Science Of Deduction

For a deduction challenge, here’s my view of my living room from the couch, with a bonus aerial view of the coffee table.

Thank you for your submission @nicotiiine. I apologise for the late response, I hope it will be worth the wait.

So my deductions are:

• Female (painted toenails)

• Around 30 years old (got from economic situation)

• Lives alone

• Lives in England (power sockets)

• Economically indipendent

• Name begins with an S

• Loves vintage (general impression of the house)

-> has at least a partial interest in history

• Loves listening to music

-> genres: I’d guess alternative, rock and some jazz/classical

• Pursuing a degree/further learning (manual on your desk)

• Very creative, both with ideas and in crafting(coloring book, pencil case, cake decoring)

• Has at least a cat(toy)

• Gamer (PS4)

• MBTI type: INTJ

(arts and crafts: Ni-Se, a Judger because I spotted what seems a planner;

Introverted: hobbies;

vintage: fairly common interest between Te-Fi users)

• Feminist (history knowledge + Fi)

• Likes fantasy genre, maybe more sci-fi (fairly common among gamers)

Let’s talk about the absolute basics in deduction. Seems like there’s a lot of people that misunderstand them, even other deductionists. This post is made to correct some of these misunderstandings.

What do we deductionists do? We gather information and make conclusions about that information. The premise is simple. Is it simple to get to the same level as Sherlock? No. Do I know of someone that is on the same level as Sherlock? No, and I know quite a few deductionists. But here’s the big reason why I don’t know of anyone at the same level as Sherlock, it’s not that Sherlock is fictional, it’s because of perfect situations that Sherlock is in. These happen, but not as often as Sherlock finds himself in them.

The way with OCC:

First of all, you should try and remember OCC. This the order in which you as a deductionist should operate.

Observation – Here you observe the place or person you are deducing. There are things to look for if you have the knowledge, some says you should observe everything, and sure, you should do that in a perfect world but you won’t be able to use everything you observe so that will only waste your time when you get into higher ranks of deduction. And if you want to know what to observe than all you need to do is practice.

Conclusion – The second step is to come to a conclusion from what you have observed. This is the deduction, we will talk more about this later on in this text. This will require both logic and knowledge. If you lack in one of these then you’ll need to train that.

Confirmation – Now this is something most deductionist don’t do because they are scared of failing. If you don’t confirm if you are right you’ll hinder your own progress extremely. If you can confirm, always try to.

The parts

Now, most break down deduction into two parts, logic and knowledge. I think that the knowledge part needs to be split into two parts. Absolute knowledge and statistical knowledge. This is important, I’ll try and explain why but first you need to know about the three kinds of deduction.

Deduction –

This reasoning is used when you have one or more statements that you combine to reach a logical conclusion.

The reasoning is that if the statements are true and clear the conclusion must be true.

An example of deductive reasoning:

Statements:

Pink is not a natural hair colour.

Emily has pink hair.

Conclusion:

Someone/something has dyed Emily’s hair pink.

This is deduction in which you use absolute knowledge to make a deduction. And if you truly use absolute knowledge then the conclusion will be correct.

Induction –

In inductive reasoning, you come to a conclusion that’s probable. The statements are viewed as strong evidence for your conclusion.

An example of inductive reasoning:

Statements:

There are marbles in this bag.

All 8 out of 10 marbles I have seen from this bag are black.

Conclusion:

All marbles from this bag are black.

This doesn’t tell you if the conclusion is true or not but thanks to the strong evidence of the statements you’re presented with, it’s probable that the conclusion is true. This is statistical knowledge and will be true most of the time.

Abduction –

In abductive reasoning, you have the statements and from that, you make an educated guess about what the conclusion might be. This reasoning is looking for the best explanation.

An example of abductive reasoning:

Statements:

The grass is wet.

The grass is usually dry.

Conclusion:

It has rained.

This is something we deductionists often do. We always look for the best explanation based on the evidence we are provided. This, if done correctly, will also most often be true. This will often be your own conducted statistical knowledge.

The reason why “knowledge” should be split into “absolute knowledge” and “statistical knowledge” is that if you have the logic you’ll never be wrong with absolute knowledge, but with statistical knowledge, you can still be wrong. Some tell you that logic is more important than knowledge and vice versa. This couldn’t be more wrong. Logic and knowledge are equally important. Those who don’t agree probably don’t know that much about the category they are dismissing. Logic and knowledge should work together alongside each other.

But if you want the “WOW effect” one of these triumphs over the other. If you do a deduction via logic people can see your train of thought quite easily, especially if you explain it. If you do deduction via knowledge then people won’t be able to follow your train of thought without that specific knowledge. And more people have a good logical mind than specific knowledge about everything. Something magicians have as a catchphrase nowadays are “People aren’t stupid” and that is true. If you, the reader of this thinks that most people are stupid then you need to come out of that bubble of yours.

Some other things.

So can you yourself measure how good you are at deduction? No, not really. You’ll always be biased towards yourself. So if you like yourself, you’ll probably think that you are better at deduction than you really are. If you think the worst of yourself then you’ll probably think you are worse than you really are. Then we have the “Dunning–Kruger effect”, most of you will probably, in the beginning, think that you are better at deduction than you really are, because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It predicts that beginners rate themselves to be better than they really are while experts rate themselves to be worse than they really are. So no you can’t measure your skill level yourself.

This point I’ll make now is kind of connected to the previous one. Don’t assume you are right. That would be really stupid. If you assume you are right, you’ll fall for confirmation bias. This is when you look for things that would prove what you believe to be true, and miss things that disprove your theory. One more reason this is bad, I know of deductionists that don’t want to accept that they’re wrong, even if it’s confirmed. They think the one that tells them they’re wrong are lying. Extremely bad.

The pattern.

Your knowledge about deduction will improve. In the beginning, before you start deduction you’ll probably not know about it at all, you’ll have an unconscious ignorance towards it. When you start reading about it, you’ll probably understand that you don’t know much about it. So you’ll have a conscious ignorance towards it. After trying it out and really learning you’ll start noticing that you can deduce some things, you’ll have and conscious knowledge towards deduction. When you’ve become an expert to master you’ll make deductions without thinking that much, you’ll have an unconscious knowledge about deduction.

Pattern:

Unconscious ignorance

Conscious ignorance

Conscious knowledge

Unconscious knowledge

So, how do you get better in deduction? Practice, it might sound cliché but it’s true. But however, you can shorten the time quite much, if you confirm your deductions. The second C in OCC is extremely important. If you don’t know what you are doing wrong then you can’t improve. You won’t get better just from reading this. So go out there and make deductions and most importantly confirm your deductions.

If you want me to write a post about confirming your deductions about people without the fear to fail (because if you fail they won’t know that you’ve failed) then write to me about that. A lot of people seem to be afraid of saying their deductions out loud.

Hey! So after about six months of this blog being, we hit 500 followers, which is quite a large milestone if you think about it, esp. in terms of the deduction community.

Obviously there’s no special event planned for this, however if there’s anything you’d like any of the members to post, send us an ask, or message the blogs directly.

Speaking of, in the past few months a few people have left and lots have joined, so I’ll be trying to make an update post in the coming weeks so you can all go follow the members.

Enjoy your day

Richard Feynman

So be careful about being absolutely sure of something.

To avoid punishment/consequences.

To avoid a confrontation and general unpleasantness of the situation.

To be liked.

To be sociable.

To get their way, to gain something.

To protect privacy.

To pump their image up (personal or professional).

To avoid an extra effort.

As a passive-aggressive “punishment” or protest.

To damage other people’s reputation.

Because it’s a part of their job.

To cover up insecurity.

Sometimes it’s not just one reason, but a number of them.

For example, a sales person might be telling you that an awful shirt looks good on you because it’s a part of her job to give complements to customers and because she would get a comission (a gain) if you buy the shirt.

—————————————————————–

Note: This is a very incomplete “masterpost” with a bunch of resources I know of compiled together. So a couple things:

1. If there is a good resource not mentioned on here, please inform me about it. I love hearing of great new learning tools. 

2. If you are not on the “Blogger” list and post 95-100% Deduction and Forensic related material, please message me (if you would like to be included). 

Enjoy! 

-Deductionist in Training

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_1saCPSYO8BoFiTouoPuYw (Whole YouTube channel dedicated to it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM_UX85SX3c (Speech)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUXtGQkJcQ0 (Body language)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGZTa8fZbuU (Body Language)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vlpQHJ09do (Mind Palace)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6PoUg7jXsA (Mind Palace)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g69Ska5iHmU (Mind Palace)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ahnDEXOagw (Mind Palace)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo4pMVb0R6M&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOPRKzVLY0jJY-uHOH9KVU6 (psych)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGl2BujkPQ&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOAKed_MxxWBNaPno5h3Zs8 (anatomy)

My Blog Tags

http://deductionistintraining.tumblr.com/tagged/deduction-tools

http://deductionistintraining.tumblr.com/tagged/body-language

http://deductionistintraining.tumblr.com/tagged/psychology

http://deductionistintraining.tumblr.com/tagged/mind-palace

http://deductionistintraining.tumblr.com/tagged/memory-tools

Bloggers

http://aguidetophotodeductions.tumblr.com/

http://seanie567.tumblr.com/

http://agameofdeduction.tumblr.com/

http://everydaydeductionist.tumblr.com/

http://elementarydeduction.tumblr.com/

http://the-brain-attic.tumblr.com/

http://thescientificdetective.tumblr.com/

http://thementalist221b.tumblr.com/

http://bloggerdeductions.tumblr.com/

http://galalfahmy.tumblr.com/

http://theartoftheconsultingdetective.tumblr.com/

http://youngtrainingdetective.tumblr.com/

http://ellipsisbehavior.tumblr.com/

http://amateur-deductions.tumblr.com/

Websites

Incredibly useful tool for internet case research  

Great resource for identifying accents + Here’s another one 

Forensics 

General introduction to deduction 

Pursuit magazine 

Training 

Speed reading 

How to disappear 

Guess my age 

Game of Deductions 

Deduction Research 

 Geoguessr 

Free online books 

Reading footprints 

Body Language 

The Whole Art of Detection (by “Sherlock Holmes”) 

Yes, that’s right, a little something from me to you… my explanation of Abductive Reasoning.

Abductive Reasoning, in short, is the sort of Holy Grail of Deduction. What I mean by this is it can help you do it faster, because it is basically the process of getting rid of everything that is almost impossible.

There are multiple methods of playing card memorisation that i use, however the easiest one to learn, like the vast majority of systems, is based on the major system. Mnemonics are like origami, to make a complex shape you first have to learn the simple shapes and folding bases. The major system was also shown in the most recent video I posted on memory palaces.

There are tons of variations of the major system but the main one follows as such: 0 = s, z, soft c 1 = t, d 2 = n 3 = m 4 = r 5 = l 6 = soft j, sh, soft ch 7 = k, hard g 8 = f, v 9 = p, b

So if you were learning the date of the end of World War II, you would take September 2, 1945, and turn it into 09/02/1945. Then you would chunk the numbers based on whatever is easiest to decode into it’s original form and whatever is easiest to encode into an image. In this case you would keep it chunked as it is, 009-002-1945 (It’s important to keep all of the zeros because when you encode dates with numbers past 9, like 10 and 11, the different amount of consonants in the encoded image may become confusing and will force you to chunk it differently to create a full word). Now you apply the encoding system you want to use, and for us that’s the major system above (I’ll make more posts later on about the different encoding systems and maybe the ones I’ve created). So 009-002-1945 becomes ssp-ssn-tprl. Any letters that are interchangeable with others based on your system, such us “p” and “b” encoded from the number “9″, you can change from this new letter sequence to create more meaningful images. The next thing to do is add vowels to the consonants to create images that we can then place in a palace. Ssp becomes iCe SouP, ssn becomes aSSaSSiN, and tprl becomes ToPRoLL. Remember it’s not about the spelling, it’s about the sounds. If there’s two of the same consonants side by side they should be seen as one so that when you decode it you wont come up with more numbers. So the last thing to do is put these three images in a palace and add sensory associations to their interactions with the peggings.

Now that that’s out of the way let’s get into cards. I split cards up into four groups based on suit, obviously. There’s all sorts of systems where you make different suits be different types of feelings and different types of people, however, I’m only going to show you a sound based mnemonic system that I partially made for now. It goes like this: ♠  = Spade = SP ♥ = Heart = RT ♣ = Club = CL ♦ = Diamond = DM

Then you add the major system for the numbers: Ace = 1 = t, d 2 = n 3 = m 4 = r 5 = l 6 = soft j, sh, soft ch 7 = k, hard g 8 = f, v 9 = p, b 10 = 0 = s, z, soft c

But what about the court cards (technically 10 is a court card, and sometimes Ace, but we’re ignoring that) Jack, Queen, King. We cant use the first letter of each because those are already in use (Q can be created by adding K with W, and W is a vowel in the major system). The solution is to consult Ben Pridmore’s system. He has a system for cards already but that’s for sets of two cards at a time and we want to memorise any variation of cards that come during play or party trick. Ben’s three systems can be found here (x) where he uses three extra compound consonant sets. So, our court cards follow them: Jack = sn, sm Queen = st, sk King = sl, sw

Some advice I give when I teach deduction, is to ask yourself questions about the person or place you deduce. The answer I usually get back is “I do not know what questions I should ask myself?”, So I made a list of questions to ask yourself about a person. This list should be memorized if the reader wants simple questions to ask.

Dominant hand and personality comes first although personality according to many is a difficult deduction. This is because they’re building blocks for the later deductions. One might be need to know the dominant hand to properly deduce if the person is playing an instrument! Personality may be needed to figure out the person’s relationship with their family. Health and economical status is also building blocks for the later deductions. Here is the checklist.

Physical attributes.

Dominant hand.

Personality.

Physical and mental health.

Economical status.

Relationships.

Family.

Animals.

Education.

Occupation.

Background.

Hobbies.

Political views.

Past activities.

Dreams.

Musical taste.

Religion and ideologies.

Food and diets.

Musical instruments.

Sports.

Home.

Transportation.

Abroad.

There’s the checklist. Some of these items may be difficult to interpret, so that’s why I’ll explain what each item means.

“Physical attributes” means that you should observe the whole person then deduce, however, if you do not have a person to observe, you can observe the site you are on and come up with the probable physical attributes for the owner of that place.

“Dominant hand” means that you must deduce which of hands the person use the most.

“Personality” means simply that you should deduce the personality.

“Physical and mental health” means that you should find out whether the person has a disease, be it physical or psychological, or if the person just have a generally good health.

“Economical status” is how much money the person has access to.

“Relationships”, do the person have a partner or not? Does he have many friends and so on.

“Family” is the person in question only child, first born, middle born or last born? And, does the person have a close relationship to his family?

“Animals” means that you should deduce if the person owns a pet, and if so, which. You should also deduce if the person wants a pet and what it would be.

“Education” is simply what education the person has.

“Occupation” is what they do in the daytime.

“Background”, do they come from a wealthy family, a poor family and how has their childhood been?

“Hobbies” means that you should deduce their hobbies.

“Political views”, what would they vote for if they got the chance the day you see them?

“Past activities”, have they done something special before you see them, and if so, what?

“Dreams” means that you should deduce what they dream of or what they want to achieve.

“Musical taste”, what music do they listen to?

“Religion and ideologies”, do they believe in anything unexplainable?

“Food and diets”, deduce if they are vegetarians, vegans, or if they go on any diet.

“Musical instruments”, do they play an instrument or sing?

“Sports”, deduce if they train their body and if they play any sports and if so what sport?

“Home” does this person live in a big city or a small? Is the home an apartment or house?

“Transportation” driving license, aircraft license or something else? What vehicle do they own?

“Abroad”, they have been abroad recently, and where have they been? Where have they been in their life?

Try to memorize the checklist, it is incredibly useful.

1. If something doesn’t make sense, on of your assumptions are faulty.

2. A criminals reason for committing a crime is almost always faulty.

3. Improbable things happen a lot.

4. When you boil everything down, there are only two emotions: fear, and love

5. Work to disprove a theory, just as hard as you work to prove it; if it’s a correct theory, you won’t be able to disprove it.

6. Don’t blur the lines between fantasy and reality.

7. Humans aren’t as unique as we like to think we are.

8. After trauma, people are usually emotional before they are rational.

9. The easy, or obvious answer isn’t always right, but it isn’t always wrong.