Edward de Bono I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG FROM THIS TO THE NEW RENAISSANCE: FROM ROCK LOGIC TO WATER LOGIC Contents Introduction: The New Renaissance OUR THINKING SYSTEM Human Affairs Perception Humour Practical Outcomes THE HUMAN BRAIN Validity of the Model Different Universes Traditional Table-Top Logic The Nerve Network of the Brain HOW PERCEPTION WORKS Sequence Patterns Trigger and Reconstruction Asymmetry of Patterns Insight Learning Backwards Time Sequence Catchment Knife-Edge Discrimination Pre-emption Mismatch Readiness Context Circularity Making Sense Attention Relevance and Meaning Zero-Hold OUR TRADITIONAL THINKING HABITS Language Thinking and Intelligence Critical Thinking Laffer Curves Problem-Solving Analysis Description Natural Mathematics Either/Or Absolutes Argument and Clash Belief Science Creativity History Logic Art THINKING IN SOCIETY AND ITS INSTITUTIONS Change The Next Step Full Up Education Ludecy Short-Term Thinking Democracy Pragmatism Bureaucracy Compartments Universities Communication Packaging Summary of Practical Outcomes Summary Appendix: Water Logic Follow Penguin PENGUIN LIFE I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. In the decades since Dr de Bono introduced lateral thinking, the concept has become so entrenched in our language that it is used equally in physics lectures, television comedies or brainstorming sessions. His key contribution has been his understanding of the brain as self-organising system. His work spans generations, continents and belief systems, and is equally influential in the boardrooms of leading businesses such as Apple and British Airways as on the shelves of classrooms in rural Africa. Dr de Bono has written more than sixty books, in forty languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, had faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge and Harvard, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind. Dr de Bono’s classic bestsellers include Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking, I Am Right You Are Wrong, How To Be More Interesting, Teach Yourself To Think, Teach Your Child How To Think, and Simplicity. www.debono.com Introduction: The New Renaissance Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the human mind. You may find this surprising. If humour is so very significant, why has it been so neglected by traditional philosophers, psychologists and information scientists? Why humour is so significant and why it has been so neglected by traditional thinkers together form the key to this book. Humour tells us more about how the brain works as mind, than does any other behaviour of the mind – including reason. It indicates that our traditional thinking methods, and our thinking about these methods, have been based on the wrong model of information system. It tells us something about perception which we have traditionally neglected in favour of logic. It tells us directly about the possibility of changes in perception. It shows us that these changes can be followed by instant changes in emotion – something that can never be achieved by logic. There are probably no more than two dozen people in the whole world who would really understand (at the most fundamental, system level of brain mechanisms) why I claim such significance for humour. After reading this book there may be some more who come to understand the basis for the claim – and its implications for the future of society. * There are those who hope to be able to hope that – somehow – the world will become a better place. There is a hunger for such hope. As we proceed along the countdown to the year 2000, is there much cause for such hope? There is no mystical significance about the year 2000, but it does provide a unique focal point, one that will not recur for another thousand years. It could become a turning-point if we tried to make it a turning-point. But how and why? There are those who feel that the pressures of evolution, the emergence of new There are those who feel that the pressures of evolution, the emergence of new values and the application of collective good sense must ultimately make things better. Surely if everyone goes about their own business and exercises a sharp criticism of their governments and their fellow beings, all will be well. There are those who see a real need for a sort of New Renaissance. They are tired of arguments, polemics, confrontations, conflicts and problems that cannot be solved. They see serious threats to the environment; third-world debt and poverty; the spread of drugs and new diseases; and house prices that no young couple can afford. They are tired of the excuse that all these things arise from the rate of progress and from the innate defects of human nature, which will always be short-sighted, selfish, greedy and aggressive. Maybe we are doing our best and there is nothing more to be done. Maybe the world is actually far better off than it has ever been and that we are just made more aware of the problems by the effectiveness and energy of modern media. There are also a few who sense that a New Renaissance may already have begun. The train is pulling out of the first station. There are only a few people on board. Most people will get on at much later stations, as the direction becomes clearer. There are those who see that the conscious attempts at new thinking brought about by Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR (for whatever internal needs and reasons) signal a change in thinking from confrontational habits to more constructive habits. President Gorbachev is not the engine driver of the train but he is one of the first people to have boarded the train. * There is a time and a place and a courage for saying something. The New Renaissance needs a formal announcement in order that people may notice it and focus upon it with hope and resolve. That is the purpose of this book. To announce a New Renaissance will always seem presumptuous and provocative, whoever makes the announcement and with whatever justification. Surely such things just happen without anyone making a formal announcement. Is the purpose of such an announcement to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in that if we believe in a New Renaissance we shall make it happen? We do need to believe in the possibility of a New Renaissance – because it is possible. There is always value in recognizing something that is already happening. Why delay recognition? There is, however, a much more substantial happening. Why delay recognition? There is, however, a much more substantial basis to the New Renaissance than hope and the year 2000. * On what is the New Renaissance to be based? The last Renaissance was clearly based on the re-discovery of ancient Greek (about 400 BC) thinking habits of logic, reason, argument, truth and the importance of man. Before the last Renaissance the thinking habits of the Western world were derived entirely from dogma and theology. Maps of the world had to show large land masses with Jerusalem at the dead centre – not because the experience of navigators had suggested such a disposition of land but because dogma said that was how it had to be. ‘I am right – you are wrong’ is a short-hand crystallization of the thinking habits that both formed the last Renaissance and were further developed by it. The search for truth – as distinct from dogma – was to be made through the exposure of falsity by means of argument, reason and logic. This reason, not dogma, was to decide what was right and what was wrong. In this way there developed the thinking habits that have served us so well in certain areas. The legalistic application of principles through the use of argument and reason can be said to be the basis of the civilization we know. Technical affairs have progressed to the point that we can get men to the moon and back, transmit instant television to 300 million people across the world, and use the ultimate form of energy (nuclear). Is it possible that these excellent thinking habits are somewhat limited and inadequate? While we have made so much progress in technical affairs we have made less progress in human affairs. Our habits of conflict are as primitive as ever, even though the weapons we use have benefited from our technical excellence. Is it possible that these thinking habits are, in some respects, even dangerous? Is it possible that they have reached their limit, that they are unable to cope with the problems we face, that they prevent further progress? Is it possible that the time has come to improve upon them? If so, on what are the new thinking habits to be based? * The new thinking habits of the New Renaissance are to be based on the most fundamental of all bases, more fundamental than philosophical word-play or belief systems. They are to be based directly on how the human brain works, and, in particular, the way the human brain creates perception. For the first time in history we can now have an idea of how the brain is organized to give rise to mind. We may not know all the details, but we do know enough about the broad system behaviour to re-examine our traditional thinking habits and to be able to develop new ones. We can come to see how the thinking habits of the last Renaissance emphasized some of the worst habits of mind. We can come to see why the thinking and language systems we developed and now esteem so highly are good at logic but poor at perception. We can see how that failure to deal with perception gives rise to the inadequacies and dangers of our current thinking. We can see how these habits were responsible for much human misery in the past and why they are not adequate for the constructive steps that are necessary in the future. * ‘I am right – you are wrong’ condenses the essence of our traditional thinking habits that were set by the last Renaissance. Here we find ‘argument’, which is the basis of our search for truth and the basis of our adversarial system in science, law and politics. Here we have absolutes and finality and judgement –and the confidence (sometimes arrogance) which comes from these. Here we have the mutually exclusive incompatibility which is the very essence of our logic. Each party cannot be both right and wrong at the same time. The essence of logic is identity and contradiction. In language we deliberately create mutually exclusive categories such as right/wrong and friend/ enemy in order to operate this logic of contradiction. Yet there are cultures – as I shall show in this book – which find no contradiction in a person being both friend and enemy at the same time. The last Renaissance revived and polished the methods of Socrates and the other thinkers of the golden age of Greek philosophy. It is possible that the argument method was in use before, but Socrates developed it into a formidable procedure. There is a remarkable paradox in how the revival of Greek argument thinking in the last Renaissance served a dual purpose. On the one hand, humanistic thinkers used the system of logic and reason to attack the dogma that suffocated society. On the other hand, Church thinkers led by the genius of suffocated society. On the other hand, Church thinkers led by the genius of Thomas Aquinas of Naples developed the same argument logic into a powerful way of defeating the numerous heresies that were forever surfacing. For the purpose of defeating heresy the system was highly effective because a thinker could proceed from common agreed concepts (axioms), such as the omnipotence of God, to logically derived conclusions. The same methods were used to proceed from assumed principles of justice to the regulation and judgement of human conduct. This system of principle, logic and argument is the basis for our much used – and often beneficial – legalistic thinking. Where it breaks down is in the assumption that perceptions and values are common, universal, permanent or even agreed. This argument/logic type of thinking became standard in seminaries, universities and schools. This was because such establishments were largely run by the Church at that time and also because the free humanistic thinkers esteemed the same methods. The paradox is that both Church thinkers and non- Church (humanistic) thinkers found equal value in the methods. Perhaps this is not so surprising, since the new methods were such an obvious advance on existing thinking habits. Central to this type of thinking is the underlying notion of ‘truth’. By means of argument which manoeuvres matters into a contradictory position, something can be shown to be false. Even if something is not completely false, the garbage has to be chipped away by the skilled exercise of critical thinking in order to lay bare the contained truth. Thus arose the pre-eminence of critical thinking as the highest form of civilized thinking – and the defence of civilization itself. Any intrusion was to be subjected to an intense scrutiny and fierce criticism within existing frameworks, since these were assumed to be eternal. That critical thinking is so highly esteemed in our civilization has had some unfortunate consequences. Critical thinking lacks the productive, generative, creative and design elements that are so needed to tackle problems and find our way forward. A high proportion of politicians are lawyers and are only accustomed to this manner of thinking. Is thinking that is free from error good thinking? Is driving that is free from error good driving? If you wanted to avoid all errors in driving a car, the best strategy would be to leave the car in the garage. As in critical thinking, the avoidance of errors in driving presupposes the generative, productive and creative aspects of thinking. These elements are essential for the progress of society. Where are these things to come from? This may not have mattered much in the stable city states of ancient Greece, where the perfection of existence (except for women and slaves) suggested that any disturbance was likely to be bad or at least unnecessary. It may not have mattered much in the relatively stable society of the Middle Ages, when happiness was to be achieved in the next world rather than in this one. But it does matter today. That is why the American tendency to want to teach only ‘critical thinking’ in schools is appalling in its medieval inadequacy. Whether this argument style was responsible for our confrontational style of politics is more open to question. The Greeks bequeathed us both argument and democracy and we have wanted to keep the two together, since we do not know how to operate democracy without argument. Yet there were many cultures which had developed the notion of clash between good and evil (Manichaeism, Hinduism etc.) quite independently of Greek thinking. Hegel’s notion of historic opposition and tension gave rise to the dialectical materialism of Marxism and the energy for its revolutions. Unfortunately this ‘clash’ system of change is making very difficult the constructive and creative thinking that is so needed in order to make perestroika work in the USSR. In summary, our traditional thinking system is based on ‘truth’, which is to be uncovered and checked by logic and argument (supplemented by statistics and other scientific methods). The result is a strong tendency towards negativity and attack. Negativity is seen to be a powerful way of uncovering the truth, resisting disturbing intrusions and giving a personal sense of satisfaction to the attacker. The most powerful case for the value of argument as a thinking method is that it encourages the motivated exploration of a subject. Without the personal gratification of argument (win/lose, aggression, cleverness, point-scoring) there might be little motivation to explore a subject. There is merit in this justification, except that beyond a certain level of motivation the actual exploration of the subject starts to suffer: argument becomes case-making, point-scoring and ego- strutting. No person is going to bring to attention matters which would benefit the opposing side of the argument, even when such matters might greatly extend the exploration of the subject. In the book I shall return to these matters, in more detail and in different contexts. * We can now return to the significance of humour. Humour is so significant because it is based on a logic very different from our traditional logic. In our traditional (Aristotelian) logic there are categories that are clear, hard-edged and permanent. We make judgement decisions as to whether something fits into a category, does not fit into the category or cannot fit into the category (contradiction). In contrast, the logic of humour depends directly upon patterns, flow, expectations and context. In our traditional thinking we have what I call ‘rock logic’. In humour we have what I call ‘water logic’. A rock has a shape of its own. It is hard, hard- edged, permanent and unchanging. We can see and feel its shape. We can say that a rock ‘is’. It is not going to let us down and change into something else. There is the sense of an independent absolute. Water is very different from rock, but just as real. It flows. The emphasis is on ‘to’ rather than ‘is’. Water flows according to the gradient (context). It takes the form of the vessel in which it is placed (circumstance). You can analyse and describe a pen in terms of its component parts: metals, hard plastic, soft plastic, pieces of differing shapes. You can describe the mechanism by which the pen works and its function as a writing instrument. But what is the ‘value’ of a pen? That depends on circumstance and a perception of circumstance. If a person cannot write, it has little value. If a person can write, it has more value. If the person has no other pen or writing instrument, it has yet more value. If a person has to write down an important telephone number or an urgently needed medical prescription, it has even more value – not just to the writer but also to other people. The pen may have value as a gift. It may have a high historic value (even to someone who cannot write) if it has been used to sign a historic treaty. If you add one rock to another, you get two rocks. But if you add water to water you do not get two waters. Poetry is based on water logic. In poetry we add layer after layer of words, images, metaphors and other vehicles for perception. It all builds up into one holistic perception. You can empty water out of a glass a few drops at a time if you wish. With a You can empty water out of a glass a few drops at a time if you wish. With a rock you do not have the choice – the rock is either in the glass or all gone. In our legal system we make a sharp distinction between ‘guilty’ and ‘innocent’. If guilty there is punishment to follow. In Japan half the arrested offenders are released by the prosecutor, who has power to let them go if they apologize and seem intent on behaving better in the future. The emphasis in the Japanese system is not on a judgement category but on what comes next. The crime rate in Japan is very low. There is one lawyer for 9,000 people compared to one lawyer for 400 in the USA. Rock logic is the basis of our traditional processing logic, with its permanent categories, identities and contradictions. Water logic is the basis of the logic of perception. Until quite recently we have had no idea how perception works. We are now beginning to understand perception in terms of how the brain works. * A horse is different from a car, although both are land transport systems. A bird is different from an aeroplane, although both fly through the air. Tennis is different from chess, although both can be two-person games with a winner and a loser. Soup is different from spaghetti, although both are food and are often eaten at the start of a meal. In the same way there are two distinct types of information system. There is the traditional ‘passive’ system in which pieces, symbols or information of any sort are recorded and stored on some surface. The information does not change on the surface. The surface does not change. There is a need for some outside operator who manipulates the information according to some rules. Imagine a chess-player. The pieces sit passively and inertly on the chess-board until the player moves the pieces around according to the rules of chess and with some strategy in mind. Traditional computers are passive information systems. The information is stored on tapes or discs and then used (according to particular rules and for a particular purpose) by a central processor. A schoolboy doing arithmetic in an exercise book is also an example of a passive information system. In passive systems there is a clear distinction between the passive storage of the information and its manipulation by an outside operator. Our use of language