provocation, lateral thinking

What most people have not yet realised is that 'provocation' is as important a language and thinking device as a question. Unfortunately our traditional thinking system could never design or appreciate the value of 'provocation'.

In our traditional thinking system you have to move from one 'truth' to the next. Anything which is manifestly untrue is thrown out. We know that we have reached a 'right' conclusion because each of the steps to get there is also 'right'. What this shows is how very poor and backward human thinking is. I have just completed a book on this matter: why the human race has never really learned to think.

It is only by understanding the neural nature of the brain as a self-organising information system that we can begin to understand provocation. Indeed, there are mathematical papers on why provocation is essential in any self-organising system.

Without provocation a system settles down into a stable 'equilibrium' state and rests there. In order to get a better state you may have to disturb the equilibrium to get a more 'global one'. Mathematicians sometimes call the process 'annealing'. When steel is cooled down the crystals lock into a stable position. But the steel is not very strong. So you provoke or heat the steel so that the crystals move around again and lock in a new stable position - which is stronger than the first one. There may be several stages of annealing.

We do have words like 'suppose' and 'what if' but these are weak. They put forward new situations and ask us to guess what would happen if this new situation were true in fact. With a provocation there is no pretence that the statement will ever be true. It can be manifestly untrue, impossible or contradictory. It needs to be.

'Po cars have square wheels'. This statement is obviously untrue and impossible on normal engineering grounds. The statement has no 'judgment merit' at all. So what is its merit?

ANTI-LANGUAGE
Language seeks to describe the world as it is. Provocation deliberately describes the world 'as it is not'. This goes against normal language use. In order to indicate this special use of language, we need a device to indicate what is going on. Without such a device, we would have to judge the statement and treat it as nonsense.

It is for this reason that I invented the word 'po' as an indicator device to indicate that what follows is intended as a provocation. This means that the statement will not be treated in the usual way, but will be treated in the special way in which provocations have to be treated.

'Judgment' is our main thinking operation. With judgment we recognise standard situations and then apply standard responses. This is an excellent system which serves us well. But it is no use for creativity. If you judge a provocation you will almost certainly reject it. If you do not reject it, then it was probably not a real provocation to begin with. Using your judgment, how would you react to the idea of a car with square wheels? You might note that such vehicles do exist and are used for tamping down road surfaces. That is judgment.

Instead of judgment, we need to use a very different mental exercise called 'movement'. With judgment we compare something with the past, with something we know already. With 'movement' we move forward to something new.

MOVEMENTThere are several formal ways of getting movement from a provocation. These are deliberate processes of lateral thinking. One way is to extract a concept or a principle from the provocation and work forward with this. From 'square wheels' we might take the concept of a suspension that reacts in anticipation of need. This would be required to give a smooth ride by compensating for the square wheels. From this comes the idea of 'anticipatory suspension'. In such a system the car remains stable and the wheels follow the contours of the road surface.

Movement is a far more complicated mental skill than judgment. It is a skill that is essential for creativity. How do you move forward from this particular idea?

Movement is much more than just suspending judgment. That is a small step in the right direction, but only a small step. The skill of movement needs to be developed and practised so that it becomes almost automatic when we are trying to be creative (see the book Serious Creativity or the APTT training courses).

Normally we are sure that we have a valid answer because every step on the way to that answer is valid and validly connected to the next step. This is not the case with provocation; with provocation the validation is backward. After we have reached the idea, we then look backwards to see if it serves our purpose. If this 'backward' path is valid, then the idea is valid. It does not matter from which direction the path is validated.

'Po, the factory should be downstream of itself'. This sounds illogical and impossible. How could a factory built on a river be downstream of itself? From the provocation comes the simple idea of requiring the water input to the factory to be downstream of the water output. The factory must now be more concerned with cleaning up its own effluent. The idea is perfectly logical in hindsight.

DELIBERATELY MISTAKEN
We find it very difficult to say something which we know to be wrong - and even nonsense. So we find it difficult to set up provocations. To help overcome this difficulty there are formal ways of setting up provocations. These formal ways are part of the process of lateral thinking. The simplest of these methods is the 'escape' method. Here, we look at 'something which is taken for granted' and then we drop or escape from that something.

'Po cars have no engines'.

'Po cars have no steering wheels'.

A lack of steering wheel might suggest some external guidance system. A route might be entered into a computer which then takes over guidance - reacting to external signals. If cars had no engines then they might have to run downhill all the way. This introduces rather interesting ideas on city and road design.

'With a provocation there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said'. This is obviously very different from normal thinking. It is important to be clear at which of four levels thinking is taking place.

1.TRUTH LEVEL: this is the way the world seems to be. In some cases we have tested things out.
2. HYPOTHESIS LEVEL: we have reason to believe things might be like this. It is not yet proved, but we are seeking to prove (or disprove) it. We actually hope we are right.
3. SPECULATION LEVEL: there is no reason to think things are like this. We insert a 'suppose' or 'what if' to see what would happen if things were like this.
4. PROVOCATION LEVEL: we know for sure that the world is not like this. We use a provocation to get out of usual patterns, to see what happens in our minds.

[For training in lateral thinking, phone Holst Group at 44 (0)8454 564000): or fax 44 (0)8454 564001]