Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

by Maria Konnikova

meditation-like thought (an exercise in the very attentional control that forms the center of mindfulness),

active awareness.

make some observations about a phenomenon; create a hypothesis to explain those observations; design an experiment to test the hypothesis; run the experiment; see if the results match your expectations; rework your hypothesis if you must;

The scientific method begins with the most mundane seeming of things: observation.

Whatever the specific issue, you must define and formulate it in your mind as specifically as possible—and then you must fill it in with past experience and present observation.

“There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

don’t just start hypothesizing at random: all the potential scenarios and explanations come from that initial base of knowledge and observation.

investigate all lines of inquiry, eliminating them one by one until the one that remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

That original knowledge base must always be updated. As our environment changes, we must never forget to revise and retest out hypotheses.

The thoughtful can become unthinking through our failure to keep engaging, challenging, pushing.

That, in a nutshell, is the scientific method: understand and frame the problem; observe; hypothesize (or imagin...

“How much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came his way.

In other words, given our existing knowledge base, we can use observation to deduce meaning from an otherwise meaningless fact.

“on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for.

a natural skepticism and inquisitiveness toward the world. Nothing is taken at face value. Everything is scrutinized and considered, and only then accepted (or not, as the case may be).

two-system basis. One system is fast, intuitive, reactionary—a kind of constant fight-or-flight vigilance of the mind. It doesn’t require much conscious thought or effort and functions as a sort of status quo auto pilot. The other is slower, more deliberative, more thorough, more logical—but also much more cognitively costly. It likes to sit things out as long as it can and doesn’t step in unless it thinks it absolutely necessary.

we spend most of our thinking time in the hot, reflexive system, basically ensuring that our natural observer state takes on the color of that system: automatic, intuitive (and not always rightly so), reactionary, quick to judge.

First we believe, and only then do we question.

while it takes no effort whatsoever to remain in true mode, a switch of answer to false requires vigilance, time, and energy.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes it this way: our brains must believe something in order to process it, if only for a split second.

not everything that our intuition says is black and white is so in reality. It’s awfully easy to get tripped up. In fact, not only do we believe everything we hear, at least initially, but even when we have been told explicitly that a statement is false before we hear it, we are likely to treat it as true. For instance, in something known as the correspondence bias (a concept we’ll revisit in greater detail), we assume that what a person says is what that person actually believes—and we hold on to that assumption even if we’ve been told explicitly that it isn’t so; we’re even likely to judge the speaker in its light.

I haven’t given you my opinion—and yet, chances are you’ve already answered it by taking my statement as my opinion.

begin with a healthy dose of skepticism instead of the credulity that is your mind’s natural state of being. Don’t just assume anything is the way it is. Think of everything as being as absurd as an animal that can’t possibly exist in nature.

What would Sherlock Holmes do and think in this situation?

Mindfulness, in the sense of constant presence of mind, the attentiveness and hereness that is so essential for real, active observation of the world. Motivation, in the sense of active engagement and desire.

we learn better if we are motivated learners.

practice, practice, practice. You have to supplement your mindful motivation with brutal training, thousands of hours of it. There is no way around it.

experts even see the world differently within their area of expertise: they see things that are invisible to a novice; they are able to discern patterns at a glance that are anything but obvious to an untrained eye; they see details as part of a whole and know at once what is crucial and what is incidental.

expert knowledge: an ability born from extended and intense practice and not some innate genius.

“obliquity of the ecliptic

How do I recover information I’ve stored?

How do I deposit information I’ve taken in: where will it go? how will it be marked? how will it be integrated?

we know only what we can remember at any given point. In other words, no amount of knowledge will save us if we can’t recall it at the moment we need it.

we remember more when we are interested and motivated

The so-called Motivation to Remember (MTR) is far more important at the point of encoding—and no amount of MTR at retrieval will be efficient if the information wasn’t properly stored to begin with.

This, I want to remember—and, if possible, solidifying it as soon as we can, whether it be by describing an experience to someone else or to ourselves, if no one else is available (in essence, rehearsing it to help consolidation). Manipulating information, playing around with it and talking it through, making it come alive through stories and gestures, may be much more effective in getting it to the attic when you want it to get there than just trying to think it over and over.

Accurate intuition is really nothing more than practice, of letting skill replace learned heuristics.

“Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.

Being aware is the first step.

begins with observation:

knowing what and how to observe and directing your attention accordingly:

The phenomenon is often termed attentional blindness, a process whereby a focus on one element in a scene causes other elements to disappear; I myself like to call it attentive inattention. The concept was pioneered by Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology.

when we are in a foul mood, we quite literally see less than when we are happy. Our visual cortex actually takes in less information from the outside world. We could look at the exact same scene twice, once on a day that has been going well and once on a day that hasn’t, and we would notice less—and our brains would take in less—on the gloomy day.

Write a checklist of steps to follow when making a diagnosis of a problem,

Checklists, formulas, structured procedures:

Habit, habit, habit. That, and motivation. Become an expert of sorts at those types of decisions or observation that you want to excel at making.

No one says it’s easy. When it comes right down to it, there is no such thing as free attention; it all has to come from somewhere. And every time we place an additional demand on our attentional resources—be it by listening to music while walking, checking our email while working, or following five media streams at once—we limit the awareness that surrounds any one aspect and our ability to deal with it in an engaged, mindful, and productive manner. What’s more, we wear ourselves out. Not only is attention limited, but it is a finite resource. We can drain it down only so much before it needs a reboot. Psychologist Roy Baumeister uses the analogy of a muscle to talk about self-control—an analogy that is just as appropriate when it comes to attention: just as a muscle, our capacity for self-control has only so many exertions in it and will get tired with too much use. You

1. Be Selective

selective filtering

be selective about your attention.