Indirect Thinking

Author: Edward de Bono

Why do some people always seem to have new ideas, while others, with the same level of intelligence, have none? Since the time of Aristotle, logical thinking has been praised as the only effective way to use the mind. However, the fact that new ideas are hard to come by suggests that they don't necessarily result from logical thought processes; some people are aware of another type of thinking, easily recognized when it leads to those simple ideas that only become clear after they have been thought of. This book is an attempt to look at this type of thinking and show that it is entirely distinct from logical thinking, and often more useful in generating new ideas. For simplicity, the term "lateral thinking" has been coined to describe this type of thinking, while "vertical thinking" is used to denote the traditional, logical thought process. In order to fully track what goes on in the mind, all its activities must ultimately be translated into patterns of excitation in the brain's neural network. At present, relatively little is known about the detailed workings of the brain. Nevertheless, it is possible to consider a broad concept of its structure. Just as the functional structure of an electrical circuit in a house is understood without knowing the details of every wire's shape or every switch's design, we can understand thought processes by examining the external appearance of the mind for clues to underlying systems. This type of systems analysis, for example, would evaluate the effects of the complex interplay of positive and negative feedback.