Thinking Like Sherlock Holmes—the science of deduction
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
Sherlock is the one who outlived any other fictional character in history, the main reason behind is the portrayal by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Without just giving us the facts of a crime, he also introduces us to the world of sherlock's thought processes.
There is still a number of people who believes sherlock holmes as a real person. The things we see on these stories may be a little bit too overwhelming but there is always an explanation from the author's side.
Sherlock named himself the process of thinking as the science of deduction. It's an art o observation, hypothesis, prediction, experiment and conclusion.
You may don't have to solve those murder mysteries, but you could improve your observation skills and find the reason behind every small detail. This's gonna increase your memory and also the spontaneity in finding solutions for real-life problems.
In this modern world, we live our days ignorantly and ran into things we don't even understand.
For Sherlock it's a reflex, within seconds he could deduce the one in front of him, we don't have to go to that much extend. But we could use the observation skills—helpful in a way when talking with strangers and making new friends.
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It's all in a cause and effect format, it's thinking through backwards. It's not about what happens next—and about the effect of the thing that just happened. It's about to think about the possible causes of this effect.
For example, if you see a text deleted by your ex, before thinking about the next part like replying about what was it, think back like what are the causes for it. Why she texted you this time?
There will a few, you can list down those. And think about what made today so special to send that text. With some probable one's go forward and experiment with it.
It was an awful example, but thinking it like this gonna eventually give you an inevitable mindset, which will help to have a spontaneous reactions— in difficult situations to solve the little problems you face, and also maintaining good relationships.
Also, there is one another fact, not to make assumptions, this will ends up in biased judgement. Always backup your theory with a proof. If ther is no proof it's better to ignore the theory.
There is also the thing about looks, don't validate a person by just his first impression, wait for more details. There is a dialogue that Sherlock tells John Watson,
"I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”
Don't try to be a critique on everything, it's about having a presence of mind in the things just happening in front of you. At first, it will be hard to look at the small details like the nails of a person in front of you. Why it's edged and why there are black marks in it. Is that blood?
No 😄, not blood.
Learning a little bit more about the nonverbal communications gonna give you a basic idea on these observations. By body postures, we can say what one is hiding. There is a lot of books on it, the one I remember is by Joe Navarro - "What Every Body is Saying"
There is a branch named micro expression which is mainly used by mentalists, it's a pretty good subject for the deduction. It's about catching the expressions that don't even last for a second—which tells a lot about what one is thinking.
There is a tv show called "Lie To Me", it also shares a lot of really good information on reading a person's expressions, which includes micro-expressions too. It's based on a real-life person.
Adapt some practical ideas, make the life little better.
“Never theorize before you have data. Invariably you end up twisting facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. -Sherlock Holmes”
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