Question(s) of the Day: What is Humor? Where does it come from? How is it used? I submit the following to you:
Humor is the ability to evoke or elicit laughter or amusement. What specifically causes humor is hotly debated, but there are the three most biggest contenders:
Incongruity-resolution-the brain is given conflicting information and must create coherence from the absurdity of a situation.
Benign-Violation theory-humorous statements are violations of our values and beliefs that we actively accept, and we laugh as a result.
Arousal-Safety-our brains are aroused and expects an outcome, only for the outcome to be the opposite of what is expected; it's similar to irony.
Humor is very often used as a social bonding technique. It can also be used to belittle others, or to ridicule ideas. Although a lot of things stated about humor are obvious, what is not obvious is how to achieve Humor. I believe it is about connections: both interpersonal connections and connections between Ideas. We can relate and make people laugh simply because we mention something they are familiar with i.e. jokes about suicide between emofags. Connections between ideas are more important, however, because that allows for high comedy.
On Humor: What's funny?
Bump
This is a literature board.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware literature and humor were mutually exclusive. My bad. I was sure that a board dedicated to the art of the written word had some people with a sense of humor, but apparently I'm a big ole dingus. Thanks for pointing out this is a Veeky Forumserature board, for I wasn't well aware of that fact.
Humor, in my eyes, is an evolution.
Humans are the only creature to laugh, that I know of. And, too, humans have a unique ability to fear not just immediate danger, but abstract ones. We are the only truly anxious animal and such a fear can be debilitating.
Imagine a caveman, coiling at the dim thought of darkness, or of the freinds that do not move, and of the hunger and confusion of a world so much more real.
Humor is the resolution to fear - why do we cry in laughter and sadness? Emotionally, it our release against what we do not understand - and as humans and animals - what we do not understand what will always unnerve us.
So the first man to laugh was just like any creature, with a new pelt or claw. He had a way to camouflage the psychologically terrifying, and it spread by his success.
Interesting. Very possible. I believe Chimpanzees can laugh as well, given that they throw their feces. I don't believe the man of which you speak could have such an ability without his peers also having such an ability in tandem. For example, If this man commits a prank, and no one else around him understands the humor, they might take that prank as an offense. Humor, as you say, has evolved just like any other art, but it comes from the evolution of our higher cognitive function; There is a reason why we associate humor with intelligence. I believe what you are referencing here is Arousal-safety humor, and very possibly could be the first type of humor. Humor very well could be a way to compartmentalize awful stimuli into chunks that are easier to digest.
I see early humor more as a meme. It's less a physical evolution than a psychological unlocking.
I don't mean it so much as a "prank", but perhaps a man laughing at a predator. The predator would naturally be unnerved and perhaps his peers would take notice. Maybe, in their relief, they laugh too. I don't mean a sense of humor as in Caveman A tells a joke to Caveman B, more as to why we physically laugh. Over time, if you're whole tribe is laughing, even the babies will do it. Eventually, you'd have semi-sentient humans with no idea why they laugh, but just picking it up as learned behaviour, and as they cognitively develop in speech and society, verbal humor begins to replace fear more and more. It's interesting that Chimpanzees - as an animal with high cognitive abilities - laugh too, I think that helps the theory, I wonder if there's a scientific study on what the triggers of laughter are for them.
Generally though, there's a strong link between your mind not understanding something and it being funny - humor has a sort of functioning anti-logic, laws of it's own that aren't straightforward.
Interesting. I suppose this is close to the chicken-egg paradigm. Was humor developed naturally(the brain evolved to handle more complex and absurd ideas) or did culture develop our behaviors to laugh at absurdity. I suppose both could seem feasible. There are cultures where people don't quite get jokes or humor in general. Higher cognitive function is required to be able to process such information, however.
The biggest problem with humour (and discussing it) is how absolutely contextual it is (IMO, of course).
The only thing I can sort of see as being constant in comedy is tention being solved through dismissal / subversion of expectation, but then again I haven't really given much thought about it.
I was unclear. I apologize. Did humor develop naturally, or did we develop culture first which unlocked our ability to laugh?
That's why I bring this up however, because it's something that is important and yet isn't readily discussed among people who aren't in the business or study of comedy and humor. You're right, it's absolutely contextual, but the connections that the audience makes between the information presented to them as well as their own life's helps to formulate comedy and laughter. If you cannot connect to your audience, you cannot make them laugh.
Humor is the realization of the absurd packaged into such a dense moment of perception that one is compelled to uncontrollably cry out; it is essentially an impulse function
Lives**
>realization of the absurd packaged into such a dense moment of perception
What exactly do you mean?
Essentially one is reacting to a stimulus with no time to think about its internal logic, and instead has to think about it in terms of immediacy, which reduces the object to absurdity.
It's why all the most effective forms of humor are fast-hitting, although even the slow deliverers operate on the tactical level of producing carefully constructed jokes that surprise you when you least expect it, hence the dictum that "it's all in the delivery" (and not the content itself)
That may be true, but what about absurdist humor, where the listener must evaluate that there is no inherent logic in the premise and punchline? One must, in most jokes, connect the information together in order to form a cohesive thought. By what you're describing, a person has no choice but to immediately laugh without any sort of cognition. There are certainly jokes that simply do not make one laugh, even if they "get it." Reducing the object to absurdity is counter productive in my eyes, because the information is no longer tangible if it is absurd.
Humor, like any art, is about communication. If there is nothing being said or meant, there is no connection or communication of any kind.
>As contrary electricities attract each other and accumulate between the two plates of the condenser from which the spark will presently flash, so, by simply bringing people together, strong attractions and repulsions take place, followed by an utter loss of balance, in a word, by that electrification of the soul known as passion. Were man to give way to the impulse of his natural feelings, were there neither social nor moral law, these outbursts of violent feeling would be the ordinary rule in life. But utility demands that these outbursts should be foreseen and averted. Man must live in society, and consequently submit to rules. And what interest advises, reason commands: duty calls, and we have to obey the summons. Under this dual influence has perforce been formed an outward layer of feelings and ideas which make for permanence, aim at becoming common to all men, and cover, when they are not strong enough to extinguish it, the inner fire of individual passions. The slow progress of mankind in the direction of an increasingly peaceful social life has gradually consolidated this layer, just as the life of our planet itself has been one long effort to cover over with a cool and solid crust the fiery mass of seething metals. But volcanic eruptions occur. And if the earth were a living being, as mythology has feigned, most likely when in repose it would take delight in dreaming of these sudden explosions, whereby it suddenly resumes possession of its innermost nature. Such is just the kind of pleasure that is provided for us by drama.
This has been a super productive discussion. Thanks Veeky Forums
Animals will make specific noises if they are tickled: quora.com
The ability to laugh was always present, what created humor is that the cause of laughter became psychological too, rather than just physical. Why this happened and spread was probably the result of an evolutionary advantage (lower stress, more mates etc) in a few cognitively advanced individuals or just a guaranteed and eventual sense, like one of time and self. Either way, it seems that a "sense of humor" is certainly culturally contextual but has broad overlaps: a subversion of expectation, a sudden misfortune in those you don't like, a reaction to fear. All of these seem like coping or reward mechanisms towards more complicated cognitive risks like anxiety and depression. You could even go as far and say that cultures that were more bleak would naturally develop a better sense of humor as a defence mechanism, and cutlure's with a higher sense of happiness (in a very long term sense) would lack this.
Do y'all think that we evolved our consciousness and higher cognitive functioning specifically because of the development of humor?
I just heard an interview with George Saunders on NPR about his first novel wherein he discussed his conception of what humor is. I've never read anything of his and feel like, based on what I've read about his work, I wouldn't enjoy it, but I found his take on humor quite interesting. I can't find the interview online, though. If anyone else can and would post a link, it would be a great contribution to the thread.
*sigh*
I know that, I know that... that Wittgenstein believed that the most serious and profound...
*licks lips*
*stares pensively*
problems and questions and issues could be discussed only in the form of jokes.
nah, they developed from an increasingly complex sociability in general, and the need to manipulate others.
So did Freud, and he believed in an unconscious...