Tag Archives: Humor

We’ve Got You God!

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Life is a joke. And a damn good one. If you were a God, and you would want to have a laugh, and you could create anything you’d want to, what would you do? What would you create? I know what I would do: I would create a world with little ‘things’ on it, give these things a limited capacity to think, and then just see what happens, just see what they will come up with. Just watch them running around. Each morning and evening I would take a look at them, look at how they deal with the situation I’d put them in. Watching them form alliances, working their asses off, fighting each other and thinking: thinking about why it actually is that they are there.

Think about it: if you would have to create an absolute absurd situation, and you would have unlimited powers to do so, what would you come up with? Probably not a series like Family Guy, right? No, you would strive for the best: for the most absurd thing you could come up with. After all, why would you create Family Guy, if you could create a world, put creatures on it, program these creatures so that they think they are able to discover the world’s secrets but – without most of them realising it – make them incapable of doing so. Maybe you would put a few ‘natural laws’ in order: the law of gravity, electromagnetism etc., or come up with a few ‘elements’ (protons, neutrons, electrons etc.) that make up everything in the creatures’ world, including themselves.

But you would never reveal everything: you would never explain the purpose behind all of it, because you don’t want the creatures to unravel the mystery you have created. There has to be a point at which their limited abilities fail. Them knowing about electrons and other irrelevant entities is okay, but having them know anything of real value would just spoil the fun. They shouldn’t get the feeling that they get it. Just enough for them to believe that they’re the most intelligent things that have ever walked ‘their’ earth. And just enough for them not to kill themselves in total despair.

But what if the creator has underestimated the little creatures? What if the creatures would be able to see through the facade? What if they would come to see that they’re part of one big joke? And what if they would even enjoy the the fact that they are part of a joke? That would spoil the fun for the omnipotent and ever joy-seeking creator, wouldn’t i? So he must make sure that they don’t come to believe that their lives are nothing but a joke: he must create enough misery in their lives to remind them that their pain is real. He must make sure that the minds of the creatures are occupied with impulses to stay alive, impulses telling the creatures what to do with their lives and how to run their societies. Everything to keep their thoughts away from the joke.

But we have got you God. You can quit playing now. Just take some rest and come back to us when you’ve a better one, okay?

But what do you think?

Humor and the Role of Randomness

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Sometimes when I listen to the radio I cannot help but become annoyed by the bad sense of humor many DJ’s seem to have. One day, when I heard the DJ crack another bad joke, I said to a friend of mine, “Damn, that guy has a seriously lame sense of humor“. My friend responded by saying that, “Who are you to say what is funny and what is not? I thought it was funny”. This made me think: why is it that people differ in their taste of what is funny and what is not? Why do some people interpret a joke to be a factual statement, while others appreciate the ironical undertone of it? And what actually is humor? Let’s take a look at that.

Believe it or not, but also the notion of humor has been intensively scrutinized by the philosophical loop. For many centuries philosophers have focused upon the question of what humor is and why it works the way it does. So let’s don’t do that. Let’s reflect upon what we consider to be funny and upon the reasons we consider things to be funny.

The first aspect that caught my eye is that humor seems to have a lot to do with fooling one’s expectations. That explains why Family Guy with its touch of randomness has become such a success. That’s also why many people I know of – including myself – do not enjoy watching 90% of the comedians. They are all chanting a mantra filled with deliberate laughter-breaks and tension-build-up moments. It is the manner in which the jokes are delivered, the robotic “look how good I’ve rehearsed my script” and “I am playing this show every evening” attitude, that spoils the fun. And when you notice this lack of spontaneity these comedians seem to have, it becomes fairly easy to see the next joke coming. And it is from this point on that you stop being surprised and that you stop finding the comedian and his jokes funny.

Humor might also have a lot do with intelligence. You have to be mentally challenged by a joke. You have to be taken on an imaginary journey you know you could not have experienced without the support of the comedian. You have to be fooled over and over again. And the more intelligent you are, the more difficult it might be to be mentally challenged. You might have a pretty lively imagination already, which makes you less easily swept of your feet by hearing a new joke.

The jokes that I find to be funny are the ones that are so bad that, while some people genuinely laugh at the joke, you simply have to laugh about the fact that the joke had the intention to be a very bad one. However, it can be very awkward to hear a comedian delivering a bad joke, with the intention of it being a good one, and to see the whole crowd laughing its ass off.

We now have at least a slight idea of what funniness consists of. The next (fundamental) question would be: why is there even such a thing as humor? The evolutionary benefits of emotions like anger and fear seem to be quite clear, but humor? What is the evolutionary benefit of laughing? Is it better to mate with a funny partner than with a non-funny partner? And if so, why would that be?

Maybe it is because humor is a manner by which to cover your mistakes in a not too harmful manner. Some situations might be very awkward, like shitting yourself while you are in the middle of a group of fellow species members, and can therefore lead to you avoiding likewise social situations in the future. And avoiding social situations might decrease your chances of finding a partner to mate with. In those cases, humor might loosen the social tension and show that you understand and respect your flaws or that you might even feel comfortable about having them. This might increase your level of attractiveness, as would explain why people are looking for a partner “with a good sense of humor”.

But still, it is unsure what the purpose of humor would be. Is it indeed an evolutionary tool to relax awkward situations or is it just another inexplicable feature of human life?

What do you think?