Book Review: Mastermind - How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova (Canongate, 2013)
It was that subtitle that encouraged me to read this book. But it isn’t a catchpenny gimmick. The author is a psychologist who was introduced to Conan Doyle’s stories as a child, and it was Holmes’ skills that inspired her to write this work.
Konnikova introduces us to mindfulness - choosing to be actively aware and attentive - and to the concept that our brains run on a two-system basis. She gives them the names System Watson and System Holmes: the first system jumps straight in, the second is calmly reflective. But as we discover, both men have both systems. Even Holmes wouldn’t have been born with System Holmes in charge: he has chosen to develop it and we can too.
Examples are selected from the original Sherlock Holmes stories to illustrate how we can begin to think like Holmes - to allow System Holmes to step forward and assist us in solving problems in everyday life. (I had better insert a warning here for those who haven’t yet read the stories: vital plot points are discussed and given away in Mastermind.)
After a thorough look at the concept of Holmes' brain attic, we are taken through:
observation - knowing “what and how” to observe, and not allowing internal bias or the environment to colour the facts;
imagination and creativity - not in this case the artistic kind of imagination but the ability to look at all the facts, and create scenarios in your mind that fit the evidence you’ve got;
and deduction.
The deduction section is in places a little dispiriting. Using some apparently simple problems, the author demonstrates how difficult it can be to apply logic. Once the correct answers are supplied it’s easy to understand how they are obtained, but on first viewing you just don’t see them. System Watson dives in. It’s hard to take a step back and allow System Holmes a chance to reflect and get to the solutions. As the author puts it: “logic is boring”. (Her italics.) System Watson has no patience for it. It thinks it already knows the answers.
But on the whole the book leaves the reader feeling extremely positive. The idea of whether or not intelligence is fixed is investigated: apparently people who believe their intelligence can increase will, like Holmes, learn from failure and be able to improve their performance. We’re also told brains can rewire at any age: we can learn to think in new ways and improve with practice. And with practice new ways of thinking will become habit.
Conan Doyle himself makes two appearances in the book. He is used as an example to demonstrate what can be achieved in real life when Holmes’ methods are applied: clearing the names of innocent men. He is also used as an example of what can happen when you don’t employ Holmes’ rigorous methods: the famous Cottingley Fairies hoax. It seems incredible to us now that an intelligent man could have believed in the existence of fairy-tale creatures. But the author shows us that once you put this belief into the context of the time in which he was living, it becomes a little more understandable. She goes on to explain how we too may fall into similar traps and leap to conclusions - especially when we want to believe something. We are all fallible. Mindfulness allows us to remain open-minded but remember to look closely at all the facts.
This isn’t precisely a step-by-step guide. The book is a mixture of theory and the practical, an academic study aimed at the intelligent layman. In the end I think it’s up to the reader to decide exactly how to apply this information to their own life, and to maybe do a bit more reading on the subject. But as the author states:
“by the end of the book, if you ask yourself the simple question, What would Sherlock Holmes do and think in this situation?”
you will be starting to view your world in the same way that Holmes views his.
Mastermind tells us how we can improve our minds but it can also be used for other purposes: to gain further psychological insights into Holmes and Watson’s characters, and as a gateway to reading the original stories with a fresh eye. Konnikova explains how genuinely important Watson is to Holmes’ thought processes and she overturns a few misconceptions about Holmes himself. A very pleasing additional result from this study is that we’re left with an appreciation of the humanity of the world’s only consulting detective.
Konnikova introduces us to mindfulness - choosing to be actively aware and attentive - and to the concept that our brains run on a two-system basis. She gives them the names System Watson and System Holmes: the first system jumps straight in, the second is calmly reflective. But as we discover, both men have both systems. Even Holmes wouldn’t have been born with System Holmes in charge: he has chosen to develop it and we can too.
Examples are selected from the original Sherlock Holmes stories to illustrate how we can begin to think like Holmes - to allow System Holmes to step forward and assist us in solving problems in everyday life. (I had better insert a warning here for those who haven’t yet read the stories: vital plot points are discussed and given away in Mastermind.)
After a thorough look at the concept of Holmes' brain attic, we are taken through:
observation - knowing “what and how” to observe, and not allowing internal bias or the environment to colour the facts;
imagination and creativity - not in this case the artistic kind of imagination but the ability to look at all the facts, and create scenarios in your mind that fit the evidence you’ve got;
and deduction.
The deduction section is in places a little dispiriting. Using some apparently simple problems, the author demonstrates how difficult it can be to apply logic. Once the correct answers are supplied it’s easy to understand how they are obtained, but on first viewing you just don’t see them. System Watson dives in. It’s hard to take a step back and allow System Holmes a chance to reflect and get to the solutions. As the author puts it: “logic is boring”. (Her italics.) System Watson has no patience for it. It thinks it already knows the answers.
But on the whole the book leaves the reader feeling extremely positive. The idea of whether or not intelligence is fixed is investigated: apparently people who believe their intelligence can increase will, like Holmes, learn from failure and be able to improve their performance. We’re also told brains can rewire at any age: we can learn to think in new ways and improve with practice. And with practice new ways of thinking will become habit.
Conan Doyle himself makes two appearances in the book. He is used as an example to demonstrate what can be achieved in real life when Holmes’ methods are applied: clearing the names of innocent men. He is also used as an example of what can happen when you don’t employ Holmes’ rigorous methods: the famous Cottingley Fairies hoax. It seems incredible to us now that an intelligent man could have believed in the existence of fairy-tale creatures. But the author shows us that once you put this belief into the context of the time in which he was living, it becomes a little more understandable. She goes on to explain how we too may fall into similar traps and leap to conclusions - especially when we want to believe something. We are all fallible. Mindfulness allows us to remain open-minded but remember to look closely at all the facts.
This isn’t precisely a step-by-step guide. The book is a mixture of theory and the practical, an academic study aimed at the intelligent layman. In the end I think it’s up to the reader to decide exactly how to apply this information to their own life, and to maybe do a bit more reading on the subject. But as the author states:
“by the end of the book, if you ask yourself the simple question, What would Sherlock Holmes do and think in this situation?”
you will be starting to view your world in the same way that Holmes views his.
Mastermind tells us how we can improve our minds but it can also be used for other purposes: to gain further psychological insights into Holmes and Watson’s characters, and as a gateway to reading the original stories with a fresh eye. Konnikova explains how genuinely important Watson is to Holmes’ thought processes and she overturns a few misconceptions about Holmes himself. A very pleasing additional result from this study is that we’re left with an appreciation of the humanity of the world’s only consulting detective.