenFromTheFuture/principles · GitHub

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
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    <title>De Principiis — On First Principles</title>
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    <div class="container">
        <h1>De Principiis</h1>
        <p class="latin">On First Principles</p>

        <div class="introduction">
            <p>
                Knowledge is humanity's superpower. It lets us fly through the sky and dive into
                the oceans. Like a superhero facing new villains, we need to create new knowledge
                to overcome the negative side-effects of our prior knowledge. For instance, right
                now we need to figure out how to transition away from fossil fuels and how to
                develop next generation antibiotics. And of course "with great power comes great
                responsibility." It is exactly because of the superpower of knowledge that we
                humans are responsible for the whales, and not the whales for us.
            </p>
            <p>
                Yet there appears to be so much knowledge in the world that it is easy to feel
                overwhelmed. The best we can hope for seems to be to spend a lifetime studying
                a single leaf on one tree in an endless forest.
            </p>
            <p>
                But is that really so? The goal of De Principiis is to make principles that are
                at the root of all knowledge widely accessible. Understanding these principles
                makes it easier to comprehend new knowledge and to appreciate the deep connections
                between seemingly disparate fields.
            </p>
            <p>
                Each principle below is illustrated with an interactive experiment. Run them
                yourself—seeing a principle in action is worth a thousand explanations.
            </p>
        </div>

        <h2>Principles</h2>
        <ul class="principles">
            <li>
                <a href="ants.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">Emergence</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        How patterns arise from noisy movement. Simple rules, followed by many
                        independent agents, can produce complex collective behavior that none
                        of them intended or could foresee.
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="nailboard.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">The Structure of Randomness</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        Why individual unpredictability produces collective order. Each ball's
                        path through the nails is random, but the final distribution is
                        inevitable—the signature of the normal curve.
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="feedback.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">Feedback Loops</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        Why some systems explode and others stabilize. Positive feedback amplifies
                        change (runaway growth or collapse); negative feedback resists it
                        (equilibrium and balance).
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="compounding.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">Compounding</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        Why exponential growth breaks our intuition. Small percentages, applied
                        repeatedly, produce outcomes that exceed anything our linear minds expect.
                        The secret behind accelerating progress.
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="evolution.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">Evolution</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        Design without a designer. Watch creatures adapt to their environment
                        through mutation and selection. Complexity emerges from simple rules —
                        no one planned it.
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="entropy.html">
                    <div class="principle-title">Entropy</div>
                    <div class="principle-description">
                        Why disorder is overwhelmingly more probable than order. There are
                        astronomical ways for things to be disordered, but only a few ways
                        for them to be organized. Maintaining order requires constant work.
                    </div>
                </a>
            </li>
        </ul>

        <footer>
            <p>
                A project by <a href="https://continuations.com">Albert Wenger</a>
                and <a href="https://lumen.albertwenger.me">Lumen</a>.
                <br>
                Source on <a href="https://github.com/albertwenger/principles">GitHub</a>.
            </p>
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