In the case EMPT we hear of a remarkable man named Sigerson, who is usually identified as none other than the Great Detective himself. Thus, Philip Weller in Alphabetically, My Dear Watson has the following entry for "Sigerson": "The name of a well-known traveller which was revealed to have been the alias of Holmes for at least part of his travels during The Great Hiatus."
... Let us begin by examining the one passage in the Canon where Sigerson’s name is mentioned. It is where Holmes says to Watson: "You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend." [EMPT 488] First of all, we may note that Holmes never says that he and Sigerson is the same person. Moreover, the phrase "you were receiving news from your friend" can be interpreted to mean that the written accounts of Sigerson’s explorations somehow conveyed information about Holmes’s own travels. This could happen, for example, if Holmes and Sigerson met in Asia, perhaps even travelled together, but at least exchanged information.
If we admit the possibility that Sigerson was not identical with Holmes, then we must look for another historical person who might fit the description of the Norwegian explorer. It appears that there is really only one plausible candidate: Sven Hedin. The fact that Sigerson is said to be Norwegian whereas Hedin was Swedish is easily explained by the fact that Sweden and Norway was at this time a united kingdom (the ruler of which is referred to several times in the Canon as "the King of Scandinavia"; e. g., SCAN 166).
... The main argument against the theory that Holmes and Hedin travelled together is the chronological inconsistencies that this theory gives rise to. As mentioned above, Hedin started his expedition in the autumn of 1893 and did not reach Asia until little before Christmas that year. On the other hand, we know that Holmes left Switzerland in May 1891 and, according to his statement to Dr Watson in EMPT, "… travelled for two years in Tibet …". He "… then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum …". Finally, he "…spent some months … in a laboratory at Montpellier…". [EMPT 488
... We have no answer to this question for the moment, but it is worth pointing out that the explanation could have something to do with connections to the King of Scandinavia, i. e. the King of the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway, Oscar II. We know that Sherlock Holmes had rendered services of a confidential nature to the king. [NOBL 291] And we also know that Sven Hedin was a close personal friend of the king, with whom he corresponded during all his journeys.10 It is therefore possible that Holmes and Hedin had met earlier than 1893 through their connections with Oscar II, and that Dr Watson’s reason for concealing Sven Hedin’s real name in EMPT may have had something to do with these connections. Whether this is the correct explanation will perhaps be revealed as we proceed to investigate Sherlock Holmes’s services to the King of Scandinavia, but this must surely be the topic of another article.
http://webpages.charter.net/lklinger/empt.htm
THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/
It’s knowing that there are things you don’t know that you don’t know.
Breton and Aragon quoted a 1913 monograph of Babinski’s with great approval.
We surrealists insist on celebrating the 50th anniversary of hysteria, the greatest poetic discovery of the latter 19th century . . . M. Babinski, the most intelligent man who has tackled this question, dared to publish in 1913 the following: “When an emotion is sincere and profound, and it stirs the human soul, there is no room for hysteria.” And in that we have the best so far that we have been given to learn.
In “The Surrealist Manifesto,” Breton writes, If in a cluster of grapes there are no two alike, why do you want me to describe this grape by the other, by all the others . . . ? Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable . . . It is pointless to add that experience itself has found itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to make it emerge . . . Forbidden is any kind of search for truth that is not in conformance with accepted practices . . .
Both Babinski and the Surrealists shared a common concern — an obsession with consciousness, the nature of the ineffable and “the incurable mania” of trying to classify the unknown.
...
Ramachandran has used the notion of layered belief — the idea that some part of the brain can believe something and some other part of the brain can believe the opposite (or deny that belief) — to help explain anosognosia. In a 1996 paper [54], he speculated that the left and right hemispheres react differently when they are confronted with unexpected information. The left brain seeks to maintain continuity of belief, using denial, rationalization, confabulation and other tricks to keep one’s mental model of the world intact; the right brain, the “anomaly detector” or “devil’s advocate,” picks up on inconsistencies and challenges the left brain’s model in turn. When the right brain’s ability to detect anomalies and challenge the left is somehow damaged or lost (e.g., from a stroke), anosognosia results.
In Ramachandran’s account, then, we are treated to the spectacle of different parts of the brain — perhaps even different selves — arguing with one another.
We are overshadowed by a nimbus of ideas. There is our physical reality and then there is our conception of ourselves, our conception of self — one that is as powerful as, perhaps even more powerful than, the physical reality we inhabit. A version of self that can survive even the greatest bodily tragedies. We are creatures of our beliefs. This is at the heart of Ramachandran’s ideas about anosognosia — that the preservation of our fantasy selves demands that we often must deny our physical reality. Self-deception is not enough. Something stronger is needed. Confabulation triumphs over organic disease. The hemiplegiac’s anosognosia is a stark example, but we all engage in the same basic process. But what are we to make of this? Is the glass half-full or half-empty? For Dunning, anosognosia masks our incompetence; for Ramachandran, it makes existence palatable, perhaps even possible.
