8 ms·

A man's brain is like a little empty attic (1887)

54 points by yamrzou 2y ago

testingonetwo34 2y ago
The wise man deliberately inhibits learning in order to not forget what he already knows? Sounds unwise.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  Sherlock Holmes is a fictitious character that also makes use of investigative techniques such as phrenology and tobacco ash species identification, make what you will out of that.
keeganjw 2y ago
But is that true? Do new facts elbow out the old ones?
- jareklupinski 2y ago
  in a way i think if anyone sits down and has a conversation with their philosophical opposite, they're unlikely to treat the world the same afterwards
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  Maybe the new facts evict randomly from the cached index of facts? Or maybe they consolidate with old entries into new entries? Eviction from cache doesn't automatically mean deletion from long term storage.
yamrzou 2y ago
Related: The brain is a closet (2009) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831330
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
breck 2y ago
"What's the name of a bird?" https://youtu.be/ga_7j72CVlc?t=18 https://youtu.be/ga_7j72CVlc?t=18
- roydonk 2y ago
  I think the video is slightly different. It tries to convey that you need to disambiguate the illusion of knowledge from the "real" knowledge. If you're going by original post, you might as well think the whole information about the bird is useless.
  - breck 2y ago
    My thought was filling your brain with the "names of things", and not the underlying non-word models of what those things really are, is like " A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across".
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
[flagged]
khaledh 2y ago
Not related but funny: Men's Brains and Women's Brains with Mark Gungor (Nothing Box) https://youtu.be/SZ6mVumHY9I?si=vWEyWbKcai0tW3CH https://youtu.be/SZ6mVumHY9I?si=vWEyWbKcai0tW3CH
- Loughla 2y ago
  I like that concept. But my box isn't what I would call nothing. It's what I would call irreverent or completely useless. If I'm not thinking of anything, I'm actually thinking about what would happen if trees could talk or if dinosaurs had long blonde hair. Those sorts of useless things. Like a screensaver, I guess.
jwrallie 2y ago
Useful for a specialist in a job that changes little and is always on demand.
- willtemperley 2y ago
  I’m going to learn COBOL and throw out this pesky modern clutter filling my attic.
lolinder 2y ago
This is the paragraph that proceeded this line, which prompts Holmes's discourse, and the lines quoted don't work as well without the context: > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. I suspect that Doyle gave Holmes this dialog because it was reflective of the character, not because Doyle thought it was a good description of the way the world or the mind works. If you read enough Holmes you can see pretty clearly that his character is very rarely the voice of the author—that's Watson, who admires Holmes's skill but is frequently frustrated by him as a person. I'm not even really convinced that Holmes could be as skilled as he's supposed to be with as broad ignorance as he's portrayed here as having. The science of deduction as he's supposed to apply it in the stories would actually require rather encyclopedic knowledge of many different topics in order to understand the wide array of humans he's supposed to be reading (and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields).
- Retric 2y ago
  I’ve taken this to suggest he has an eclectic rather than encyclopedic body of knowledge. Having a “well rounded education” is different than randomly jumping deeply into various topics. Abstractly, everyone is limited to finite life experiences. Knowing the earth orbits the sun is unlikely to be irrelevant for a detective, but knowing local soils might be. If common knowledge would have cracked a case there would be little need of a great detective, thus the greatest detective might be quite ignorant of many things. Though obviously Holmes might could be having a bit of fun with Watson.
- TMWNN 2y ago
  > and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields Correct. The consensus among Holmes scholars is that Holmes was having some fun with Watson given that this is right after they meet and become roommates.
Geste 2y ago
>Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. Interesting. My world framework tells me that I can never know in advance what I'll need to do my work. Maybe it was that judo class 7 years ago when I learned about the meaning of "Hajime". Maybe it was that video I stumbled upon which explained why Trump and J Cole became successful by "Dumbing Down". It is especially true for creative people, as inspiration can and will come from anywhere. So now I live my life like a non-stop Slumdog Millionaire story, when I never know what will be useful when. Or maybe I try to use everything I know and that shapes my life in a certain direction ?
- roydonk 2y ago
  100% I feel it's better to fill your brain but periodically run a sorter through it to organize the stuff. It's often hard to know what's useful and what's not at the first go. Also, it's better to be curious and know things rather than trying to stop yourself from doing that for some theoretical advantage.
dzink 2y ago
“It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." I think that last paragraph would be a mistake - as a person with enough self importance to think they are even a little bit of an expert in some field would stop studying others. Knowledge evolves, expands from analogs in other disciplines, etc. Dunning Krueger would stop a person in their tracks following this logic.
readthenotes1 2y ago
For a detective, knowing how many planets there are in the solar system is a useless fact and should not be acquired in order to keep the brain uncluttered. For goodness sake, I am not a detective and I don't even know how many planets there are anymore in my solar system
noobermin 2y ago
I feel like this may be true of attention and short term memory but I'm often surprised at how much people remember and retain if it concerns something they love.

54 points by yamrzou 2y ago

testingonetwo34 2y ago

The wise man deliberately inhibits learning in order to not forget what he already knows? Sounds unwise.

nerdponx 2y ago
Sherlock Holmes is a fictitious character that also makes use of investigative techniques such as phrenology and tobacco ash species identification, make what you will out of that.

keeganjw 2y ago

But is that true? Do new facts elbow out the old ones?

jareklupinski 2y ago
in a way i think if anyone sits down and has a conversation with their philosophical opposite, they're unlikely to treat the world the same afterwards
GeoAtreides 2y ago
Maybe the new facts evict randomly from the cached index of facts? Or maybe they consolidate with old entries into new entries? Eviction from cache doesn't automatically mean deletion from long term storage.

yamrzou 2y ago

Related: The brain is a closet (2009) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831330

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

breck 2y ago

"What's the name of a bird?" https://youtu.be/ga_7j72CVlc?t=18 https://youtu.be/ga_7j72CVlc?t=18

roydonk 2y ago
I think the video is slightly different. It tries to convey that you need to disambiguate the illusion of knowledge from the "real" knowledge. If you're going by original post, you might as well think the whole information about the bird is useless.
- breck 2y ago
  My thought was filling your brain with the "names of things", and not the underlying non-word models of what those things really are, is like " A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across".

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

[flagged]

khaledh 2y ago

Not related but funny: Men's Brains and Women's Brains with Mark Gungor (Nothing Box) https://youtu.be/SZ6mVumHY9I?si=vWEyWbKcai0tW3CH https://youtu.be/SZ6mVumHY9I?si=vWEyWbKcai0tW3CH

Loughla 2y ago
I like that concept. But my box isn't what I would call nothing. It's what I would call irreverent or completely useless. If I'm not thinking of anything, I'm actually thinking about what would happen if trees could talk or if dinosaurs had long blonde hair. Those sorts of useless things. Like a screensaver, I guess.

jwrallie 2y ago

Useful for a specialist in a job that changes little and is always on demand.

willtemperley 2y ago
I’m going to learn COBOL and throw out this pesky modern clutter filling my attic.

lolinder 2y ago

This is the paragraph that proceeded this line, which prompts Holmes's discourse, and the lines quoted don't work as well without the context: > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. I suspect that Doyle gave Holmes this dialog because it was reflective of the character, not because Doyle thought it was a good description of the way the world or the mind works. If you read enough Holmes you can see pretty clearly that his character is very rarely the voice of the author—that's Watson, who admires Holmes's skill but is frequently frustrated by him as a person. I'm not even really convinced that Holmes could be as skilled as he's supposed to be with as broad ignorance as he's portrayed here as having. The science of deduction as he's supposed to apply it in the stories would actually require rather encyclopedic knowledge of many different topics in order to understand the wide array of humans he's supposed to be reading (and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields).

Retric 2y ago
I’ve taken this to suggest he has an eclectic rather than encyclopedic body of knowledge. Having a “well rounded education” is different than randomly jumping deeply into various topics. Abstractly, everyone is limited to finite life experiences. Knowing the earth orbits the sun is unlikely to be irrelevant for a detective, but knowing local soils might be. If common knowledge would have cracked a case there would be little need of a great detective, thus the greatest detective might be quite ignorant of many things. Though obviously Holmes might could be having a bit of fun with Watson.
TMWNN 2y ago
> and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields Correct. The consensus among Holmes scholars is that Holmes was having some fun with Watson given that this is right after they meet and become roommates.

Geste 2y ago

>Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. Interesting. My world framework tells me that I can never know in advance what I'll need to do my work. Maybe it was that judo class 7 years ago when I learned about the meaning of "Hajime". Maybe it was that video I stumbled upon which explained why Trump and J Cole became successful by "Dumbing Down". It is especially true for creative people, as inspiration can and will come from anywhere. So now I live my life like a non-stop Slumdog Millionaire story, when I never know what will be useful when. Or maybe I try to use everything I know and that shapes my life in a certain direction ?

roydonk 2y ago
100% I feel it's better to fill your brain but periodically run a sorter through it to organize the stuff. It's often hard to know what's useful and what's not at the first go. Also, it's better to be curious and know things rather than trying to stop yourself from doing that for some theoretical advantage.

dzink 2y ago

“It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." I think that last paragraph would be a mistake - as a person with enough self importance to think they are even a little bit of an expert in some field would stop studying others. Knowledge evolves, expands from analogs in other disciplines, etc. Dunning Krueger would stop a person in their tracks following this logic.

readthenotes1 2y ago

For a detective, knowing how many planets there are in the solar system is a useless fact and should not be acquired in order to keep the brain uncluttered. For goodness sake, I am not a detective and I don't even know how many planets there are anymore in my solar system

noobermin 2y ago

I feel like this may be true of attention and short term memory but I'm often surprised at how much people remember and retain if it concerns something they love.