Derren Brown: Archive
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From: ganetauk
Date: Sun Mar 30, 2003 12:06am
Subject: The art and science of taking fiction and making it non-fiction - modelling.
......Do you wonder how Derren Brown does most of his stunts? ....
....More specifically do you wonder how you might create YOUR OWN
stunts? ....
..Yeap, me too, anyway...lol :oP (pace, pace, lead nowhere) :oP
The art and science of taking fiction and making it non-fiction -
modelling.
Although Sherlock Holmes is fictional - his cognitive patterns were
modelled from Doctor Bell. Holmes' methods and the value he placed on
observing details are revealed in various parts of text...
---------------------------------
"Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?"
"Only as much as we can deduce."
"From his hat?"
"Precisely."
"But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered
felt?"
"Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself
as to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?"
I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather
ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape,
hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of red silk,
but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's name; but, as
Holmes had remarked, the initials "H. B." were scrawled upon one
side. It was pierced in the brim for a hat- securer, but the elastic
was missing. For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and
spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some
attempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.
"I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my friend.
"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however,
to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your
inferences."
"Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?"
He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion
which was characteristic of him. "It is perhaps less suggestive than
it might have been," he remarked, "and yet there are a few inferences
which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a
strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual
is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly
well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen
upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly,
pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline
of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably
drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact
that his wife has ceased to love him."
"My dear Holmes!"
"He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect," he
continued, disregarding my remonstrance. "He is a man who leads a
sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is
middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last
few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more
patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way,
that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his
house."
"You are certainly joking, Holmes."
"Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you
these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?"
"I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am
unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man
was intellectual?"
For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over
the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. "It is a
question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain
must have something in it."
"The decline of his fortunes, then?"
"This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge
came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band
of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could afford to
buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since,
then he has assuredly gone down in the world."
"Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight
and the moral retrogression?"
Sherlock Holmes laughed. "Here is the foresight," said he putting his
finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer. "They are
never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a
certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take
this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken
the elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he
has less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a
weakening nature. On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal
some of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is
a sign that he has not entirely lost his self-respect."
"Your reasoning is certainly plausible."
"The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is
grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-
cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower
part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of hair-ends,
clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be
adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you
will observe, is not the gritty, gray dust of the street but the
fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it has been hung up
indoors most of the time, while the marks of moisture upon the inside
are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could
therefore, hardly be in the best of training."
"But his wife -- you said that she had ceased to love him."
"This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear
Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when
your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you
also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection."
"But he might be a bachelor."
"Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.
Remember the card upon the bird's leg."
"You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce
that the gas is not laid on in his house?"
"One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see
no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the
individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow -
- walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a
guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains
from a gasjet. Are you satisfied?"
"Well, it is very ingenious," said I, laughing; "but since, as you
said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done
save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of
energy."
-------------------------
Sherlock Holmes limits are concluded by Dr Watson (in "The Study in
Scarlet") as below: (you can do something like this yourself. Also
the various areas of knowledge can help you organise your
studies.) :o) ...you see, the cognitive patterns are non-fiction.
Knowledge of Literature --Nil.
Knowledge of Philosophy --Nil.
Knowledge of Astronomy --Nil. Knows nothing of the Copernican Theory
and the composition of the Solar System.
Knowledge of Politics --Feeble.
Knowledge of Botany --Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and
poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
Knowledge of Geology --Practical, but limited. Tells a glance
different soils from each other.
Knowledge of Chemistry --Profound.
Knowledge of Anatomy --Accurate, but un-systematic.
Knowledge of Sensational Literature --Immense. Appears to know every
detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
Plays the violin well. Can play difficult piece like Mendelssohn's
Lieder, and know something about Stradivarius violins.
Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.
Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
----------------
site with stories... http://www.bakerstreet221b.de/
----------------
By looking at the prinicples behind the various quotes (deep
structure in NLP), you can develop models. Below are some quotes by
holmes on deduction etc. These quotes (and quotes made by anyone)
reveal many things - presuppositions, strategies (ie, sense words),
value and so on.
----------
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated
in the same cold and unemotional manner.
It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect
have stated it wrong.
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the
truth.
You may not be aware that the deduction of a man's age from his
writing is one which has been brought to considerable accuracy by
experts. In normal cases one can place a man in his true decade with
tolerable confidence.
There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes
against you.
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever
observes.
We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were
simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.
You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly
one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to
suit facts.
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever
remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other
contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth.
n solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to
reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very
easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the everyday affairs
of life it is more useful to reason forward, and so the other comes
to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one
who can reason analytically. Improbable as it is, all other
explanations are more improbable still.
It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.
I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection
with the case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes
which present some difficulty in their solution.
Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my
dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details.
One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against
it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation.
Here is my lens. You know my methods.
One the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however,
to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your
inferences.
Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point
very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a
little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner
to something entirely different.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
There is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear.
There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are
infinitely the most important.
Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself
upon details. My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a
man, it is perhaps better to take the knee of the trouser.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather
than upon the crime that you should dwell.
What do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly
tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care
about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!
Always look at the hands first, Watson. Then cuffs, trouser-knees,
and boots.
There I was stretched, when you, my dear Watson, and all your
following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient
manner the circumstances of my death. At last, when you had formed
your inevitable and totally eroneous conclusions, you departed for
the hotel, and I was left alone.
It would be difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field
for inference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair
as these.
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the
scientific use of the imagination.
Circumstantial evidence is occassionally very convincing, as when you
find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.
The more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It
is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling,
just as a commplace face is the most difficult to identify.
It is true that though in your mission you have missed everything of
importance, yet even those things which have obtruded themselves upon
your notice give rise to serious thought.
It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to
recognize out of a number of facts which are incidental and which
vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead
of being concentrated.
I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.
Winwood Reade is good upon the subject. He remarks that, while the
individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a
mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any
one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average
number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain
constant. So says the statistician.
There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have
all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you
can't unravel the thousand and first.
One true inference invariably suggests others.
Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of
his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark
after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and
superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by
no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most
commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents
no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.
When a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it
invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
There are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the
apocrypha of the agony column; such crude devices amuse the
intelligence without fatiguing it.
By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his
trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his
expression, by his shirt-cuff - By each of these things a man's
calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten
the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.
There is nothing like first-hand evidence.
There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so
much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.
The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious.
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
I never guess. It is a shocking habit -- destructive to the logical
faculty.
You see, but you do not observe.
-------------------------
Time for tea now...Regards TerryrreT
