Kharakov

Perhaps the roots of humor are psychological pain. When we realize that the pain is not actual, laughter is our expression of relief. Stupidity or strangeness would usually cause us to feel uncomfortable, unless we 'get it' and realize that it is intentional absurdity (not intended to cause pain) or we experience relief that it is not us being stupid or strange.

(go ahead, laugh at my post... )

Ms. Siv

Thats actually true.
More importantly, laughter was a powerful weapon in a dominance hierarchy. You cant threaten the alpha male in more explicit ways. But you can subtly ridicule his pomp and grandeur.

- Sivakami.

John Page

... like in the EOG forum? <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Cheers, John

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Infinity Lover

In the simplest possible terms; it's funny if it makes you laugh (or at least crack a smile).

You will consider something funny if it makes you laugh/smile. By passing on the 'joke' you find out whether others find it funny as well.

Sometimes you say something, or something happens to you, that you may not find funny, but others will.

Or someone thinks they're saying something funny, but you don't find it funny at all.

So I think it's ultimately a subjective thing.

Mr. Sammi

I think why we find it so hard to understand humor is because it exists in the so called good realm and we have so many bad things extant on Earth which masks our ability to properly percieve why is it we are actually laughing. To support this idea I must quote humorless periods of existence with which we can aquaint ourselves through history by quoting wars, plagues and being subjected to various atrocities. Ever heard of a laughing slave OR a good humored captive?

I think humor is an emergent property of a good spirit. Someone highly joyous who has a lust for life always seems to find something to laugh over.

(I seem stuck on emergent properties as of late, ever since I was given a salty taste to savour by someone on this board)

Sammi Na Boodie (scratching my hass for some new idea)

emphryio

Ahem.

What is funny is that which is wrong but is truly unexpected.

By truly unexpected I mean for instance car wrecks aren't funny because the majority of people do take into account the possibility that they can happen from time to time.

On the other hand we assume we can manage to walk sufficiently well, so slipping and falling can be considered funny.

Death is expected.

Miscommunication isn't as expected. Hence a billion bad jokes such as: A duck walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "How will you pay?" Duck answers, "Put it on my bill."

So humor is what is unexpectedly wrong.

THEN, this causes a sort of momentary overload. Where the we realize the number of possible wrongs occurring in the world is even greater than we had thought. We can't take it! And we momentarily "give up". This "giving up" causes a great release of stress that causes euphoria to wash over us.


THAT IS WHAT IS HUMOR!

Whoooosh! (as in this always goes over everyone's head). (Which isn't funny at all.)

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: emphryio ]</p>

Kharakov

Just read an article in Science News today "The Brains Funny Bone" about several regions in the brain that "crackle" with activity when something funny is viewed (they used episodes of The Simpsons and Seinfeld). They used an MRI (NMR) to record data from the brains of the people in the study. They picked the data on the brain activity from a few seconds before and after the jokes in the shows.

Regions activated: left side of brain posterior temporal cortex and inferior frontal cortex- which are parts of the brain associated with resolving ambiguity

a few seconds later...

the insula and the amygdala became active in both hemispheres of the brain- insula has something to do with emotions and the amygdala is thought to be used in memory processing

There you go, a poor summary of the article!

John Page

I remember reading about a study that found repeating a joke would see a shift in activity patterns. The brain learned the joke which stopped being funny after a while.

This brings about the question of the purpose and function of humor (although I guess it could be "accidental"). That's why I suggested humor is Nature's way of getting us interested in the incongruent at the beginning of this thread. This would apply both to funny "odd" and funny "ha ha". "Sick" jokes allow us to explore morality and dual standards thereof.

Just some thoughts...

Cheers, John

Mr. Sammi

I believe our current forms of inducing laughter AND I must assume that the purpose of humor is to induce laughter IS ONLY TRYING to obtain a glimpse of the good spirited side of life. As I proposed laughter is natural to a good spirit and is easily induced by the good spirited (excuse my use of the word good). Because of our current condition as a species we have no natural inclination to laughing, we use our current forms of humor in an effort to project our effects onto the good spirited to induce the laugh. Hence all the various forms of humor, some OK, some not so OK.

What can be thought of what I have written? Is it a laughable position?

Sammi Na Boodie (to miss with a kiss)

Kharakov

The joke was no longer ambiguous.

Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; you know what I mean, you know what I mean?