Holmes

It is to my very optimal pleasure that I am engaged in some of the Sherlock Holmes books and Sherlock's extraordinary ability to discern, understand, and make notes of things astounds me. Is it really possible?

The books and movie share overwhelming evidence of reasons why it perhaps may be possible but what they fail to show are the other possibilities associated with the evidence thus produced by the read and discerned by Holmes himself. The other forms of deduction that he takes into account include not only marks on the person or clothes but also the environment in which they find themselves, the weather, sounds, smells, all forms of different sensory information that can be located in whichever study he is making.

One could visualize the process as a huge database off possible reasons, categorized as only the mind can. As you start putting pieces together slowly things are canceled out and the database shrinks to the only remaining prospects and possibilities, assuming that the database has all information which would require a perfect brain. Holmes, however smart he really is does not have a perfect brain and therefor has an incomplete database. Luckily the writer sometimes allows this imperfection to come through to the audience.

I also highly disagree with the thought that the brain is an empty attack with a limited storage space. If this were the case people would not become smarter as they get older which looking at the difference between a kid and a scholar, is very concrete proof of the phenomenon that indeed we do learn in this life and acquire more knowledge and skills.