by yadda yadda 2 14 Replies latest jw friends
What is humour? How do you define it?
What is the purpose of it? What function does it serve?
How do evolutionists explain it? Animals don't have it, yet it's so fundamental to human nature. Why do we have 'humour'? What is this thing called 'funny'?
I believe their are healing powers in humor.
that's all I got.
lisa
humour is the same as sound. - it needs something like an ear drum to receive it. of a tree falls in the woods and no one is there will anyone hear it? - sound is only created by vibrations off the ear drum.. is humour the same? something that can be interpreted as funny, but there has to be someone there to interpret it?
of a tree falls in the woods and no one is there will anyone hear it?
i meant 'if' and I meant will it make a sound. sorry, I'm poorly
There were three guys stranded on an island, a Rabbi a Priest and a Minister
Researchers have identified 8 basic patterns that create what we call "humor"
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/ph-uri031809.php
Contact: Nicola Hern
[email protected]
44-798-009-8652
Pyrrhic House
Evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke has today published details of eight patterns he claims to be the basis of all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or personal taste.
Clarke has stated before that humour is based on the surprise recognition of patterns but this is the first time he has identified the precise nature of the patterns involved, addressing the deceptively simple unit and context relationships at their foundation. His research goes on to demonstrate the universality of the theory by showing how these few basic patterns are recognized in more than a hundred different types of humour.
Clarke explains: "One of the most beautiful things about the theory is that, while denying all previous theories, it also unites them for the first time. For decades researchers have concentrated on limited areas of humour and have each argued for causality based on their specific interest. Now that we have pattern recognition theory, all previous explanations are accommodated by a single over-arching concept present in all of them.
"The eight patterns divide into two main categories. The first four are patterns of fidelity, by which we recognize the repetition of units within the same context, and the second four are patterns of magnitude, by which we recognize the same unit repeated in multiple contexts.
"What this all means is that the basic faculty of pattern recognition equips us to compare multiple units for their appropriateness within a certain context, effectively selecting the best tool for the job, and then to apply our chosen unit to as wide a range of contexts as possible, effectively discovering the largest number of jobs that tool is good for.
"Basically humour is all about information processing, accelerating faculties that enable us to analyse and then manipulate incoming data."
Clarke lists the patterns that are active in humour as positive repetition, division, completion, translation, applicative and qualitative recontextualization, opposition and scale.
"Some are more intuitive than others," he admits. "The most basic, positive repetition, simply means that the unit is repeated in a similar form with the same purpose. As with all patterns, the repeated unit can be composed of any information available to the human brain, whether an entity, action or property. Then there's opposition, in which we take the unit and turn it against itself, such as can be seen in a mirror image or if we turn an arrow back to point in the other direction, producing a pattern of symmetry. However, while all the patterns are relatively simple in structure the activity of some forms of translation and recontextualization can seem counter-intuitive at first sight.
"In instances of humour these patterns may be recognized individually or in any possible combination of the eight. Most instances are founded on one or two, although theoretically there is no limit to the number of patterns a person has recognized when they find something funny. Pattern recognition remains a subjective matter, just like any other perception."
Details of the patterns and how they relate to more than a hundred forms of humour are published today in 'The Eight Patterns Of Humour', which is also available as a free eBook from the publisher's website at www.pyrrhichouse.co.uk/eightpatterns for a period of 30 days.
"The patterns reflect vitally important cognitive frameworks. Those of fidelity provide us with a basic arithmetical toolkit, while those of magnitude provide everything required to develop syntactical systems. Pattern recognition is in many ways pattern cognition, since the promotion of patterns through the reward systems associated with humour has massively accelerated humankind's ability to order and manipulate multiple units for multiple uses. Put like that, there are few better ways to express human ingenuity and adaptability."
This publication is one of several within a series regarding Clarke's Pattern Recognition Theory Of Humour, which posits the fundamental role humour has played in the development of the intellectual and perceptual capacities of the species.
The theory is based on extensive observation and analysis. "While countless thousands of instances were informally considered over the years, ten thousand specific instances were analysed in a single document known as 'The Humour Ten Thousand'."
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This document is currently being prepared for publication and is to be made publically available on the internet during 2009. Due to its substantial length (around 1500 pages) the document will be published in sections of 1000 instances throughout the year. For more information about Clarke's research visit www.pyrrhichouse.co.uk/research.
This is what humor means to an actor. This is taken from Audition by Michael Shurtleff, page 74:
"Humor is not jokes. It is that attitude toward being alive without which you would long ago have jumped off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.
Humor is not being funny. It is the coin of exchange between human beings that makes it possible for us to get through the day. Humor exists even in the humorless...
One would sometimes think actors are trying to reverse the life process by what they do onstage. They take humor out instead of put it in. That's what makes acting unlifelike. I have trouble believing in the seriousness of a scene in which there is no humor; it is unlike life. And yet actors will say to me, "How can I find humor in this scene? It's very serious!" For the exact same reason one would be driven to find humor in the same situation in life: because it is deadly serious and human beings cannot bear all that heavy weight, they alleviate the burden by humor.
Sometimes we lighten the burden for others because of the weight we are dumping on them, which we know is more than they can possibly want. Sometimes we lighten the burden for ourselves. Either way, the heavier the situation, the more we are needful of humor to endure it."
So we may have defined it...but where did it come from?
If we evolved, how did we evolve a "funny-bone"
Creativehoney said:
of a tree falls in the woods and no one is there will anyone hear it?
i meant 'if' and I meant will it make a sound. sorry, I'm poorly
Just one thought on this question I know it doesn't really relate to the original topic.
Sound is a physical phenominum it is wave patterns just as radio waves, magnetic waves, and radiation waves are constantly around us. We have only been designed to pick up in a sensory fashion sound waves. Thank God or goodness or whatever for that. Imagine picking up radio waves on all frequencies, it would drive us crazy within an hour.
Whether there is a reception device present IE: ear or not these things do exist.
