Hwæt. I've been thinking about humor, why humor exists, and what things we find humorous. I've come up with a proto-theory that seems to work more often than not, and a somewhat reasonable evolutionary justification. This makes it better than any theory you can find on Wikipedia, as none of those theories work even half the time, and their evolutionary justifications are all weak or absent. I think.

So here are four model jokes that are kind of representative of the space of all funny things:

"Why did Jeremy sit on the television? He wanted to be on TV." (from a children's joke book)

"Muffins? Who falls for those? A muffin is a bald cupcake!" (from Jim Gaffigan)

"It's next Wednesday." "The day after tomorrow?" "No, NEXT Wednesday." "The day after tomorrow IS next Wednesday!" "Well, if I meant that, I would have said THIS Wednesday!" (from Seinfeld)

"A minister, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, 'Is this some kind of joke?'" (a traditional joke)

It may be noting that this "sample" lacks any overtly political jokes; I couldn't think of any.

The proto-theory I have is that a joke is something that points out reasonable behavior and then lets the audience conclude that it's the wrong behavior. This seems to explain the first three perfectly, but it doesn't explain the last one at all; the only thing special about the last joke is that the bartender has impossible insight into the nature of the situation (that it's a joke).

The supposed evolutionary utility of this is that it lets members of a tribe know what behavior is wrong within the tribe, thereby helping it recognize outsiders. The problem with this is that outsiders' behavior isn't always funny. If the new student asks for both cream and lemon in their tea, that's funny. If the new employee swears and makes racist comments all the time, that's offensive. If the guy sitting behind you starts moaning and grunting, that's worrying. What's the difference? Why is this difference useful?

“To believe that the phenomenal world, the world you actually live in, is a fiction, while an invented "physical" world, for which no evidence exists, is the real world, is not merely wrong, it's an irrationality which makes a complete mockery of the goals of this website.”

This seems to be the root of the problem. How do you start to argue with this statement? Why would anyone choose the map rather than the territory as their foundation? Why engage in science if you are not willing to accept the inferences that it makes about reality? Am I not going to believe in atoms because it doesn't match what I see with my eyes? If there is no evidence of the physical world then why don't you walk through walls? Do you have any explanations of illusions? Talk about making a mockery of rationality!

If we want to be rational then lets start with: consciousness is real and important but not yet explained by science, however we assume (at least for now) that the explanation is possible in materialistic terms. We can make this assumption because science is making steady progress in understanding brain function, (starting a decade or so ago) and when science makes steady progress it usually ends up with an explanation in materialistic terms.

There is evidence that the "real" world exists, for most reasonable uses of the term "evidence".

Perhaps it would be instructive to think for a moment about why these people, who probably experience the world just as well as you do, have come to accept proposed explanations of consciousness.

It would also be nice if you'd engage these proposed explanations instead of saying that anyone who disagrees is in denial.

Dennet clearly thinks a lot about why other people think that qualia are real things that must be explained. He also makes it a point of engaging these intuitions and showing that they often fall apart under scrutiny rather than assuming that somehow they all must be correct.

The heterophenomenological program is to hit Ignore on that experience.

What do we call it when people experience the qualia 'Irk' upon more exposure to the same old 'qualia' stuff rehashed and hit 'Vote down' then Ignore it? It seems to be working for them.

I don't understand where this perceived confusion comes from (despite, or because, I read much of the relevant literature).

If we have an electronic device that emits light at 450THz and another that detects light and reports what "color" it is (red), then we can build/execute all of that without accounting for "redness" (except of course in the step where it decides what to call the "color"). Is there a problem here?

Is color a special topic here? Do we have the same issues in phenomenology of sound?

If we have an electronic device that outputs sound at 264.298 Hz and another that detects sound and reports the "musical note" (middle C) then we can build/execute all of that without reference to "middle C -ness". Is this a problem?

I very much suspect it's woo, but in any case it's written for a wrong audience. Mixing physics and thought raises red flags. Downvoted.

Also contains a very odd fact (?) about children.

Are you talking about the bit about imaginary friends on page 5?

Jaynes postulates, in passing, a genetic basis for bicamerality (which I assume you mean by "this kind of thinking"), for instance p.311: "...there was probably a strong genetic basis for this type of remaining bicamerality. It is, I think, the same genetic basis that remains with us as part of the etiology of schizophrenia".

Does that help ?

To defend or critique Jaynes properly (well, any better) I'd have to reread him. I picked up his book out of curiosity a few years ago when I was going through Dennett's consciousness books; he cites Jaynes approvingly a few times. However, Dennet does not directly cites his bicameral theory, just his contention that language (more specifically "a capacity for self-exhortation") played a key role in the development of minds capable of formulating plans. The other hook was Stephenson's "Snow Crash", which features Jaynes' theory prominently.

On that topic, I'd be curious to know how many LWers are familiar with the thesis of the other Jaynes - that is Julian Jaynes, the author of "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" - and what y'all make of that thesis.