Lateral Thinking

The purpose of lateral thinking is to counteract both the errors and the limitations of the special memory‑surface. The errors may lead to incorrect use of information. The limitations may prevent the best use of information that is already available. Natural thinking has all the errors of the special memory‑surface. Logical thinking is used to avoid the errors of natural thinking, but it is limited in that it cannot generate new ideas that make the best use of information already available. Mathematical thinking avoids the errors of natural thinking by setting up an information processing system that is distinct from the memory‑surface. The limitation of mathematical thinking is that it is only a second stage system which is used to make the most of what has been chosen by the memory‑surface in the first stage. None of these three types of thinking can get completely beyond the limitations of the memory‑surface, though two of them can reduce the actual errors to a considerable extent.

A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants. Since a problem has a starting‑point and an end point, then the change from one to the other by means of thinking is a direct indication of the usefulness of that thinking.

Types of Problems

There are three basic types of problems:

Problems that require the processing of available information or the collection of more information.
The problem of no problem; where the acceptance of an adequate state of affairs precludes consideration of a change to a better state.

3. Problems that are solved by re‑structuring of the information that has already been processed into a pattern.

The first type of problem can be tackled with logical thinking, or mathematical thinking, or the collecting of more information. The other two types of problem require lateral thinking.

Most of the time the established patterns on the special memory surface are improved only by information which comes in from outside. It is a matter of addition or gradual modification.

Lateral thinking is more concerned with making the best possible use of the information that is already available on the surface than with new information, see Figure 2.2.