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Comment by Elrac | Hacker News Reader

I think there's just one lesson, a no-brainer, to be learned here: That any halfway competent author can make his character appear superior in whatever way he chooses, because he obviously and literally has complete control of the narrative.

Implying that the rational character of Sherlock Holmes is morally challenged when compared with a character acting predominantly on his gut feelings is, I think, a contemptible insult to rationality and those people who choose to act rationally. A decent argument can be crafted that rational behavior is moral behavior more often than not, but I doubt that Mr. Foster, as a fan of religious apologist (i.e. "Liar for Jesus") Chesterton, could be brought to understand it.

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I grew up a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. But as I have gotten older (39 in a couple of months), I much prefer Philip Marlowe and the writing of Raymond Chandler.

Sure, Marlowe is the quintessential hard-boiled private detective, but when you read the books you discover that he is largely an intuitive/emotional detective. He applies logic/reasoning and his knowledge of the world he lives in to his intuition/emotions but he's not all-knowing. Marlowe doesn't have the mystery solved on page 23 when the reader still has 174 pages left to go.

While still a fantasy, I tend to think Marlowe is a more realistic detective than Holmes ever was - or at least, one with whom I can identify more readily.

I think there is always a temptation, a danger, for those of us in STEM careers to hold our own feelings and emotions (not to mention those of others) in contempt, as if they are somehow invalid by definition.

We shouldn't do that! Instead, we should accept the emotional and intuitive aspects of ourselves and try to reason through them, understand where those feelings are coming from and make conscious decisions about how to move forward.

Sorry to preach! I just love fictional detectives and the applicability of the lessons they can teach us to the real world. :)

> I think there is always a temptation, a danger, for those of us in STEM careers to hold our own feelings and emotions (not to mention those of others) in contempt, as if they are somehow invalid by definition.

> Instead, we should accept the emotional and intuitive aspects of ourselves and try to reason through them, understand where those feelings are coming from and make conscious decisions about how to move forward.

I agree completely. I'm distrustful of my emotions (if I feel uncomfortable with someone, is it because of things I know, or things I assume? Both are possible), but it's a fact that I experience them, and that they affect my day to day. Reason isn't what gets me out of bed in the morning. Emotions likely evolved because they were useful for survival. They can be very useful for directing our attention, or they can mislead us. If I feel something, I try to figure out if it's based on things I know instead of things I imagine, and then I try to act.

I love how Marlowe popped up on HN. Very attached and at the same time detached character. I like the noir style desperation in these book. Also like to drop Lew Archer here. 'The Ivory Grin' is so depressing it is sometimes hard to stand. But I like this somehow. Makes my own little world seem very colorful and cheerful. I'm not into the lofty superiority of Holmes and other. Not as a book. As a movie I find it quite entertaining, though.

Yes, they are both very entertaining characters, but their mysteries are very much tailored to their strengths. (Conan Doyle at least had Watson mention that there were many cases Holmes was not able to solve, but of course they were not worth documenting - Brown is nigh infallible).

The Father Brown stories can have some very amusing insights about human nature, though it seems that while one might be able to have a stab at employing Holmes' method one would have little chance of ever learning Brown's (which was basically to put yourself so firmly into the mind of the perpetrator as to make the solution obvious).

Interesting point. Intuition could also just be another name for "appropriately weighted priors".

Holmes tends to arrive at the correct conclusion, presumably by Bayesian reasoning. If he didn't have any useful priors (i.e. an understanding of human motivation, thought, emotion and behavior) the observable evidence alone might not be enough to make any hypothesis sufficiently likely.

Where the characters supposedly inform their priors differs (if I can trust this article as representative of Father Brown since I haven't read the books). Holmes has a habit of disguising himself to infiltrate and eavesdrop on people. I posit that there is less selection bias in that process than building a theory of crime based on the confessions of english catholic church-goers. But maybe that group is a diverse enough population that the model would generalize?

I guess a 'good' character is ultimately one that serves its narrative and perhaps in that they are equal?

No bias obvious in this comment :D

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