My Deduction Notebook

There are certain aspects that are considered the building blocks of intelligent agents. Unlike the average man these agents view the world in a novel lens. Their effective habit system alters their perception profoundly. They are capable of extracting information from the most devious sources. They always make the best of what they have, and they pay a lot of attention to details. Their line of trade is rather dangerous at times. That is why it is absolutely crucial to be always ready, prepared and vigilant of your surroundings.

How does one adopt an effective Situational Awareness habit?

This habit can take the toll on you, if you do not know where and how to look. Being constantly observant is very tiring, it exerts the brain’s resources immensely. Selective attention is always advised whenever attempting to observe the outer/external environment. In this article I will be discussing Observation and how to utilize it towards your best interest.

1. Observation

There are two types of observation modes:

a. Passive Observation (Being one’s default mode)

b. Active Observation (Conscious awareness)

The default state in which we observe the world around us is the passive mode. Through which you take the relevant data (enough to let you survive the time being) surrounding you, and comprehend it in the simplest of ways. The world is a very dangerous place, full of potential risks. The passive observation mode let’s you operate accordingly, while maintaining awareness for potential danger. Take for example the sound of the banging engine that takes you by surprise, you automatically direct your attention towards that source to assess the threat. If it proves to be a false alarm, you ease your tension. However, unlike the passive mode, the active mode provides you with a sense of proactive, it makes you aware of potential threats that may arises, dangers that normally would bypass your naive passive observation operator. Through the active mode you are willingly analyzing most of the influencing factors in your surrounding environment, and dismissing all that is irrelevant of course, this can take it’s toll on one’s brain power. That is why it is advised to hone the method of selective attention, as mentioned before. There are a few tips that may get you started with this habit. 

Drill:

- Close your eyes and try to memorize every detail in your surrounding area (It would be advised to try this with a familiar room/area)

- Open your eyes again and see how many have you missed. You should find a good some of important information that slipped your attention.

:

Whenever you enter a premise, try to keep track of the following: 

1. Where are the exist

2.How many windows

3. How many people are in the room

4. What is the layout of the room

5. Observe people’s micro expression

6. Observe the people’s behavior and body language as they interact with one another

7. Observe the clothes of the people (There is a world of information in how someone dresses themselves)

I will be discussing further points in the upcoming article.

This is a controversial opinion. I doubt many people would share it. And why would they? It’s one of the more dramatic and impressive avenues of this hobby. Those trying to emulate Sherlock try to mimic it, and those who are led to believe it’s useful put lots of time and effort into it. Here’s why I think it is (largely, but not completely) a waste when being used for storing massive amounts of data.

First, an appeal. Many of us began by reading or watching some adaptation of Sherlock, and here I think is a good example. Would Sherlock have spent so much time and effort on a mind palace if he had all the knowledge of humanity at his fingertips? Of course BBC Sherlock says yes, but let’s take the glamour out of it for a second. Would the true character have bothered with it in today’s day and age?

I think yes, but nowhere near to the same extent.

Bottom line is, mind palaces take effort, energy, focus, and time. In your practice, these are important resources. Knowledge is undeniably a crucial aspect to the process and will assist you immensely, but do you need to have every aspect of the human body memorized? Every aspect of a chemical and its makeup? No, not anymore. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know about it. Do your research, read up on it, and save the information in an easily accessible way. Additionally, decide what information is most useful to you in your day to day life, what is most relevant, and store that away in your palace instead. This is a more productive use of your time.

Here’s what I propose to replace this.

1. Decide what information is most useful to you in your day to day life. I doubt many of us are working with murder cases on a day to day basis. Maybe some of us are, but generally, most of us aren’t. So maybe learning and memorizing aspects of crime scenes isn’t a good use of your time. But then again, if it is something you work with, maybe you should. It is up to you to decide what is useful for you to store, but ideally, it should be minimal.

3. Read and practice. You should put every effort into constantly learning new things. Body language is a fantastic example that would benefit everyone. Always studying and learning more about body language would help. Work with the material every chance you get. The more you work with it, the more you train your brain to work with it, and the easier this will be. An example would be riding a bike. Do you study in a book how to ride a bike? No, you get out and do it. And when you practice enough, it becomes second nature. And no matter how long you go without doing it, you can still hop back on a bike again. Practice and work with what you learn (within reason and safety, of course) instead of memorizing information.

3. Focus on your observational memory instead. When you can recall what you’ve observed and taken note of later, you can do more research into it, or double check your hunches. This will be a better use of your focus and memory.

4. Develop a good data management system. There’s plenty of free resources out there to organize articles, videos, podcasts, websites, etc. Find an easy and organized way to store useful information. This is where you should put all the info you would otherwise haphazardly shove into your head, and maybe use again, maybe you never touch it again. But it’ll be here where you can access it, and you’ve left room in your head, as well as used your time better. Take advantage of technology.

Here’s some good suggestions:

Google Drive

Pocket

OneDrive

I do suggest that whatever you choose can be accessed online. This ensures that you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection, and you don’t rely on one device that can be stolen or break. With this in mind, make sure you practice good online security and make sure you remember your login info.

Make sure you use an intuitive and accurate organizational system to find what you need to. This means tags (if applicable), folders, and descriptive names.

Can you imagine what Sherlock would have done with today’s tech? If anything, I think BBC Sherlock doesn’t even begin to cover it. He would be taking advantage of awesome websites like Reddit, like Quora, to find quick answers from people. He would have articles on articles saved, Youtube playlists galore, flash drives full of info, and would know how to access it and use it.

Tech makes things faster and better, if you let it. I’m not saying ditch mind palaces completely. However, that doesn’t mean you should throw away fantastic opportunities to make some of this stuff easier. The mind palace does certainly still have its place, I myself still use mine frequently, but have managed to make it far more efficient and useful, but its place is no longer for remembering massive amounts of data.

Thanks for reading.

Secondly, remember that good memory ≠ smart, you can have the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica stored in your head, this doesn’t mean it’s worth anything. In short, if you’re gonna store the information on the MBTI or OCEAN personality classification systems, make sure you know how to use them, if you’re gonna store rules for body language, make sure you can read body language and do it often enough to be accurate. Don’t just store the whole periodic table in your head because it’s cool (which it certainly is), store it because you know how to use the periodic table to caculate molarity, figure out electronic distribution of elements, and much more.

it’s worth noting that the use of other resources and the use of a very developed mind palace aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact using data management systems along with mind palaces might lead to higher efficiency, since you can access all your information in drive (for example) in your mind palace when you need it, and you also have a “tangible” copy with you wherever you go, which means you don’t only rely on what can be faulty memory

A mind palace shouldn’t be a horde, I fully sympathise with wanting to have a huge collection of useful information in your head to access just by thinking about it, but the key word in there is “useful”. Deduction isn’t about having knowledge, it’s about being smart about how you use the knowledge and methods at your disposal

Topic: Room Deductions 1

none of the pictures on my blog are mine by the way

Topics of Discussion:

Explanation of how room deduction blogs will work

Subject 1: Desk Area

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Explanation of How Room Deduction Blogs Will Work

I have been thinking for a while how to best explain room deductions. Other items such as shoes or individual items on a person are easy to explain in words, whereas I am running into trouble on how to explain rooms. Room contain so much information and it is important to understand how to read them. So, what I have come up with is each week that I am doing a room deduction I will add a picture of a room that I have already deduced and explain in detail where I got those conclusions. This will be teaching/explaining through example and is how I learned at the start of my training.

To do this however, I will need the help of my readers. If you could send me pictures of your bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, any room in your living space, I would appreciate it. I will do my best to deduce it in messages to you and you will either confirm or deny my conclusions. I will then make it clear what I got right and wrong in the blog entry as to maintain honesty regarding my own abilities and maybe show you where sometimes things can go wrong even with a seasoned deductionist. Sometimes I get nearly everything right and other times I end up missing things but, “There is no right or wrong. You’re either right or you learn something.”

If you would like to participate please message me privately with a picture. If I don’t have enough variety of pictures I will be forced to move on from rooms and go to the next item on my physical objects list. I would really like not to resort to boring images from google that could possibly be deduced if they aren’t just a stock photo. If I get more pictures throughout this physical objects series I will add another room deduction blog in-between things. I can always do a blog on an individual item and come back to rooms when I have images but please do help me out and send some things!

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Subject 1: Desk Area

Desks is the area I have the most already deduced and confirmed images. Therefore, I will start with that for this week. I will include two here that have been obtained from Reddit, which is a public site (and the pictures were posted publicly) so I feel comfortable including these images here. If either of the people who own these images reads my blog and would like me to remove your image I will. I will only include images that are either accessible through a public sites/domains or that I have been given permission to include.

Example 1:

This is what I sent: You’re a Female, teenager most likely between the ages of 14 and 19. You enjoy art a lot, might even be taking an art class. You’re sentimental and like a semi-clean space, but have trouble keeping it clean. Right-handed and either from Minnesota or you have been there and enjoy it. Do you have an English test coming up? Even if it’s not English you do have something coming up soon that you’re studying for. You use glasses for class work, and this is your main workspace for homework and art projects. You enjoy a more girly style of decor and clothing but isn’t overly girly. I’d say middle class family and because you are still in school you don’t have a job. You care about your appearance and do wear some every once and a while but not often.

The reply: (from her sister) She’s a teenager, 14 to be exact so you got that right. She likes art a lot and used to take classes but doesn’t anymore. I’d say she’s very sentimental, but she’ll deny it. Her room is never clean and yet she can easily find things. She is right-handed and we have family in Minnesota that we visit every blue moon. She had an English quiz a day before the picture went up, so you were also correct on that. She uses the glasses (which are blue light glasses) for school work since it’s all online. She uses the desk for everything. She is not girly and does not want to associate with “being girly” though. She also rarely does her makeup and if she does it’s just mascara and maybe some eyeliner. Good job you got it almost perfectly :)

This one was mostly correct. I only messed up a little on the makeup thing and the girly style. I specifically got the girly style wrong because I was looking at the overall color scheme and not looking at how her personality is in general.

Now to explain where I got my information: I got teenager because of the notecards and study cards on the desk. These are specifically geared more toward teenager rather than early adults in most study settings and I connected that with the other decor style to come up with a relative age range. The art enjoyment came from the cutting board (which is used with an exacto knife) and the multiple sketchbooks. The may have taken an art class or be in an art class came from the fact that someone of that age wouldn’t go out and buy one of those board unless they are dedicated to art, which comes down to either class or just does art a lot and class is the most likely option with the amount of schoolwork someone of her age most likely has. The sentimentality came from the stuffed animals. People who are less sentimental don’t have items like this lying around. Less sentimental people tend to be more minimalistic in their decor and only display things that also have a function in most cases. Of course, there are exceptions but this specific decor screams sentimental. The clean space comes from the fact that the area is in fact clean. This picture doesn’t appear to be posed. So even if they have trouble keeping it clean (based on the slight clutter in the corner) they try to keep the desk clean. Right-handed because most thing that require movement or action are on the right side. Also, the handle of the mug is toward the right. The state on the mug is Minnesota so either lives there or has been there. English test/quiz coming up came from the cards and the word on the top is English related. The glasses are used for class work because they are in a spot where they aren’t grabbed a lot unless she is sitting at the desk. So not visual impairment, just for class work or could’ve been reading glasses. Middle class family came from the entire picture. If she was higher class she would have fancier items and if lower class wouldn’t have some of the items that are there. Of course, there are exceptions to this too, I simply went with the most logical solution. She cares about her appearance because of the mirror sitting there. There are also makeup brushes but no makeup so only used sometimes.

Example 2:

This what I sent: You’re neat, like to keep things in their place. I do think you have a cat. You are short, either late teens or early 20s. You are very interested in technology, specifically robots. I also think you are into video games. I believe that is a robot from the game Portal on the desk. You like art and have done some art. You are also into the retro style just a little bit. I think based on the time on the clock you do not live in Europe, you either live in the US or another country close to the US. You are right-handed and might be a student. I think this is where you do most of whatever work you are doing but like I said you do like to keep the area clean.

The reply: You got pretty much everything spot on! I’m impressed! A few comments- You got the US part right, but the time on the clock is actually inaccurate because it runs too slow, and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. I am no longer a student. And yes, I do prefer for things to be orderly, but I’m not very good at keeping it that way. This is what it looks like after a day and a half of reorganizing, haha. You got everything else right, so nice work!

Explanation of where I got the information: They are neat for the same reason as the last image. This image wasn’t staged, it was already near like this. They did mention the have trouble keeping it this way though so not as neat as I initially thought and they did say this was after a good bit of cleaning. They have a cat because of the cats on the pencil bag. Either they have a cat, or they really like cats and would like one. Short because of the pillow in the chair. They have lowered it as far as it can go and still have to sit on a pillow to be high enough for the desk. Age because of the sort of retro style but they are still younger because of their organization system. People of different ages have different ways they organize things. I explained the video game/ robot thing in what I initially sent so I won’t explain it here. You can tell they have done and like art because of the art pens toward the upper side of the picture. These pens are specifically meant for art and were bought as a set. I based area of living because of the time on the clock relative or the time this was posted and the current time it was where I am. Right-handed because, like the last one, all of the things that require motion or action are placed on the right. This is where they do most of their work because of how many items are on the desk.

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I hope this helps and please send me pictures!

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Next Blog: Room Deductions 2 (if I get pictures) (if I don’t get pictures: Deductions from Shoes)

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Disclaimer: I have been studying these mindsets religiously for a while now and have been practicing memory techniques since I was in the sixth grade. However, I too am still learning. So if you have any suggestions or comments that are helpful to others that I neglect to mention please do so in the comments. I do not claim to know everything there is to know about these techniques and am much better at explaining them than putting them into real life practice at the moment. This blog is for educational purposes for me and the readers.

The best advice I could ever give anyone else seeking to gain these deductive and observational abilities is READ READ READ. There are several books on the topic which I can send you in pm if you are interested.

As aspiring deductionists, the Mind Palace, also known as the Memory Palace or Brain Attic, becomes exceedingly important. It has the potential to be useful to anyone in any walk of life, but as people training ourselves in the art of deduction, having a wealth of reference information to draw back on becomes paramount. I highly recommend this technique for anyone studying deduction. There are plenty of posts and resources on the Internet detailing the what the Mind Palace is and how to make one, but I’ve noticed how shockingly underused the Mind Palace is. Many refer to it as a Memory Palace, as I stated earlier. The truth is, this technique can be manipulated to become much more useful.

1. A calming technique 

Most of us watched the BBC version of Sherlock. He gets shot, having only seconds of consciousness left. So, doing what he could to save his own life, he fell back upon his Mind Palace. He figures out what he needs to do to save his own life, one of them being the prevention of shock. He falls back on a childhood memory of his pet dog named Redbeard, effectively calming him.

 This can be accomplished by having a specific room or section in your Palace dedicated to emotionally calming objects and locations to you. This can involve the beach, your Grandparents’ living room, your bedroom, or a completely made up room that would relax you in real life. Mentally hang pictures on your wall, add a fireplace, calming music and aromas to this room. This is immensely underrated, and could one day be incredibly important, whether you are in a life-threatening situation or are just incredibly stressed. Never underrate the necessity for a relaxation period. 

2. Visualization 

This one is rather broad, so I’ve split it into sections. All of these will progressively get more vivid and realistic as you progress. 

The Visualization of Worlds: 

This one seems sort of obvious. However, most don’t realize the potential this possesses. Most use it to visualize objects, paintings, memories, etc. However, you can go much, much further. For example, take the Sherlock Christmas special, The Abominable Bride. The majority of that episode is Sherlock’s own little world, one he completely imagines, but for a practical purpose. Through a combination of his knowledge of the case and his own imagination, he is able to construct an entire world inside his own mind. 

The Visualization of People

Besides worlds, you can also remember people. When you look at a complete mental universe, remembering and visualizing people may seem fairly obvious, but hear me out. You can remember your friends, family, inspirational characters, etc. You know how when you know a person, you can predict what they would say to certain things? You memorize their personality, the different quirks of their person, and their little habits. Using that, you can create a mental version of them in your head, and, with practice, have full conversations with them. This takes a large amount of practice and is fairly difficult to pull off. After all, this is you essentially pretending to be them, and you can’t guarantee  accuracy. This isn’t them, and you need to keep that in mind. This is your mind’s version of them, your mental interpretation.  I won’t lie, it is somewhat awkward when you first begin. This can also serve as a calming technique as well (or incredibly stressful and terrifying, depending who you visualize) This is seen in Sherlock as well, not only in the Christmas special but we also see him have a conversation with Moriarty, a mental version that he had locked up, chained, and put into a padded room. There is some psychological tells on how he views Moriarty here (many not being very obvious) but that’s a post for another day.

The Visualization of Complex Events and Timelines

This visualization technique can serve many purposes, as clearly shown. However, while in school, I used this to memorize events in history. In order to memorize battles, I would actually put myself there in the heat of the battle, a calm and careful ghost walking amongst the chaos. I would visit each side, the plotting of strategy, or if it was a surprise attack, the calm before the storm. I would visualize (as gruesome as it is) the blood flying. The explosions, the expressions of the soldiers, overhead view, all of it in slow motion. With waves of my hand, I pause the scene. I slow it down or speed it up. I can zoom in on particular details, for example, the marks of rank on a general. You can use this while deducing a room, a house, or a person, whether it just being a few seconds or, in Sherlock’s case, visualizing the murder, not unlike how Will Graham does in the popular TV series ‘Hannibal’.  It is important to realize that this is your head and therefore, you are God. You control time, location, and your view of the situation. Depending on what you’re using it for, practice some form of caution if you tend to be squeamish. You can imagine how it could be potentially disturbing to the mind to be able to picture (in vivid detail, the more practice you get) a murder take place. 

All of these techniques have the potential to be challenging, but all can be incredibly useful. They will take time to master. Some may be more difficult than others based on your own natural abilities, but do not get discouraged. Use these techniques and develop your own uses for your Mind Palace. Utilize it to it’s full potential. Remember, your Palace is limited only by your own imagination. Be creative with what you do with it.

If any of you have any alternate or creative uses for your Mind Palace, feel free to message me and I’ll either create a new post or add to this one. I’m interested to see what people have done with theirs!

Tips:

1. Work to become more observant in your day to day life.

The more observant you become in real life, the more you’ll be able to visualize and picture in your Mind Palace, making it more vivid and giving you the ability to notice more. There are some very good programs and videos on how to become more observant, find them and utilize them. 

2. Practice mindfulness and concentration techniques (post on that in progress), this will give you the ability to focus in your Palace for longer periods of time. 

So far, we’ve been filling your dash with a bunch of theoretical knowledge. Which is great and all, but difficult to apply in the dreaded ‘real world’. If you’re the type of person who can take concepts from paper (or a screen) and figure out exactly what you need to do to put it to use, not only do I applaud you, but I also suggest to stop reading this and go about whatever it is you do on a day like today. For those who like a specific program to work through, I hope the following will be useful.

Please note: that I am not a ‘trained professional’, that I am creating this program out of tips, articles, books and exercises I have read, and that I will be trying out this program alongside anyone else who tries it, and thus I do not know the degree of it’s effectiveness (although also please know that everything I include will be cited, so that you can refer to the original materials from which I learned of the information presented).

The program will go as follows:

Weeks 1-4: Observation

Week One

Week Two 

Week Three

Week Four

Weeks 5-7: Body Language

Week One

Week Two

Week Three 

Weeks 8-10: Memory

Weeks 11-14: Picture Deduction

Weeks 15-18: Deduction

**The number of weeks on each section may change as the program continues to be refined.

**Each section has an overview and each week a specific blog post, and as the program continues to be updated, the links will be available on this post.