Hi friend,
In this episode, you will learn how to discover new knowledge by looking for principles behind the facts and leveling up through the knowledge tiers.
If you prefer watching, you can find the YouTube video here. If reading is your thing, then enjoy the transcript below.
Welcome to The Daily Recall show. I'm your host, Vasili.
Today you will learn how to discover new knowledge by identifying principles behind the facts.
I’ll begin with a story.
Yesterday morning, I was standing in line to grab my coffee. There was a girl in front of me getting a cappuccino with almond milk. She was staring at a blueberry cake behind the glass and smacking her lips. There were many blueberry cakes, some chocolate ones, and one piece of carrot cake left. But the waitress was smart. She said: "Oh you know we’ve got this very last piece of carrot cake left - would you like some?" The girl grabbed the bait and went to enjoy her morning coffee with the last piece of carrot cake.
That's an example of a fact you can pick up from the world. You get to see many such things during the day - and you can also read them in books or hear in a conversation.
But when you make an observation like that - that the girl changed her mind when the waitress told her about the very last cake left - the very next thing you should do to discover new knowledge is to ask is there any principle behind this fact. In my carrot cake story, she decided for some reason to change her mind and go for this carrot cake instead of of other options. Why did she do that?
By answering this "why" question about why something happened, you get to uncover a principle; that people are more willing to purchase something when less is available. Scarcity increases perceived value by suggesting the popularity of an item. So whenever you see something - the last movie ticket left or the last piece of carrot cake - you’re tempted to buy it because of the fear of missing out and because of the increased perceived value of an object - ie "this stuff must be good if they sold everything!" (For those folks who know economics - there are other reasons as well but I keep it simple here)
That’s how you level up to the principle behind the fact. This conceptual knowledge is way more interesting because you can start thinking - "ok I’ve got this carrot cake thing but are there any other applications of the principle?" You get to think for yourself instead of picking up facts from someone else.
Principles are also easier to remember because they swallow facts. Whenever you uncover a principle behind the fact; the fact becomes just a part of it. This means there are other applications of this principle in the world. And whenever you stumble upon one, you'll get to remember the principle as well and enrich your understanding of it.
But let’s come back to our carrot cake story.
Once you’ve got the principle, you can start climbing up the knowledge ladder.
Because when you realize that scarcity impacts purchasing behavior you can’t help but start thinking about other things that influence purchasing behavior as well. You go up a little bit and ask: "ok I’ve got this scarcity principle but are there any other things that impact how people buy stuff?" That’s how you can easily arrive to understand the price-value idea; that people treat expensive goods as higher quality ones even thought most of the times this is not the case at all. This principle drives a lot of purchasing behavior in humans. And then if you put two and two together, you can understand that by producing tremendously overpriced scarce goods we can actually have a good business because that’s how people buy stuff - think of Rolex or Bentley here.
But you can go up even more. Just ask: "hey this is how people buy stuff but buying is just one of the decisions that we make in life right?" - and you will arrive to a whole new land of what determines how humans decide in general. Humans decide to sell things. Humans decide to marry other humans. Humans decide to fire people, to hire people - there are thousands of different decisions that we make.
And you can jump back and forth between levels and enrich your understanding and grow your conceptual knowledge that way.
Just to recap -
You stumble upon knowledge gems every day. But gems don’t come as diamonds; they’re unpolished and dirty when you first discover them. Your goal is to always look for principles behind the facts and level up your conceptual knowledge tiers. That’s how you get to discover new knowledge and think new thoughts.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your week!
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
#22 How to Discover New Knowledge - Principles & Layers