[Guest]

Tell me if I'm missing something, but I really don't get the point of lateral thinking puzzles. They are open-ended and seem very pointless.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is a site for them: http://www.rinkworks.com/brainfood/p/latreal1.shtml

Does anyone enjoy them or understand them?

[Guest]

Tell me if I'm missing something, but I really don't get the point of lateral thinking puzzles. They are open-ended and seem very pointless.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is a site for them: http://www.rinkworks.com/brainfood/p/latreal1.shtml

Does anyone enjoy them or understand them?

Lateral thinking puzzles are for when Occam's Razor doesn't cut it. Usually, when you find a situation, the simplest explanation is the best, but sometimes you do have to think outside the box. That's what LTPs are designed to help you do. I have a book of them that I've read through, but I haven't really done any serious examination of them. I agree with their suggestion that (so long as you find the right group of people) they might be more interesting in a group setting with a sort of 20 Questions style "game." (Though, like I said, I've never tried it.)

However, I think that they could be useful because they train the imagination (if that's possible ), in that they help you see solutions that aren't always obvious, so you can learn to look at situations from multiple perspectives (hence "Lateral"). I think that some of the questions that you are sometimes asked to solve during a job interview can be considered "lateral thinking puzzles," so understanding how they work could have useful applications.