‘Po’ is a created word that I have used, and described, in several of my books. It is derived from words like possible, hypothesis, suppose, poetry and positive. In all of these situations we use ideas or images in order to move forward, in order to see what we can produce, in order to see where they get us. In no case is the use of the idea put forward as an accurate description of what things are.
The process is one of provocation. We put forward an idea as a provocation to get us out of a fixed set of ideas so that we can think of new ones. From a mathematical point of view provocation is essential in a patterning system. Indeed provocation is part of the logic of such a system. I have attempted to explain this aspect in my book The Mechanism of Mind. Many people understand the attitude of lateral thinking but not the process. Imagine you are on a misty hill-top and when the mist clears you notice someone standing there with you. He tells you he arrived by helicopter. If you do not know about helicopters you will rightly condemn him for using a ‘fancy’ word to describe climbing up the hill-side as you yourself have done and countless other people like you. Similarly, lateral thinking is concerned with looking at things in a different way, with alternatives and with new ideas. But that is only the end-point. The actual processes arise directly from consideration of the behaviour of a self-organising pattern-making system like the mind. And all the evidence is that it is a pattern-making system – otherwise (like computers) we should be unable to laugh.
Provocation is closely related to humour for humour suddenly reveals to us how we can see something in a different way: like a child’s riddle or a pun at the lower level and sophisticated wit at the higher level.
Provocation is a sort of mental experiment. We decide to look at something in a novel way in order to see where it gets us. There may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said. In other words the statement is not the cumulative conclusion of a series of rational steps. It is a provocation and if it leads to something useful then that is the justification for the statement in the first place. In this instance the end does justify the means.
We need a language indicator to show that we are behaving in this irresponsible manner. The word ‘po’ is, I accept, no more felicitous than any other sharp syllable might be. But it is a definite enough indicator. By sheer chance the syllable ‘po’ does have a symbol in Linear B, the ancient Minoan language. This symbol is related to the sound for horse and shows a horse’s head of a sort. Perhaps in time we might introduce this symbol as a new punctuation mark at the beginning of a sentence to indicate that the sentence is meant to be a provocation. It would be like a reverse question mark. Figure 4 shows the symbol. I have always found a deal of logic in the Spanish habit of putting a question mark at the beginning, as well as at the end, of a sentence. If we were to use such a symbol then the word ‘po’ would be unnecessary in writing.
Let us look at some very simple provocations. They will be made deliberately extreme in order to illustrate the process. In practice a provocation may be extreme or it may be more or less reasonable. We watch an aeroplane landing and we might say: ‘po planes should land upside down’.There is no reason for saying this except that it is a facile distortion of the usual state of affairs. But we work from the provocation and see what ideas follow. Normally a plane lands by reducing speed and so reducing lift on the wings. It thus sinks onto the ground. The idea of ‘landing upside down’ might suggest that the plane as it were ‘rose’ onto the ground just as, normally, it rose into the air. So there might be some positive downward lift which would be finely controlled to give delicate landings. I do not know if there is any positive value in this idea or whether the difficulties would, in practice, outweigh any advantages. If I was involved in aircraft design I might do some simple experiments and considerations to look into it.
Motor car wheels are round for obvious reasons. As a provocation we might say: ‘po wheels should be square’. This is patently absurd and we could dismiss it outright. Or we could play the game and just see if it led to any interesting notion. Square wheels would be impossible for rolling but they offer a much larger area in contact with the ground and this could be helpful in wet weather, in braking or whenever improved adhesion was required. Could we, somehow, keep this advantage and yet make the wheel usable as a wheel? We could: by having an inner tyre which was inflated to the usual pressure and which supported the axle in the usual way. But, as a rim outside this tyre would be another tyre, which was inflated to a much lower pressure (or even fluid-filled). This outer tyre would act like a partially deflated tyre with a much larger area in contact with the ground. Again the idea may not be worth the bother. It might offer no advantages over a partially deflated tyre. But the idea now exists and it can be thought about. It might lead to an even better idea.
For the control of inflation we might say: ‘Po, it would be nice to have a sort of “timid” money which withdrew from the market place at the first sign of inflation’. This leads on to ideas some of which will be described later.
I have introduced the concept of provocation at this stage in the book in order to explain some of the ideas that follow. Some of them are meant quite seriously, some are meant semi-seriously and some are intended as outright provocations. In all cases my hope is that the ideas may lead to other – and possibly better – ideas in the mind of the reader. I am aware that this may be regarded as a clever dodge to defuse criticism – and of course it is.
Since I do not intend to indicate which ideas I am offering seriously and which are meant as provocations (I shall usually omit ‘po’) the negative mind will risk wasting its well-aimed fusillade on what was only meant as a provocation – and hence show its inability to understand the game. The positive mind, on the other hand, will have no such difficulty. The positive mind will accept ideas which seem worthwhile as useful starting points for consideration. The ideas that do not seem worthwhile will be treated as provocations to be used to generate other ideas that may be interesting if not wonderful. I hope I have never seemed to claim a monopoly on the ability to generate new ideas.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, I believe the CYA attitude (only say things bland enough or sufficiently on the side of the angels to be protected against a kick in the pants) is a dangerous reaction to rampant negativity. ‘Po’ is a counter-attack and puts the onus on the intelligent mind to use its vaunted skill in a positive and constructive manner.