Sherlock Holmes Guards His Mind

Holmes and Watson don’t just differ in the stuff of their attics—in one attic, the furniture acquired by a detective and selfproclaimed loner, who loves music and opera, pipe smoking and indoor target practice, esoteric works on chemistry and renaissance architecture; in the other, that of a war surgeon and self-proclaimed womanizer, who loves a hearty dinner and a pleasant evening out—but in the way their minds organize that furniture to begin with. Holmes knows the biases of his attic like ...

 Education Provides Hooks to Hang New Knowledge

Human memory, they say, is like a coat closet: the most enduring outcome of a formal education is that it creates rows of coat hooks so that later on, when you come upon a new piece of information, you have a hook to hang it on. Without a hook, the new information falls on the floor.