Friday, August 10, 2007
Humor is Fun
(3)
You would probably think it un(boom)wise to be at war under such circumstances, (tap) and you would be correct under ordinary conditions. I understand.
(Hmm. I see from the previous post that (tap) the published result exactly mimics the format in my blog editor. Strange. Blogger is behaving rightly for a change. Weird.) Next subject:
Humor is fun. Hominids love humor. Why? And what, exactly, is 'humor?' I know, you don't know, so listen up and listen good: We laugh when our neural circuitry arrives at a 'neural non-sequiter.' Let me explain:
It takes a big brain to appreciate a joke. Little brains never get it, but really big brains do. We have really big brains, so we laugh when we 'get it.' The reason has to do with our capacity to 'think ahead.' Our brains constantly 'model reality.' Those models include 'probable scenerios.' That is to say that our brains constantly 'anticipate the next logical moment' in our lives. It's an automatic function of the brain which evolved many years ago because it proved to be of survival value: our brains model the future moment to moment. This has a huge survival value which we humans have enjoyed for hundreds of thousands of years. But why do we laugh?
My conjecture is that laughter is a brain state where hundreds of thousands of possible future scenerios have suddenly been terminated by reality. The result is that many millions of neurons suddenly find themselves bereft of anticipated input. The result is laughter as the brain adjusts to the new situation. Prove me wrong if you can.
This brings up the question of exactly where the motor (among other) signals originate in that scenerio. My guess is that the sudden cessation of massive input forces a neural 'retrenchment' which is expressed (motorwise) in the 'laughter reflex.'
You would probably think it un(boom)wise to be at war under such circumstances, (tap) and you would be correct under ordinary conditions. I understand.
(Hmm. I see from the previous post that (tap) the published result exactly mimics the format in my blog editor. Strange. Blogger is behaving rightly for a change. Weird.) Next subject:
Humor is fun. Hominids love humor. Why? And what, exactly, is 'humor?' I know, you don't know, so listen up and listen good: We laugh when our neural circuitry arrives at a 'neural non-sequiter.' Let me explain:
It takes a big brain to appreciate a joke. Little brains never get it, but really big brains do. We have really big brains, so we laugh when we 'get it.' The reason has to do with our capacity to 'think ahead.' Our brains constantly 'model reality.' Those models include 'probable scenerios.' That is to say that our brains constantly 'anticipate the next logical moment' in our lives. It's an automatic function of the brain which evolved many years ago because it proved to be of survival value: our brains model the future moment to moment. This has a huge survival value which we humans have enjoyed for hundreds of thousands of years. But why do we laugh?
My conjecture is that laughter is a brain state where hundreds of thousands of possible future scenerios have suddenly been terminated by reality. The result is that many millions of neurons suddenly find themselves bereft of anticipated input. The result is laughter as the brain adjusts to the new situation. Prove me wrong if you can.
This brings up the question of exactly where the motor (among other) signals originate in that scenerio. My guess is that the sudden cessation of massive input forces a neural 'retrenchment' which is expressed (motorwise) in the 'laughter reflex.'
