In fact, there’s one activity that is almost tailor-made to work. And it is a simple one indeed: walking (the very thing that Holmes was doing when he had his insight in “The Lion’s Mane”). Walks have been shown repeatedly to stimulate creative thought and problem solving, especially if these walks take place in natural surroundings, like the

He took System Watson and taught it to operate by the rules of System Holmes, imposing reflective thought where there should rightly be reflexive reaction.

Learning of historical precedent as well matters little, since we don’t learn in the same way from description as we do from experience. It’s something known as the description-experience gap.

Feynman phrases it thus: “Imagination in a tight straightjacket.” To him, the straightjacket is the laws of physics. To Holmes, it is essentially the same thing: that base of knowledge and observation that you’ve acquired to the present time. Never is it simply a flight of fancy; you can’t think of imagination in this context as identical to the

Checklists, formulas, structured procedures: those are your best bet—at least, according to Kahneman. The Holmes solution? Habit, habit, habit. That, and motivation.

Consider the case of Silver Blaze, that famous missing racehorse that no one can track down. When Holmes has had a chance to examine the premises, Inspector Gregson, who has failed to find something as seemingly impossible to miss as a horse, asks, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Why yes, Holmes responds, “To the

And so, our initial impressions tend to hold an outsized impact, no matter the evidence that may follow.

We also know, more definitively than we ever have, that our brains are not built for multitasking—something that precludes mindfulness altogether.

as we’ve just seen, the memories and experiences stored in an individual attic vary greatly from person to person, the general patterns of activation and retrieval remain remarkably similar, coloring our thought process in a predictable, characteristic fashion. And if these habitual patterns point to one thing, it’s this: our minds love nothing