Humour is a far more complex process than primeval pleasures like sex or food | Hacker News Reader

Humour is a far more complex process than primeval pleasures like sex or food

newscientist.com

37 pointsfogus23 comments

The article points out that people used to think that nonsense jokes were more sophisticated and philosophical than classic, resolvable humor, while the research being reported on indicates that the opposite is true. Which leads me to wonder who used to think that. Because it is obvious to me looking at my son's attempts to tell jokes that nonsense jokes are something kids figure out (and respond to) at a younger age than classic, resolvable humor.

It's like with data structures. Unsuccessful search takes more effort than any successful search.

Jokes With Realistic Endings http://www.mcsweeneys.net/1999/10/13jokeland.html

I propose an amendment to Blonde Joke #116:

How do you brainwash a blonde? By telling them thousands of blonde jokes, until their sanity breaks and they accept whatever you tell them.

Most people learn to be satisfied with their understanding of God, mortality, and the nature of reality by the time they enter middle school. I don't think that makes those subjects less sophisticated than middle school algebra.

You didn't read it all the way through. They mention that experience seekers had more activity when viewing the nonsense jokes than classical jokes.

I haven't seen theories of "philosophical anthropology" independently verified by MRI very often, so it's very interesting to see this -- confirming that all human beings experience humor and find it in incongruity, and thus, among other things, that we learn where a civilization finds a lot of incongruities by looking at the subject matter of its jokes. (It's also refreshing to see something like this with science, not culturally insular pop psychology, behind it.)

So, I'd predict that a civilization with more, stronger stresses should have simpler forms of humor, and one with an easier mental life should range further afield in its search for laughs. This looks like it's confirmed in the contrast between, say, Monty Python and Seinfeld on the one hand, and Restoration English, classical Greek, and Golden Age Spanish comedy on the other; does anyone know enough about East Asian or, say, Aztec (properly Mexica) humor to be able to say whether the pattern holds there, too?

This also suggests that LOLcats reveal intensifying pressures in American social life. Of course, such pressures do exist, so the question is whether we can plausibly suspect causation...

It would seem to me plausible that while your metric may hold when considering society as a whole, zooming in on a subset, especially a self-selected subset, will invalidate your thesis. Every society will have people who love simple humor, if for no other reason than there is a chunk of people who are below-average intelligence.

I'm not saying below average intelligence -> liking LOLcats, nor liking LOLcats -> below average intelligence; I like them too. It's just that you can not enjoy humor you can not comprehend, which leaves them with the simpler stuff. It's a selection effect, one I would think would dominate the thesis.

You have a very good point about the dangers of zooming in, especially on self-selected subsets; but I didn't mean that LOLcat fans are less intelligent. I think that simpler forms of humor indicate, not lower intelligence in those enjoying them, but tensions and stresses that are nearer to the surface of their lives. (Did I mention that "All Your Base" still cracks me up?)

By my theory, Monty Python's "wide accountant sea" is the product of a civilization that is largely content with its lot in the world; but if a civilization finds it adequately entertaining to observe that I are serious cat and this are serious thread, then there are problems somewhere near the surface of that civilization, and the civilization is aware of them.

As an example: at least as far as I know, East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) humor is much simpler than American and English; East Asians are more intelligent than Americans and Englishmen on average (at least as measured by IQ testing), but they have social stresses that are _much_ nearer to the surface.

I also doubt that low intelligence limits comprehension of refined humor. G.K. Chesterton thought that the English peasantry, who were at the least uneducated, were better at telling and at understanding jokes than their social betters; my own -- admittedly just anecdotal -- experience also seems to suggest no correlation between intelligence and sophistication of humor, but a high correlation between low social class and low education on the one hand, and good comedic style on the other.

I think intelligence affects your understanding and enjoyment of humor, but intelligence is not particularly strongly correlated with social class or standing; there are smart garbage men and people I would say are actively stupid running around with PhDs in various things. It is certainly correlated, but less strongly than our instincts-to-hierarchy would have us believe.

(I would also observe the relevant definition of "sophistication" here would have to be something about joke complexity or the subtly of the incongruous connection being made, rather than the explicit subject matter. Someone who never heard of Proust would never generate one of my favorite unfamous Python sketches, the "Summarize Proust" competition sketch, but they can still be subtly humorous in their own way. Or humuorous, as the case may be.)

The title makes this article seem like one of those "good work psychologists, that was obvious to us already" results, but it's actually much more interesting than that.

Truly - this is more neuroscience than pop psychology.

Alistair Clarke probably fits the definition of pop psychology, but his book is a lot more insightful than these findings:

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/source_all_h...

Very interesting stuff. I wonder how they would explain the fact that most people seem to dislike verbal puns. Being one of those people who enjoy them, I never really understood other people's dislike for them and it keeps puzzling me.

I think people like their own puns but tend to roll their eyes at other people's (while secretly enjoying them).

Especially with "groaners", where part of the fun is inflicting the pun on the receivers ;)

There's nothing secret about enjoying them to me, a good pun is like a good steak.

A pun is likely to fall above the speaker's "conversational value threshold" (i.e., is it worth saying?) and below the listener's (was it worth him saying?) because (1) the comedic value is low, but (2) the speaker alone gets the added benefits of inflicting the pun and/or thinking they appear clever.

I actually don't mind a well thought-out pun. However, I choose to act as if I don't like them, for two basic reasons: Most puns are just lazy, lazy puns, but worse, it always turns into a freaking pun war. The horse is ridden, beaten, killed, beaten some more, buried, then the grave is beaten. They also tend to squeeze out all other forms of humor.

Why puns are uniquely vulnerable to this, I don't know, but it's pretty constant. Get two punsters in one place and it just becomes a humor wasteland until the mental thesaurus for the topic of the day is totally, utterly exhausted.

Choosing to act as if I don't like them causes a net improvement of the local ambient humor.

The horse had it coming.

And I think most punsters view other punsters as challenges. And puns are most definitely Serious Business™, so of course it leads to an all-out battle.

My Dad's favourite joke is this:

Man walks into Paint shop and asks for some black paint. "Sorry we only do white", says the guy behind the counter. "Not a problem", replies the man, "im on my bike".

It's great if me or my brother are there when he tells it because we instantly crack up laughing and no one else joins in :)

Is it funny because it's completely incongruous?

The article opens with a similar joke. As it says: some people find it funny, others dont

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