"Lateral knowledge is knowledge that's from a wholly unexpected direction, from a direction that's not even understood as a direction until the knowledge forces itself upon one.  Lateral truths point to the falseness of axioms and postulates underlying one's existing system of getting at truth." —from Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974, 1999, HarperTorch, pp. 148-149