How can humans, the system architects of intelligence, increase the speed of Zero discoveries? Before Europeans learned about zero, Descartes could not have come up with Cartesian geometry. All anyone had ever tried was to do better and better Euclidean geometry.

We need more such insights. In a world where we are continuously expanding our spheres of understanding, each Zeroth-principle insight can potentially unlock a set of more expansive spheres.

When people say, “From first principles…”, they mean is that they wish to assume as few things as possible from within a given frame. Sherlock Holmes is a classic first-principled thinker: When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.

The deductions of Dirk Gently, however, the “holistic detective” created by Douglas Adams as a contrast to Sherlock Holmes, have a different approach: "I don't like to eliminate the impossible". This is Zeroth-Principles thinking. Seeing through the blind spots.

The future of human existence is not deducible from first-principles thinking alone. We need Zero Hunters. Our co-evolutionary future with AI will introduce a record-breaking number of Zero-like building blocks, which will in turn level up our aspirations.

In the professional analysis of one of AlphaGo’s games against the best human Go player in the world, one observer remarked that the moves were like watching the AI play “Go from an alternate dimension.” That’s the profile. That’s what it feels like to witness Zero discovery.

But Go is a finite, complete-information game. My primary interest: How do we find the best moves—those ”from an alternate dimension”—for the future of intelligent existence?

Exploring for Zeros is relevant for everything currently top of mind, from how we address climate change, how we adapt to technological disruption, how we build AI, how we govern ourselves, and how we evolve and motivate our reasons to keep going, to keep existing.

I have started practicing “Zeroth-principles” thinking, to uncover transformative new elements of thought. Zeroth-principles thinking is about building blocks, or the structure of all things, whereas first-principles thinking is about system laws, or how things interact.

Zeroth-Principles Thinking

How does one come up with a truly original idea? One that reshapes society for centuries. Learning about the discovery of the number zero, and its philosophical representation -- nothingness -- changed my orientation with transformational thinking.