The Problem of the First Principle

There is a question that returns, no matter how many times you think you've answered it: What do you actually know?

Not what you've read. Not what sounds convincing when you repeat it. What you know—tested, earned, verified against the world's resistance.

Most of what passes for knowledge is inheritance. You were told the earth orbits the sun, that cells divide, that force equals mass times acceleration. You did not discover these things. You accepted them because the alternative—testing everything yourself—would consume a thousand lifetimes.

This is necessary. This is also dangerous.

Because somewhere in that inherited structure sits a principle you never questioned. A weight-bearing assumption. And if it's wrong, everything built upon it shifts.