Additionally to what the chapter wrote, I still have a few questions about lateral thinking. There are many aspects to it. From a Utilitarianism way of thinking, lateral thinking is not at all productive unless there is a small chance it might work. For it to have a slight chance of working, it must adhere to some logic. Then in other words, isn’t this “lateral thinking” just the result of vertical thinking based on the preexisting logic? For example, in the picture shown to us in class which was about someone moving a sofa, we made these guesses based on some fundamental logical constraints such as gravity, cause and effect relationships, human motives, and many others. Does this blur the line between lateral thinking and vertical thinking? It might not be evident in this case, because the things acting as constraints are so common that sometimes we don’t see them there. But in some other cases, let’s say where there is a fixed storyline the job is to create something that furthers this storyline, the constraints get more obvious. Therefore, if I am thinking in multiple directions about how the story will keep going, is this lateral thinking or vertical thinking? therefore I believe that the line between vertical thinking and lateral thinking is quite blurred if the thinking result is bound to at least have a chance of being useful.