Talk:Lateral thinking

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[edit] Add a clearer definition

I didn't think the current definition is very clear. I looked it up in the Longman dictionary, and I paraphrased it. What do you think of this definition:

Lateral thinking is a method of thinking where you make use of your fantasy to associate things who seem unrelated.

I (where I=rursus) think: pretty good, and pretty fit to be the first paragraph of the article - however, I have gotten the impression that lateral can also refer to the quality of certain persons being extra "gifted" ¹) to associate/synthetize seemingly unrelated things.
¹) I know this so called "gift" to be something like a curse. But that's my personal reflection.
..said rursus

Lateral Thinking is a method of thinking for cutting across established patterns of thought.

DannyStevens 09:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Some of these examples are absolutely ludicrous. Aliens coming and blowing up the planet? Shouldn't we remove that and the two examples that follow?

Not really any more ludicrous than the rest of them, imo. I added the last 8 or so just to make the point. Someone deleted the last one already ( which was: maybe lateral thinking is bullshit and you are wasting your time reading about it).. But whatever, delete them if you want. - miike


I agree... the examples get a little out there. I'm not an expert on lateral thinking, but to me they looked rather strange. In the event that they are in fact good examples of lateral thinking, then maybe a better explaination at the top would serve some good. Forezt 21:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some say

Some believe that lateral thinking is a powerful unifying process of thought, which remedies many of science's fragmented, 'detail obsessed' sects. The american Philosopher Phaedrus was reported by some to be a 'pathological lateral thinker', who 'nearly succeded' in unifying Eastern and Western Philosophies. The Metaphysics of Quality- his own field, is purportedly a fruit of his 'lateral drifting' between fields of psychology, sociology, evolution, logic and metaphysics.

Some say that the Metaphysics of Quality, once solved, will unify disparate fields of thought. Some say.

The american philosopher "Phaedrus" is actually a fictional character designed by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. 212.23.23.154 21:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

I removed the following examples, because I think they are trick problems, not examples of lateral thinking. -- Reinyday, 00:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

  • How long would it take to dig half a hole?
    • You can't dig half a hole.
  • If one egg takes three minutes to boil, how long do two eggs need to cook?
    • About three minutes (the energy needed to get the eggs to cook is small in comparison to the energy needed to get the surrounding water to boil)
  • If a knot in a 5-foot rope takes five minutes to undo, how long would a knot in a 10-foot rope take to undo?
    • Also five minutes (the length of rope usually has nothing to do with the complexity of the knot, and at most more rope might need to be pulled through the knot, but this will not double the overall time).


Just because doubling the length of the rope doesn't double the time doesn't mean that it wouldn't increase it a little bit.

[edit] A standards note...

The example: The problem is that Tom won't come to the mountain, is non-standard acc2 international folklore - it should be: The problem is that *Muhammed* won't come to the mountain

... said Tom (rursus) (who didn't decide whether to come to the mountain, or not - which mountain BTW?)

[edit] A mess!

This article is a mess. I think that it should include a section about lateral puzzles. 80.55.2.254 10:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it so ?? Topu

Do you mean those questions where you have to find an explanation for a weird event? An example is "Why was a man in full scuba gear found dead in a forest?" --64.175.42.169 06:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples?

I think there should be more examples here to clarify the concept. Needs simplification with examples. Thanks. Topu

I've got lots of problems if you want to ask me for one. Email me at stelv123@hotmail.com

[edit] Men Digging A Hole

The examples are terrible. In the example about 2 men digging a hole, assuming that the relationship between men and speed of digging is linear is an unsubstantiated assumption, not a mathmatical relationship implied by the problem. There is not enough information to define a linear relationship. The "examples" of lateral thinking are merely explanations as to why the relationship probably isn't linear.

--64.175.42.169 05:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Another thing, if they stopped early then they wouldn't have been digging for the whole two hours like the problem said.
It's the same hole, same size. BonniePrinceCharlie 15:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More Queries

If u need to Add more querries u can do here —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.56.243.162 (talk) 12:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] A Total Wreck

This article needs citations, and is in desperate need of clean up in order to meet Wikipedia standards. It hardly flows like an informative encyclopedic article. Mizunori 17:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-neutral article

It seems to me that this article seriously lacks any perspective. I don't think that "lateral thinking" is a scientific theory. It appears much closer to be one of a multitude of "systems" appealing more to PR people or business executives. One would at the very least need to have a section on how de Bono's views were received by, say, psychologists, philosophers, behavioural scientists, etc -- that is, if there was any reaction.62.203.29.111 20:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Example 3 is a load of rubbish

I completely dispute example 3 is anything about lateral thinking.

"When he gets there, the surgeon says"

The only noise here is that people associate 'when he gets there' with 'the surgeon', as is written immediately after, thus a cue that the surgeon is male - not, as the article suggests, since all people assume surgeons are male. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArlenCuss (talk • contribs) 08:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning "notability": DeBono is the epicenter of the Creative Problem Solving pop lit; this article deserves lots more work!

Yo, fellow DeBono wonks (I hope):

Over the past few years of graduate study I've read dozens of popular books on "creative problem solving" and hundreds of relevant research journal articles, and am convinced that DeBono is in a collective sense the Nathan Bedford Forrest of the field -- he got there "fust with the most" of a viable combination of foundational theory and research (not as a rule attributed to the originators) and imaginative application. His star rose when he replaced his original and highly unmemorable term of art with "lateral", but his contribution to a critically important and still scandalously under-implemented domain of education goes well beyond buzzword coinages. His central work, in my opinion -- "Serious Creativity" -- abounds with originality of both conception and exposition.

Is the present article, which to measure up to Wiki standards should do total justice to DeBono's pre-eminent role as integrator/popularizer of the creativity-problem solving domain, "notable"? On strict accounting, I'll admit it may well be marginal. Academic researchers have been loathe to credit DeBono in the few cases I've run into where they probably should have (at best they criticize details but don't acknowledge originality), and DeBono's worst shortcoming is arguably his reticence to cite his major theory and research sources. Furthermore, I understand that brief though key references to him in numbers of other popular books -- and renamed rehashes of many of his ideas in considerably more -- might not be academically mainstream enough to make this article definitively "notable".

Yet the fact is that throwing this buzzword/topic out would leave one of the biggest holes in an important combined theory and practice domain that I can think of. Considering how much pop culture uber-fluff manages to survive in the Wikipedia, it would be a significant violation of balance and perspective if a genuinely pioneering interdisciplinarian didn't get his due -- not just a bio note but a full appreciation and exposition of his contribution, as "original synthesis" at the very least.

I'm hoping that someone familiar with the DeBono oeuvre and related research and technologies can make the necessary connections without having to do so much translation and interpretation as to constitute "original research". As a Gruberian "image of wide scope", Lateral Thinking has no real peer in its domain (perhaps closest is Adams' "conceptual blockbusting", which covers just a subset of DeBono's turf, though it does it well). Let's give DeBono's term (with the definition and as much other material as advisable taken from his own work, for starters) a chance of anchoring a nice chunk of Wiki content in this vital interdisciplinary area, some way or the other....

NPOV: standard general reference works (Collins English Dictionary and the New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, to name but two I have to hand) have "Lateral thinking" as a headword. This puts notability beyond dispute, in my view.ARAJ (talk) 16:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)