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New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

irishtimes.com

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Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#11

Post by thrower123 »

jacobush wrote: post #9
Kurtz79 wrote: post #8

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I'm sure Boole approved of that. Fascinating how these two contemporaries achieved immortal fame through completely different disciplines. I wonder if in 100+ years people will rememeber prominent writers or scientists of this age?

At least the giants, like Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins.

Who the hell are they?

Honestly, Conan Doyle is a Victorian Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum, rather than any high-falutin literary author. That's a big part of why he is still remembered.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#12

Post by ysr23 »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #8

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I'm sure Boole approved of that. Fascinating how these two contemporaries achieved immortal fame through completely different disciplines. I wonder if in 100+ years people will rememeber prominent writers or scientists of this age?

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

is that the actual quote? Maybe not enough coffee on my part but i am having difficulty with it.

By eliminating impossible, which strikes me a fairly redundant thing to do, we are left with probable and improbable?

Your post could have been written by:

- Kurtz79 (probable)

- Marlow79 using your login for REASONS (possible but improbable)

- Elon Musk using your login for REASONS(possible but improbable)

- Stephen Hawking (impossible)

- Queen Victoria (impossible)

etc ...

do we really need to eliminate all the impossible? i'm not sure it really moves us along finding the OP, even if we do.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#13

Post by mijamo »

kksskkss wrote: post #10
jacobush wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the giants, like Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins.

Never heard of those and I do read a lot so they hardly qualify as giants even though they have had their share of success. Stephen King, on the other hand, is probably not going to be forgotten any time soon (I find his books dull tbh but nobody cares about my opinion :).

Posterity does not work like that. Many authors who were popular disappeared completely from memory, while other who were relatively unknown became extremely popular decades after their death.

Academics play a major role in what we remember about more than 100 years ago, much more than actual success when the book was published. Octave Mirbeau was much much more popular than Marcel Proust when they were both active, but you probably know much more about the latter.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#14

Post by BaryonBundle »

jacobush wrote: post #9
Kurtz79 wrote: post #8

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I'm sure Boole approved of that. Fascinating how these two contemporaries achieved immortal fame through completely different disciplines. I wonder if in 100+ years people will rememeber prominent writers or scientists of this age?

At least the giants, like Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins.

I believe this to be a reference to a quote from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#15

Post by simplicio »

clouddrover wrote: post #7

I'm sure Arthur Conan Doyle drew from a number of influences to create Moriarty. Adam Worth and Jonathan Wild are considered inspirations for the character, for example: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/review-of-the-na... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Worth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Moriarty

There isn't much to the character in the Doyle stories, and he serves more as a plot device than a well developed character. So I kinda think people are trying to hard to find a RL souce for the character. Most of the brief treatment Doyle gives the character can be explained as plot driven.

He's super-intelligent and evil because he needs to be a worthy enough opponent to kill of Holmes. He's a Prof at a small University because he needs a job that both proves his intelligence and is prestigious, but gives him enough time to run a criminal empire. He runs his criminal enterprise via a web of intermediaries because if he was directly involved Holmes could just report him to the cops instead of needing a complicated plan to roll up his criminal network. The specific references to his scientific work might be inspired by some specific scientists, but it seems at least as likely they just sounded to Doyle like the kinda thing a 19th century mathematical genius would get up to.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#16

Post by silverbax88 »

Luc wrote: post #3

Based on what is in the article I wouldn't call this a very strong thesis. "[...] numerous persuasive similarities. Both characters held chairs at small provincial universities; both won appointments on the basis of outstanding early work; both had interests in astronomy; the two were of similar appearance" These coincidences are supposed to be persuasive? I know several people like that. Plus the photograph and the…

Doyle's inspiration for his stories was always based in his own experiences and people he knew. Hound of the Baskervilles was written after Doyle visited Devonshire. He admitted in his later years that the most glaring mistakes were when he wrote about places or occupations which he had no real history with - for example his geography in describing the United States is wildly incorrect (forgivable in the sense that at the time, the US was a backwater nation and England was the center of Western civilization) or in Silver Blaze, where he learned later that some key plot points were not accurate because he knew so little of horse husbandry.

It's really not much of a reach to assume that he based his most notable characters on people he was very familiar with in his own life. The character of Watson is clearly based on himself, reacting to the genius of Homes and even Moriarty.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#17

Post by evrydayhustling »

Luc wrote: post #3

Based on what is in the article I wouldn't call this a very strong thesis. "[...] numerous persuasive similarities. Both characters held chairs at small provincial universities; both won appointments on the basis of outstanding early work; both had interests in astronomy; the two were of similar appearance" These coincidences are supposed to be persuasive? I know several people like that. Plus the photograph and the…

Plus what about that one paragraph where Doyle went to school with two actual Moriarty-s who were also gifted mathematicians?? Let's hear more about those guys.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#18

Post by EGreg »

Has anyone ever thought that he based Watson’s final opinion of Holmes as “the best, and wisest man I have ever known” on the words of Plato about Socrates?

Plato: “the wisest, and justest, and best of all men whom I have ever known” (Phaedo).

I love finding these little connections (like a detective) while reading or listening to classics.

Like for example anyone play piano here? Earlier this year I finally heard the Beethoven Emperor Concerto and realized that Schumann’s “Carnaval” the whole theme of David is taken from that concerto!

Talk about imitation :)

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#19

Post by mywacaday »

I always though that his death was bit cruel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole#Death

Died at a young age due to old a lack of medical understanding.

I'm also from Cork and the phrase "What ails you cures you" is still used but normally in the context of a hangover and the suggestion being to go get the hair of the dog.

I wonder what current medical/scientific beliefs will seem as far fetched in the year 2172.

Re: New book suggests Arthur Conan Doyle based Moriarty on George Boole

#20

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

>> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story appeared in 1887. Holmes’ remarkable conclusions were based on data, logic, statistics, probability, deduction and proof.

Actually, they were based on logical abduction. Not deduction.

Abductive reasoning (also called abduction,[1] abductive inference,[1] or retroduction[2]) is a form of logical inference which starts with an observation or set of observations then seeks to find the simplest and most likely explanation. This process, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not positively verify it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abduction_(logic)

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