I am right, you are wrong (by Edward de Bono)

Preliminary
- Foreword by Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize for Physics, Rensselaer Institute
- Foreword by Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize for Physics, Cambridge
- Foreword by Sheldon Lee Glashow, Nobel Prize for Physics, Harvard
- Author's Note
- Introduction: The New Renaissance
Our Thinking System
- Overview
  - Some of the topics that are covered in this book are listed below:
    - Why humour is the most significant characteristic of the human brain and why humour has always been neglected by classical philosophers.
    - Why, contrary to our traditional view, the brain may be a very simple mechanism acting in a highly complex way.
    - The very important difference between our usual 'passive' information systems and 'active' information systems.
    - Why the very excellence of language for description has made language so crude and inefficient for perception.
    - Why we are able to see only what we are prepared to see.
    - Why it may be much easier to learn things backwards rather than forwards.
    - How patterns have both broad catchment areas and also knife-edge discrimination.
    - Why the classical thinking traditions of truth and reason that we inherited from the Greeks may have set civilization on the wrong track.
    - How we became, and remain, so very obsessed with history.
    - Why I call our traditional reasoning 'table-top' logic.
    - How we can have been so successful in technical matters and yet made so little progress in human affairs.
    - Why the analysis of data cannot by itself produce new ideas and is even unlikely to discover the old ideas in the data.
    - How we can move from the behaviour of a neurone in a neural network to the behaviour of the mind in politics, economics and world conflict.
    - How we can have a patterning system and yet enjoy free-will.
    - Why we have completely failed to understand creativity and why something that is logical in hindsight may be inaccessible to logic in foresight.
    - Why logical argument has never been successful at changing prejudices, beliefs, emotions or perceptions. Why these things can be changed only through perception.
    - How beliefs are cheap and easy to set up in a self-organizing system and how they provide the only perceptual truth.
    - How traditional logic has trapped us with the righteousness of its absolutes.
    - How we can design specific creative tools that can be used deliberately to generate new ideas.
    - Why there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said—the logic of provocation which is mathematically necessary in a patterning system.
    - How a simple, randomly obtained, word can be so powerful a creative tool.
    - Why there is an urgent need to create many new words to help our thinking.
    - Why there is a need for the functions (such as zero-hold) carried by the new word ' po '.
    - Why the established scientific method and its call for the most 'reasonable' hypothesis is perceptually faulty.
    - How the Laffer curve (more is better) is such a problem in our traditional thinking.
    - Why our cherished argument mode sets out to provide motivated exploration of a subject but soon loses the 'exploration'.
    - Why our underlying model of progress—evolution through muddling along—is bound to be ineffective.
    - Why philosophy can never again be more than a word-game unless we take into account the system behaviour of the human mind.
    - Why the false dichotomies we constructed in order to operate the logic principle of contradiction have been so especially disastrous.
    - Why poetry and humour both illustrate so well the logic of perception, which is different from the logic of reason.
    - Why we left perception to the realm of art and why art has done such a poor job.
    - Why truth is best described as a particular constellation of circumstances with a particular outcome.
    - How we may eventually derive a new ideology from information technology just as Karl Marx derived one from the steam-engine technology of the industrial revolution.
- 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
- Overview
  - PATTERN-MAKING: the brain works by providing an environment in which sequences of activity become established as patterns.
  - TRIGGER: the brain will reconstruct the whole picture from just part of it or a sequence can be triggered by the initial part.
  - ASYMMETRY: the sequence patterns are asymmetric and this gives rise to humour and to creativity.
  - INSIGHT: if we enter the pattern sequence at a slightly different point we may follow a short cut. We can rely on chance to bring this about or do it deliberately.
  - LEARNING BACKWARDS: there is good reason to believe that learning things backwards is much more effective than learning them forwards.
  - SEQUENCE: the brain is a history recorder and the patterns are highly dependent on the initial sequence of experience.
  - CATCHMENT: each pattern has a very wide collection basin so that a variety of inputs will give the same output.
  - KNIFE-EDGE DISCRIMINATION: the boundary between two catchment basins is very sharp, so very clear distinctions may be made between things which are quite similar — provided the patterns are in place.
  - PRE-EMPTION: once a pattern exists it is very hard to cut across it to establish a new pattern.
  - MISMATCH: if what is offered to the brain contradicts what is established as pattern the brain notices this strongly.
  - READINESS: the patterns in the brain are not solely in an active/inactive state but there is a 'readiness' to go which is dependent on context and emotions.
  - CONTEXT: the actual patterns that emerge are determined by history, by activity at the moment and also by context which sets the background readiness level of different patterns.
  - CIRCULARITY: a circularity can be established in which patterns lead back into each other. This is the basis of belief systems.
  - MAKING SENSE: the brain has a powerful ability to put together and to seek to coalesce into sense whatever is put before it.
  - ATTENTION: there is unitary attention which may take in the whole field or focus on part of it, ignoring the rest.
  - RELEVANCE AND MEANING: attention will move to those areas which trigger existing patterns.
  - NO ZERO-HOLD: the activity in the brain cannot stabilize into a zero-hold which accepts input but does not seek to follow an accepted pattern.
- Sequence Patterns
- Trigger and Reconstruction
- Asymmetry of Patterns
- Insight
- Learning Backwards
- Time Sequence
- Catchment
- Knife-Edge Discrimination
- Preemption
- Mismatch
- Readiness
- Context
- Circularity
- Making Sense
- Attention
- Relevance and Meaning
- Zero-Hold
Our Traditional Thinking Habits
- Overview
  - LANGUAGE: marvelous as a communication system but poor as a thinking system, yet it dominates our thinking.
  - INTELLIGENCE: highly intelligent people do not necessarily make good thinkers. Thinking is a skill, not intelligence in action.
  - CRITICAL THINKING: a greatly over-esteemed part of our thinking culture. It is easy and satisfying but produces little.
  - LAFFER CURVE: a major type of error arising from table-top logic. Something is good so more must, surely, be better.
  - PROBLEM-SOLVING: part of the maintenance mentality which will get us back to where we were. Progress requires different thinking.
  - ANALYSIS: a central and valuable part of our thinking system but assumes all situations are closed and cannot produce ideas.
  - DESCRIPTION: both describes perception and can set perceptions through naming. But has no more validity than any perception.
  - NATURAL: the view that 'nature' and deep feelings are what really matter and should set our decisions rather than thinking.
  - MATHEMATICS: the strong certainty of a constructed system, powerful within its area of application, which is limited.
  - EITHER/OR: the seductive dichotomies which we need and create in order to operate the logical principle of contradiction.
  - ABSOLUTES: the need for truth and its multiple purposes. The problem is that absolutes must be circumstance-independent.
  - ARGUMENT AND CLASH: the motivated exploration as a subject. There are better methods of exploration. Clash is not generative.
  - BELIEF: a making sense of things. The circular system in which belief sets the perceptions that reinforce the belief.
  - SCIENCE: a methodology for testing beliefs. Driven mainly by the 'cause and effect' idiom. Weak on the perceptual side.
  - CREATIVITY: strongly neglected because it seems to happen anyway and we have not understood at all what is going on.
  - HISTORY: almost am obsession, possibly deriving from the period when all future progress could be got by looking backwards.
  - LOGIC: we use little explicit logic In our everyday thinking because we have fed it into our language habits already.
  - ART: this is directly concerned with reflecting existing perceptions and changing them, but does not encourage perceptual skills.
- 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
- Overview
  - CHANGE: our basic belief in an evolutionary model. We muddle along and adapt to pressures, crises and innovations as they arise.
  - THE NEXT STEP: the next step we take is based on where we are and how we got there rather than on where we want to be.
  - FULL UP: there is no vacuum, there are no gaps. Time, space and resources are all committed.
  - EDUCATION: a locked-in system that is largely unaware of the need for thinking in society or of the type of thinking.
  - LUDECY: a new word to describe the playing of a game according to the way the rules are written. Not a matter of selfishness.
  - SHORT-TERM: much of our thinking has to be short-term (business, politics) because the rules are written that way.
  - DEMOCRACY: a system designed to get consensus for action but now much more effective in preventing things from happening.
  - PRAGMATISM: if behaviour is not driven by principles that are fixed and absolute, what is the alternative?
  - BUREAUCRACY: an organization put together for a purpose but coming to survive for its own sake.
  - COMPARTMENTS: one trend towards increased specialization and compartments and the other trend towards unifying understandings.
  - UNIVERSITIES: an educational, cultural and research role strongly based in history and dominating the use of intellectual resources.
  - COMMUNICATION: the limitations of language and the imperatives of the media and yet a great power to change sentiment.
  - PACKAGING: our growing skill at perceptual packaging may pose a problem in the future.
- Change
- The Next Step
- Full Up
- Education
- Ludecy
- Short-Term Thinking
- Democracy
- Pragmatism
- Bureaucracy
- Compartments
- Universities
- Communication
- Packaging
Summary Of Practical Outcomes
- Overview
  - At this point we have reached the end of a progression which had the following stages:
    - 1. A look at the self-organizing model of the brain and a contrast between self-organizing information systems and table-top systems.
    - 2. A look at how the behavior of perception arises directly from the behavior of self-organizing systems.
    - 3. A look at the impact of an understanding of perception on our traditional thinking habits and their defects.
    - 4. A look at thinking in society and its institutions.
  - I would now like to pull together and summarize in this section some of the practical outcomes of this exercise.
    - There are many, ranging from the very specific (such as creativity tools) to the more general (such as concern with the deficiencies of language).
    - Some of the points are simple but others open up huge areas of further consideration.
    - To repeat a point I have so often made in this book, I have not set out to provide all the answers but to indicate that these matters now need very serious attention.
    - There are other points implicit in the book which I have not listed here but which individual readers will note and consider.
  - The practical outcomes fall into two broad areas:
    - 1. Practical points arising directly from our understanding of the nature of perception.
    - 2. Defects in our traditional thinking habits made visible by our understanding of perception.
- Complacency
- The Need for More Effort and Attention
- System Basis
- Traditional Philosophy Is Dead
- Perception
- Mental Illness
- Free-Will
- Evolution for Change
- Argument
- Critical Thinking
- Clash
- Analysis
- Problem-Solving
- Truth and Absolutes
- Description
- Obsession with History
- Intelligence Is Not Enough
- Language
- Polarizations
- More Is Better
- Limited Gate-Keepers
- Understanding Perception
- Perception and Emotion
- Perception and Belief
- Perception and Truth
- Prejudice and Logic
- Time Sequence
- Reconstruction
- What We Are Prepared to See
- Innocence
- Humor
- Poetry
- Stratal
- Six Thinking Hats
- Attention
- Perceptual Tools
- Mechanics of Interest
- Attention Flow in Art
- Manipulation of Perception
- Zero-Hold
- 'Same as … '
- Understanding Creativity
- The Logic of Provocation
- The Logic of Insight
- Specific Tools of Lateral Thinking
- Resistance to Change
- The Next Step
- Education
- Universities
- Compartments
- Short-Term Thinking
- Ludecy
- Learning Backwards
- New Language
- Water Logic
- Hope
Summary
Appendix: Water Logic
- Hodics

I am right, You are wrong
(a view of our brains at work)

Contents

I am right, You are wrong (a view of our brains at work)

Contents

I am right, You are wrong
(a view of our brains at work)