No great content ahead folks. So I just did a Brain.rand(MyBrain) to come up with something.What turned out were highly unusual. I thought my brain was just another empty shell but it's seemingly decent storage capacity did return a myriad of content. So here goes a few random thoughts.
I was leafing through A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle where for the first time he introduces Dr.John.H Watson and Sherlock Holmes, the greatest fictional detective ever. Watson is piqued at the fact that Holmes knows nothing about the earth or the sun or even anything about Poetry and Carlyle. Did a google for the exact text and I got it...
"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"
This really set me on the contemplative mood. How can Sherlock Holmes to whom knowledge and perfection is of paramount importance can not be aware of this basic fact? Why was he not too keen to update his knowledge?So many questions just raced through my mind with each one trying to win the race. The next few paragraphs cleared my questions. Surprisingly enough they made me look at learning in a different perspective. Just read the following extracts from the novel and you'll get a wind of it.
Sherlock Holmes : "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
Watson: "To forget it!"
Sherlock Holmes : "You see," he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. 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. 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."
Watson : "But the Solar System!" I protested.
Sherlock Holmes : "What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
Looking back, is Sherlock Holmes not right? Should we also limit ourselves to what is useful for our line of work? Or the skeptic in you says the brain has every right to store any kind of information. I reflect on the above paragraph and feel Mr.Holmes was probably right. What do you think?
3 comments:
There is a minor catch though - while Holmes knew exactly what kind of information he needed, ordinary Joes like us most usually dont (apologies for making presumptions about you :D).
The knowledge about what kind of knowledge is useful/necessary for you is exceptionally important, and that, in the end, is the essential difference. :)
@Kaushik : First of all, the presumption part is right. I am after all the Noob :-). Talking about Holmes, don't we all know a degree of what we are good at? Do we exactly follow that? So knowledge of which might be good can almost be figured out. The question is to wonder how versatile the brain is? How much is too much for the brain?
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