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The Science of Humor
Hugh Pickens writes "The sense of humor is a ubiquitous human trait, yet rare or non-existent in the rest of the animal kingdom. But why do humans have a sense of humor in the first place? Cognitive scientist (and former programmer) Matthew Hurley says humor (or mirth, in research-speak) is intimately linked to thinking and is a critical task in human cognition because a sense of humor keeps our brains alert for the gaps between our quick-fire assumptions and reality. 'We think the pleasure of humor, the emotion of mirth, is the brain's reward for discovering its mistaken inferences,' says Hurley, co-author of Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. With humor, the brain doesn't just discover a false inference — it almost simultaneously recovers and corrects itself. For example, read the gag that's been voted the funniest joke in the world by American men. So why is this joke funny? Because it is misleading, containing a small, faulty assumption that opens the door to a costly mistake. Humor is 'when you catch yourself in an error, like looking for the glasses that happen to be on the top of your head. You've made an assumption about the state of the world, and you're behaving based on that assumption, but that assumption doesn't hold at all, and you get a little chuckle.'"
Now, this is funny: Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Don't expect any replies from the German readership.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/jokes.cognitive.txt
My German's a bit rusty, but so far I get that this joke includes a nun who is stuck in John Mayer in some fashion. Then a dog does something with pancakes.
I need to hear the rest of it so badly./p.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Monty Python - The Funniest Joke In The World
Humor is when you catch yourself in an error
But The Funniest joke in the (english speaking?) World reckons that people from different cultures find different styles of humour to be more/less funny.
So there appears to be a conflict here. You'd expect everyone's brain to be wired to catch the same sorts of errors or false inferences, yet if there's a cultural component to humour that contradicts the "error" theory.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
This makes sense in the context of something I've noticed: the more extreme and deeply-held your views, the less likely you are to have a functioning sense of humour. In particular, hard-core religious people seem to have none whatsoever. If your dogma is so entrenched and rigid, then you aren't going to make self-correction and ambiguity a strong part of your mental tool-kit.
Never trust someone without a sense of humour, kids.
(Of course, too much can be a bad thing, too, at least insofar as maniacal giggling whilst ripping your still-living victims organs out can be considered humorous...)
Would you like a slice of toast?
According to Google, the translation is:
If nunstück is git and slotemeyer? Yes! Beiherhund or the gersput flipperwaldt!
Hilarious.
yet if there's a cultural component to humour that contradicts the "error" theory.
Indeed. Vast categories of jokes make fun of a group (different race, different cultural background, certain hobbies, certain lifestyles, etc.), including this one by the way. The stereotype this plays on is "hunters are stupid rednecks who shoot first and think later". Hunters would probably find the joke less funny but probably the "researchers" didn't define a category for them, so it didn't how up on their stats...
I didn't expect the Spanish inquisition!
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise! Surprise and fear, fear and surprise. Our two main waepons are...
I'm sure you know the rest :)
All the same, I'm not surprised at the North Americans not enjoying puns. They seem to like "long" stories either. Too much phoenetic spelling gives rise to less attention on the basis of the words, although with the Canadians, it is a little surprising.
A comedian friend of mine has said that although Irish, UK and most European audiences will take delight in a story style joke, the Americans have to be forced to understand that *short line delivery* it's a joke, laugh now.
Perhaps there could be quiite a few psychological studies undertaken on why "Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority".
The reason we don't see it so much in the animal kingdom is two-fold:
1. We're lousy observers, bringing our presumptions with us;
2. There's fewer opportunities.
To make the claim that it's rare or even non-existent (in other words, you don't even know) with zero proof (and something that's contradicted by observation of animals at play or interactions of animals and their owners) is just plain junk.
That feels like a different kind of humour - not at one's own expectations being subverted, but at an Other's perceived shortcomings being exploited in a status re-affirming way.
Would you like a slice of toast?
If it bends its funny. If it breaks its not funny..
Baloney. The breaking is funny too, if it's broken well.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. -- Mel Brooks
Get off my lawn.
“We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender.
A neutrino walks into a bar.
Google has a special filter which prevents translating dangerous jokes like that. You should be happy, Google just saved your life.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Americans tend to vote their jokes into public office.
rewriting history since 2109
and laughing
rewriting history since 2109
It is likely hard to test how humorous animals are as their mimic is hard to rate or nto at all. E.g. a raven who has just stolen the food of another raven, hiding behind a bush and watching the other raven upset jumping around the hiding place. If you see how the watching raven is behaving you get easy the impression he is laughing his ass off. However without a brain scan we can not "proof" this (providing we can figure where the humour center / laughing center in bird brain is).
I mean every few years we get surprised by some research that says: figured that a lizard can learn under wich cup the reward is, and that every mistake of choosing the cup leads to a longer waiting time for the next "test + reward". Doh, so an animal with a brain of the size of to rice corns can learn.
With birds, especially doves, they made experiments about counting and simple arithmetic. You have two bowls with a few grains. And a switch that can be activated with the peak of the bird. The test is to let the bird peek on that switch as often as the sum of the two bowls of grains are. The birds learned that pretty fast. One particular case is this: the dove stopped in front of the switch. It had figured it either has miscounted or miscalculated. So it went back to the bowls (now empty) and repeated the pickings in each bowl and "calculated/counted" again. Then it activated the switch successful.
Or you now about this parrot, where a researcher taught a few hundred words? The parrot started to correct other parrots when they practiced "speech". He could understand and make simple english sentences, like "I want to go into the garden", "Give me apple".
My assumption is that most live is able to learn, a smaller amount is "intelligent" to a certain level, and a smaller part is so intelligent that it also has humour. The question is more: why is everyone neglecting this and assuming that we humans are unique?
Another story: a cat is proudly prancing on the top of a roof. It slipped and avalanched down the roof into the roof gutter/rain pipe. After it landed it hid in the gutter for a moment (5 - 6 seconds) then it carefully stuck its head out and watched around: "did someone see me?" was written on her forehead. When she was sure no one saw her she continued to "prance" along the rain pipe ... if she had no humour, how can she be felt ashamed of falling down the roof?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How do you make a duck soulful?
Put it in the microwave till it's Bill Withers.
I think the two are mutually exclusive, unless there's some sort of strange hybrid "I find SQL injection on my Mac to be funny" personas out there.
Speaking just for myself, I find an SQL injection on your Mac would be hilarious...
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
Sorry that I don't know the author, but I've found much wisdom in those few words. Perhaps it explains why puns and double entendre(sp?) are so popular?
I would say that my cat's schtick of frantically crying and scratching at the door to be let in and then casually sauntering away when I open it would qualify. She usually does this at least three times before consenting to enter, and seems quite amused by the whole thing.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
Well, let's see.
Do you mean this joke:
Q: Two goldfish are in a tank.
A: One says, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"
That definitely has a loser: The person being told the joke is made to think "fish tank" by the context presented by the teller of the joke, and then is ambushed by the teller of the joke specifically by being made to know they were thinking incorrectly -- it's a military tank. The laughter comes from the listener when they realize they were wrong; from the teller at the realization of the listener they've been had. Dominance and submission, both.
Or did you have another "two goldfish" joke?
I just gave you one (abbreviated, but pretty obvious.)
Ever see a cat hide from another cat or dog, smack it on the head when it wanders by, and then "run away", but using very high leaps that aren't effective at distancing instead of the ground covering-speed they are actually capable of? That's an ambush, with a victim, delivered as social one-uppance, but clearly below the threshold of actual violence. Dominance. That's humor, straight up. The laughter *is* the "run."
Dolphins not only ambush and prank, they laugh at the victim's discomfort, too. Ask any dolphin handler. It can be pretty rough humor, too. Like, broken-bone rough. That's more of a reflection of just how powerful an animal they are as compared to humans, I think -- the same jokes on other dolphins wouldn't result in that kind of damage. They'll pull you under when you're swimming, spit water in your face, all kinds of dominating pranks.
Parrots... those are considerably harder to explain, as the behavior is, in fact, linked with their use of language, and that varies enormously by the individual parrot. I'm going to punt and say you need to live with one. They're bloody hilarious, though, believe me.
Dogs... they exhibit a wide range of intelligent behaviors (as do cats, for that matter), but as far as humor goes, just play "throw the stick" with one that hasn't been trained to fetch, and see how easy it isn't to get the stick back, and how the dog will tease in the manner of "I have the stick, here, it's almost in your reach, whoops, you're too slow, aren't you?" Straight up dominance, you're the victim, sub-violent. If you enjoy being teased, then we have submission as well (though note how quickly being teased gets old... submission is a hard place to maintain cheerfully.) It's humor.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
According to the article the world's funniest joke is 102 words long. Also, it is claimed that jokes 103 words long are the "funniest" length. Finally jokes with the word "duck" in them also are funnier.
Therefore change "there were two hunters..." to:
"there were two DUCK hunters..."
(Not only have you now included the word "duck" but you've know made the joke the optimal length! Did I really have to explain that?)
My mother-in-law's African grey likes to sound the fire alarm when she's cooking, and calls the dog a "good boy" then laugh when the dog is in trouble. He also likes to memorize a telephone's ring and some of the sound effects from casual Flash games (to make you go looking at your screen). The last dog he used to call by name, sometimes in what I could only call by an impersonation of my wife's voice, often when the dog was on the other side of a latched door or when he had just been told to stay.
Q: Two goldfish are in a tank.
A: One says, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"
Well, I understood the joke differently. I thought the fish was wondering how to drive the fish tank, and found that funny. Never thought of a military tank.
Maybe that is because I'm from Europe, and according to the article, we have a penchant for surreal jokes?
There's a famous story about the African Grey parrot Alex. One of the researchers was cooking a Cornish Hen, at which Alex exclaimed "Oh No, Paco!" (Paco being another parrot). Upon being told it wasn't Paco, Alex then laughed in a very human style.
We would play a game with my grey where we would touch his tail and say "Got yer tail!"
On day my wife walks past him and he pecks her butt and says "got yer tail!" and cracks up laughing.
Mostly they are like living with a 3 year old. One with a very sharp beak that likes to chew things.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.