p.7 This book is about lateral thinking which is the process of using information to bring
about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to
acquire skills in it just as it is possible to acquire skills in mathematics.
p.11 More and more creativity is coming to be valued as the essential ingredient in change and in
progress.
p.11 Lateral thinking is concerned with the generation of new ideas... [it] is also concerned with
breaking out of the concept prisons of old ideas.
p.12 Liberation from old ideas and the stimulation of new ones are twin aspects of lateral thinking.
p.12 In vertical thinking one moves forward by sequential steps each of which must be justified... With
vertical thinking one may reach a conclusion by a valid series of steps. Because of the soundness of the steps one is arrogantly
certain of the correctness of the conclusion.
p.13 The purpose of thinking is to collect information and to make the best possible use of it.
p.47 Whenever a solution is said to have been reached by lateral thinking there is always a logical
pathway by which the solution could have been reached. Hence what is supposed to be lateral thinking is no more than a plea
for better logical thinking
p.51 Lateral thinking is concerned with changing patterns. Instead of taking a pattern and then developing
it as is done in vertical thinking, lateral thinking tries to restructure the pattern by putting things together in a different
way.
p.52 A particular way of looking at things may have developed gradually. An idea that was very useful
at one time may no longer be so useful today and yet the current idea has developed directly from that old and outmoded idea....
A pattern may persist because it is useful and adequate and yet a restructuring of the pattern could give rise to something
very much better.
p.58 A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants.
p.63 The most basic principle of lateral thinking is that any particular way of looking at things
is only one from among many other possible ways. Lateral thinking is concerned with exploring these other ways
by restructuring and and rearranging the information that is available... One is not looking for the best approach
but for as many different approaches as possible.
p.105 two fundamental aspects of the lateral thinking process:
- The deliberate generation of alternative ways of looking at things.
- The challenging of assumptions.
p.107, 109 The purpose of thinking is not to be right but to be effective. Being effective
does eventually involve being right but there is a very important difference between the two. Being right means being right
all the time. Being effective means being right only at the end.... With lateral thinking one is allowed to be wrong
on the way even though one must be right in the end. With lateral thinking one is allowed to use arrangements of information
which are invalid in themselves in order to bring about a restructuring that is valid... What is being considered
here is simply the delaying of judgment instead of applying it immediately... it implies suspension of judgment whether the
outcome is favourable or otherwise.
p.108 The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar there is to new ideas. It is
better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
p.175,177 The most important feature of the mind as an information processing system is its ability
to choose... Such a system has a limited area of attention. A limited area of attention can only settle on part of an information
field. That part of the information field on which the limited attention area settles is thereby 'chosen' or 'selected'...
'Entry point' refers to the part of a problem or situation that is first attended to... the choice of entry point
is of the utmost importance. Once could almost say that when no further information is added to the system that it is the
choice of entry point which brings about insight restructuring... The choice of entry point is of huge importance because
the historical sequence in which ideas follow one another can completely determine the final outcome even if the ideas themselves
are the same.
p.185 the choice of attention area can make a huge difference to the way the situation is looked
at. To restructure the situation one may need no more than a slight shift in attention... it is no use
just hoping that attention will flow in the right direction. One has to do something about it... one can still direct attention
by providing a framework which will affect it.
p.191 There is no way of telling which entry point is going to be best so one is usually content with the
most obvious one... One tries deliberately to rotate attention over all parts of a problem especially those which do not seem
to merit it.
p.248 In emptying a bucket by a siphon the water must first be sucked upwards in the tube. This is an unnatural
direction for water to travel. Once the water has reached a certain position then the siphon forms and the water will continue
to flow naturally out of the bucket until it is empty. In the same way an unnatural use of information may be necessary to
provide a rearrangement that is itself perfectly natural.
p.269 It is interesting that in our thinking we have developed methods for dealing with things that are
wrong but no methods for dealing with things that are right. When something is wrong we explore further. When something
is right our thinking comes to a halt. That is why we need lateral thinking to break through this adequacy block
and restructure patterns even when there is no need to do so.
p.272 Lateral thinking is an attempt to find alternate pathways, an attempt to put things together
in a new way, no matter how adequate the old way appears to be.
