[HN Gopher] Edward de Bono Obituary
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Edward de Bono Obituary
Author : edward
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-08-15 21:20 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| gambler wrote:
| A few years ago I tried to formalize my thoughts on why some
| people/teams create good software while others don't. I narrowed
| the problem down to couple of things. The biggest one was people
| not considering alternative solutions and getting mentally
| anchored to the very first idea they have. The second one was
| lack of meta-awareness (e.g. redefining hard problems to be
| easier or designing your own tools when existing tools don't fit
| the job).
|
| Couple month ago I bought Lateral Thinking and was somewhat
| surprised and somewhat encouraged to see that de Bono's
| observations overlapped my own. Except his book was written in
| 1970 and didn't deal with IT. Moreover, his analysis was
| comprehensive and systematic. I wish I learned about his work
| earlier.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > During a 1999 lecture to Foreign Office officials, the
| originator of the term lateral thinking argued that the yeast
| extract, though proverbially socially divisive, could do what
| politicians and diplomats had failed for years to achieve. The
| problem, as he saw it, was that people in the Middle East eat
| unleavened bread and so lack zinc, which makes them irritable and
| belligerent. Feeding them Marmite, therefore, would help create
| peace.
|
| Is this meant to be funny? I don't get it.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I stumbled on "The Five Day Course in Thinking"
| (https://www.amazon.com/5-Day-Course-Thinking-Edward-Bono/dp/...)
| when I was a UCLA undergrad in the late 1960s. The subsequent
| days were among the most exciting of my life up to then, as I
| pushed myself as hard as I've ever done to solve each day's
| problem.
|
| Amazon review:
|
| "This book actually contains three 5-day courses, each dealing
| with a different style of thinking. The focus of the book is
| directed less towards the solving of the problems, than at
| helping you understand your approach, and through this awareness,
| improve your thinking abilities.
|
| "Each course sets a practical hands-on problem that requires no
| specialist knowledge or maths. Throughout the five days it builds
| what begins as a tricky challenge into one more difficult than
| you would have imagined being able to solve. En route, De Bono
| offers insights into the problem solving process and pointers to
| areas you might explore to illuminate your own thought processes.
|
| "The three courses look at insight, sequential, and strategic
| thinking. De Bono succeeds in creating an entertaining learning
| environment. Readers will enjoy the challenges set and will gain
| valuable insights from their thinking about their thinking.
|
| "Sample Problem As a taster, this is the first puzzle of the
| book.
|
| "Place three bottles upright on the floor to form a triangle
| where the distance between the bases of the bottles is slightly
| larger than the length of a knife. Use three identical knives to
| form a platform on top of the bottles to support a full glass of
| water. No part of any knife may touch the floor."
|
| Great stuff. R.I.P.
| boldslogan wrote:
| I'm going crazy, I think I misunderstood the problem...and I
| want to say it is impossible. But can you share the
| explanation?
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Don't hate me for this -- but you did not misunderstand the
| problem, and it is not impossible. I did solve it back in the
| 1960s. Besides which, if I give you the answer, I will ruin
| it for others who would rather try to solve it.
| boldslogan wrote:
| Okay fine! :)
|
| but to clarify: -you take three regular plastic coke
| bottles
|
| -put them in an equilateral triangle
|
| -make the length of a side from center of the bottle
| slightly longer than a knife
|
| -take three identical knives and create a platform that can
| hold a regular cup of water
|
| ?
|
| Wait..by typing it out like this.. I think I solved it
| haha. Thanks for the brain tickle!
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > distance between the bases of the bottles
|
| I read this as the distance between the edge of the
| bases, not center. In which case the only solution would
| be [spoiler]
| wisty wrote:
| Yes, there's 2 big hoopholes in the question.
| avthar wrote:
| I read a bunch of books by Mr De Bono as a teenager, including
| "Six Thinking Hats" and "Lateral Thinking". As math and science
| nerd interested in creativity, it really gave me a different way
| to think.
| samizdis wrote:
| I found his book Water Logic intriguing. It encouraged setting
| out problems as a series of nodes, or factors in the problem,
| which you'd then connect with one-way arrows. So, this affects
| that, and that affects the other. The idea was that you'd end up
| with a sort of flow chart where some nodes/factors had multiple
| arrows pointing at them - and these were blocking points. A
| surprisingly useful tool on some occasions; certainly helped
| discussions about dependencies etc. But it must have been a minor
| work because I can't find anything worthwhile online atm about
| it.
|
| For me, though, de Bono's best contribution to my life was the L
| game. I still play it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_game
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| I liked "Lateral Thinking"; it kind of opened a new space in my
| mind. Especially a lesson that solution always exists and that
| there are no bad ideas. As even the worst ideas can budge people
| to solve real problems, they could not see otherwise. Which
| subsequently taught me not to judge people when they say
| something that looks very dumb. I still remember his example of
| Boeing engineers asked, "what if airplanes had square wheels?"
| neilv wrote:
| I almost cited him the other day on HN (the Thinking Hats, as a
| tool for creative brainstorming sessions).
| mbfg wrote:
| I went thru a course on lateral thinking (and other things) at my
| work, years ago based on the books by de Bono. My natural mindset
| apriori is this kind of stuff is bunk, but i must say, i found
| the process to be pretty useful. The main premise is that to find
| breakthrough aha ideas, you associate two things that are not at
| all related to one another, and see what the natural questions
| and consequences of such a pairing produces. You get all kinds of
| wild ideas, most are just silly, but occasionally you get really
| good ideas that perhaps you would never have thought of.
|
| An example might be, if you want to improve cars, work through
| what it would mean if dogs were the primary drivers of cars. What
| would you change about cars to make this easier? Then once found,
| are there any of these that would make sense for human drivers?
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| Po: people should use the word po
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking)
| ggm wrote:
| An ego the size of the planet. Brilliant communications about
| frankly not very much. Had some lunatic ideas (read Wikipedia for
| his zinc/peace story) and shopped a metaphor to death.
|
| He was oversold in the 70s. You couldn't move for stories about
| him.
|
| Professional "geniuses" need the quotes. Pinker, Kurzweil.. all
| of them are much-in-little.
|
| (He was, unquestionably, bloody smart. Far smarter than the
| average Joe, far far smarter than me. He wasted his talents.
| Consider Robert McNamara. Don't agree with a lot he did,
| (Vietnam!) but I suspect he was a similar calibre to De Bono)
| 2sk21 wrote:
| Perhaps but I did find Six Thinking hats useful when I was
| working. The main advantage was to nip prospective "devils
| advocates" too early in the process.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > I did find Six Thinking hats useful
|
| The biggest impact life lesson I had from that book was to be
| upfront with my feelings (red hat.) Unacknowledged emotions
| sit in the background and strongly influence thinking while
| often being quite dumb. Emotions brought out in the open tend
| to shrink to their proper significance and can be quite
| informative.
| ggm wrote:
| Maybe there's an echo of it in agile "personas" analysis of
| user needs. (Something I am equally sceptical about btw: not
| the analysis, the value of personification)
| nabla9 wrote:
| You should consider his thoughts in the time he wrote them. His
| broad point of view is mainstream today. His specific methods
| are not. In the early 70s his way of thinking was new.
|
| Consider Sigmund Freud and his wild theories. Almost everything
| he did is now considered wrong today. His only lasting impact
| is popularizing the idea of unconsciousness. The idea of
| unconsciousness desires, needs, and thoughts affecting our life
| so mainstream today it's hard to comprehend that it was not in
| the conceptual toolbox in the west before him. (Friedrich
| Schelling predated Freud but his works were largely ignored
| during his time)
| sokoloff wrote:
| The marmite/zinc story was in the linked article as well.
| blue1 wrote:
| I actually think it's quite cool as an example of lateral
| thinking, which is exploratory in nature. It was not a
| proposed "solution".
| ggm wrote:
| It's probably true that better nutrition reduces conflict
| but it would be a stretch to say that lies at the root of
| the Arab - Israeli conflict.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| > but it would be a stretch
|
| I'd say it's condescending -- and even insulting -- to
| everyone involved. Ideas shouldn't be censored during a
| brainstorming session but this is something else
| ggm wrote:
| Having read it a month ago when the obit first came out I
| didn't reread this time. I thought it got a mention. The
| comment-is-free on the obit has a fair mix of pro and the
| more oppositional views like mine.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| i have read the pebble example 5 times now and i just don't get
| it. if she drops it they see it fall and either see the color of
| the pebble and act according to what color she picked or repeat
| the process with fresh pebbles. never in that situation would
| someone just give her the other pebble and act as if she picket
| that one first. can someone explain this?
| fargus_dorsalby wrote:
| The "remaining pebble" refers to the one in the bag that she
| didn't choose. The path is covered in pebbles of both colours
| so by dropping the chosen pebble, it means they can't identify
| it. So they must look inside the not-chosen (remaining) bag,
| which will contain a black pebble. Therefore, as the merchant
| cannot expose his dishonesty, he must concede that the chosen
| one was white.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| not getting this persistently is really frightening. maybe a
| short term effect of a corona shot 2 days ago. i had
| difficulty finding some words yesterday which fortunately is
| much better allready.i will definitely not work on critical
| software for the next 2 days...
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