LESSWRONG
LW

by EGarrett
3 min read
74

-7

Alrighty, with the mass downvoters gone, I can make the leap to posting some ideas. Here's the Humor Theory I've been developing over the last few months and have discussed at Meet-Ups, and have written two SSRN papers about, in one page. I've taken the document I posted on the Facebook group and retyped and formatted it here.

I strongly suspect that it's the correct solution to this unsolved problem. There was even a new neurology study released in the last few days that confirms one of the predictions I drew from this theory about the evolution of human intelligence.

Note that I tried to fit as much info as I could on the page, but obviously it's not enough space to cover everything, and the other papers are devoted to that. Any constructive questions, discussion etc are welcome.


 

A "Holy Grail" Humor Theory in One Page.


Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and hundreds of other philosophers have tried to understand humor. No one has ever found a single idea that explains it in all its forms, or shows what's sufficient to create it. Thus, it's been called a "Holy Grail" of social science. Consider this...


In small groups without language, where we evolved, social orders were needed for efficiency. But fighting for leadership would hurt them. So a peaceful, nonverbal method was extremely beneficial. Thus, the "gasp" we make when seeing someone fall evolved into a rapid-fire version at seeing certain failures, which allowed us to signal others to see what happened, and know who not to follow. The reaction, naturally, would feel good and make us smile, to lower our aggression and show no threat. This reaction is called laughter. The instinct that controls it is called humor. It's triggered by the brain weighing things it observes in the proportion:


Humor = ((Qualityexpected - Qualitydisplayed) * Noticeability * Validity) / Anxiety

 

Or H=((Qe-Qd)NV)/A. When the results of this ratio are greater than 0, we find the thing funny and will laugh, in the smallest amounts with slight smiles, small feelings of pleasure or small diaphragm spasms. The numerator terms simply state that something has to be significantly lower in quality than what we assumed, and we must notice it and feel it's real, and the denominator states that anxiety lowers the reaction. This is because laughter is a noisy reflex that threatens someone else's status, so if there is a chance of violence from the person, a danger to threatening a loved one's status, or a predator or other threat from making noise, the reflex will be mitigated. The common feeling amongst those situations, anxiety, has come to cause this.

This may appear to be an ad hoc hypothesis, but unlike those, this can clearly unite and explain everything we've observed about humor, including our cultural sayings and the scientific observations of the previous incomplete theories. Some noticed that it involves surprise, some noticed that it involves things being incorrect, all noticed the pleasure without seeing the reason. This covers all of it, naturally, and with a core concept simple enough to explain to a child. Our sayings, like "it's too soon" for a joke after a tragedy, can all be covered as well ("too soon" indicates that we still have anxiety associated with the event).

The previous confusion about humor came from a few things. For one, there are at least 4 types of laughter: At ourselves, at others we know, at others we don't know (who have an average expectation), and directly at the person with whom we're speaking. We often laugh for one reason instead of the other, like "bad jokes" making us laugh at the teller. In addition, besides physical failure, like slipping, we also have a basic laugh instinct for mental failure, through misplacement. We sense attempts to order things that have gone wrong. Puns and similar references trigger this. Furthermore, we laugh loudest when we notice multiple errors (quality-gaps) at once, like a person dressed foolishly (such as a court jester), exposing errors by others.

We call this the "Status Loss Theory," and we've written two papers on it. The first is 6 pages, offers a chart of old theories and explains this more, with 7 examples. The second is 27 pages and goes through 40 more examples, applying this concept to sayings, comedians, shows, memes, and other comedy types, and even drawing predictions from the theory that have been verified by very recent neurology studies, to hopefully exhaustively demonstrate the idea's explanatory power. If it's not complete, it should still make enough progress to greatly advance humor study. If it is, it should redefine the field. Thanks for your time.

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-7

A "Holy Grail" Humor Theory in One Page.
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[-]kilobug130

Hum, I'm skeptical about all that. It might be part of the evolutionary process behind humor, yes, but I don't think it really qualifies modern humor.

  1. You can very well laugh when you actually expect something bad. Like, all the "hotline jokes" about people calling hotline because their computer doesn't work and after a while admitting that they didn't plug the cable, well, we (people working in IT) do expect that level of "lameness" from some users, and yet we still find them funny.

  2. There are many cases where this formula is true, but where it doesn't generate humor. Like, if someone bakes a cake to me, and the cake isn't very good while I was expecting it to be, it would rarely lead to humor.

  3. Something which doesn't have to do with failure or bad quality would also lead to humor. Like if during a causual conversion with a friend, he would suddenly start using a very elaborated language, it would likely make me smile, even if there is no failure or lower quality than expected, in fact, it's because of higher quality than expected that humor will raise.

  4. Anxiety, like many other negative feelings (anger, tiredness, pain, ...) can make humor (and other positi

... (read more)
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1EGarrett
Hi kilobug, skepticism makes for the best investigation and good discussion. 1. In this case, any old error doesn't cause laughter, but it has to be one that violates your assumptions of what you or someone else is capable of. The example is of course anecdotal so I don't have a ton of information, but I would suggest that most of us, especially people trained in computers, don't expect the a person, or don't find it acceptable, for them to not be able to plug in a cord, or not to check, so that would definitely be the type of thing that would illicit laughter from us...though the more it happens, we likely would laugh less and less and start to just become annoyed. It can also be a matter of "I know you screwed up in some absurd way, but I'll be surprised by finding out what exactly you did this time." 2. Something would have to violate what you were taking for granted or already assuming to find it funny. This is similar to the "Accounting Errors" example from page 13 of the second paper. For an example, you may not have expected the cake to be totally perfect, to where some missed seasoning or so on wouldn't be outside of your assumptions. But you probably did, in fact, expect the person to know the basics of what would taste good. Let's say that you bit into the cake, it tasted bizarre, then you found out that the person had tried to bake it with pickles. THAT'S the kind of error that would violate your expectations and cause you to laugh. Especially if they were right there and they genuinely looked like they thought it was a good idea. 3. This is probably a great example of "first person" laughter, where we're actually laughing at our own expectations being sharply wrong. Like how we might laugh if we're looking for our hat and find out it was on our head. The quality-gap in this case is in YOUR ability to estimate what was going on...laughing at yourself and not the person who exceeded expectations, since you didn't expect that your friend could or woul
1Azathoth123
1. This strikes me as a case of status lose, from a high status customer (the customer is always right), to a total idiot.
0EGarrett
That's likely too. In scenarios where we're supposed to have a high expectation, we tend to laugh harder at anything humorous. The show "Silent Library" from Japan is an example I use, where people give each other harmless but painful punishments in a library while others struggle to conceal their laughter. The expectation of silence and scholarship in the library heightens the humor, and the show is very very successful and has spawned multiple spin-offs. Being drilled that the customer must be respected and is always right would probably create a similar situation when they reveal themselves to have done totally idiotic things.
0[anonymous]
Wrong spot.
[-]Stuart_Armstrong120

H=((Qe-Qd)NV)/A

The equation is almost certainly nonsense if taken literally (see Goldberg, Lewis R. "Simple models or simple processes? Some research on clinical judgments." American Psychologist 23.7 (1968): 483. or Dawes, Robyn M. "The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making." American psychologist 34.7 (1979): 571. for instance), but would indicate the directionality: i.e. what sort of changes would tend to increase or decrease humour.

Reply
0EGarrett
HI Stuart, You can't assign actual values to the amounts, instead it represents the proportions or relationships of the variables. Particularly how a lack of Quality Expectation (such as if someone is humble), a lack of low opinion of the Quality Displayed (in paper 1 we use the example of how many people don't laugh at homophobic jokes or teasing because they don't feel that a man being gay is a sign of a low quality), a lack of noticeability (not seeing what happened or not knowing physics for an inside physics joke) or a lack of validity (if the joke is very cheesy or corny) can all single-handedly ruin a humorous moment, particularly if one of the multipliers is 0. Just as how feeling too much anxiety (such as if your mother just died) will kill your sense of humor as well. I don't see any other method to represent these relationships as accurately in as small an amount of space. So I went with an equation.
0Stuart_Armstrong
I think you're saying the same thing as me...
0EGarrett
Probably yes. Oftentimes when someone says something that I thought was addressed in the paper, I'll try to expand on it or say it again in different words to help the original meaning come across.
[-]SisterY110

I highly recommend Daniel Dennett's (and a couple other guys') Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-engineer the Mind (MIT Press 2011).

Hurley, Dennett, & Adams argue that humor is not coterminous with laughter, and is very much post-verbal and inextricably connected with the human faculty for abstraction and imagination. In short, the authors propose that humor is a reward mechanism for catching errors in abstractions imagined and projected by the mind. We have become connoisseurs of this reward our brains give us for a necessary cognitive cleaning function. Hurley et al. are the ones to beat and if you haven't read the book you definitely should.

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1EGarrett
This appears to be the same claim as the "misplacement" part of the above theory (errors in patterns vs. errors in "abstractions" which in the link that was provided is referred to as "patterns"). The key difference which stands out now, though (before I see it applied to various forms of evidence and humor) is that this version appears to be less elegant, less clear, and has less connection with our common experiences and understanding of humor, so it doesn't fit any of my own criteria for what would make it better as a hypothesis. I also notice this a lot when it comes to Dennett.
1erratio
In what way is it less elegant or clear? When I read that book, I found the idea of humour being a reinforcement method for getting us to update our mental models to be extremely elegant and insightful, so I would be interested to hear why you don't agree. I should add, my general impression of your theory is that it has a lot in common with Hurley et al's except that you think everything should be reducible to status while they think that status isn't anything special
0EGarrett
Well, firstly, this isn't a big deal, but I'll describe it because you asked. In terms of clarity, Dennett has a habit of using unnecessarily complex language, as well as burying his leads and dancing around his points. The end result is that most people don't bother and so he doesn't communicate what may at its core be an interesting thought. A lot of the same happens when people describe his ideas (you don't need to say "coterminous" when you can just say "humor is not the same as laughter," for one example, and be more specific about how they aren't the same if or when it becomes necessary.) Specificity where it isn't needed is a common problem in academic writing. (rather than tell someone that it's "time to go," you could show them a multi-decimal readout from an atomic clock that would accomplish nothing additional). I find it inelegant because it doesn't fit neatly with our common experiences of humor. For example in the book abstract, it's stated essentially that humor rewards us for fixing our mental models. I agree that we have mechanisms that reward us for that, as I've stated in the past that there's a pleasure chemical released in the brain when we make a new connection. But we don't laugh in all those circumstances. (the classic example being "Eureka!" That's that, but not a laugh). What's important is that the new discovery not match your expectation. If it was just about updating your model, it would seem clearly that you'd laugh in the "Eureka" situation too. But we don't. The theory I'm proposing draws a clear distinction between those two moments of mental connection, and offers a (hopefully) logical reason WHY that distinction is there, including other traits associated with laughter, like why we laugh in a way that other people can hear and so on. Lastly, regarding things being reducible to status. Let me be clear that that's the purpose of it, but the instinct triggers in its own way. Similar to how men might be attracted to large breasts fo
-1chaosmage
I find that book not just clear, but positively lucid. Your description of it seems so wrong I find it impossible to imagine you've actually read that book. And by the way: Hurley wrote most of this book, Adams did much of the rest. Dennett just helped polish it and promote it (using his status as one of the world's most influential living philosophers) because it is so obviously deserves that.
0EGarrett
When did I say i'd read the book? There are hundreds of humor theories and as I've said I haven't been able to review all of them, which is why I asked people to detail what they think is relevant so it can be discussed. Similarly, I didn't ask anyone to review all of my papers, but have pointed out and described the relevant points here specifically for people to see. The descriptions I see of the material all fit the style that Dennett uses, which I don't enjoy for reasons I've offered. You're welcome to make a substantive reply with actual points from the book or addressing the points I made. Bald assertions aren't that.
[-]gjm100

EGarrett, I notice that you

  • have proposed (in rather grandiose terms) what purports to be a very simple theory that completely solves a problem no one else has solved before
  • have responded dismissively to every single criticism so far
  • have responded dismissively to a rival theory mentioned in comments

and wonder whether you're aware (1) that this strongly pattern-matches to "crank" in my (and I suspect many others') mind and (2) that this isn't just because we're closed-minded fools but also because those are in fact common characteristics of cranks.

On the face of it, your theory appears to me to have obvious problems. Here's one.

You "explain" puns (unless I've misunderstood) in the following terms: A word or phrase is wrong; but (this is where it's relevant that it's a pun and not just some random mistake) it has enough in common with expectations to be "valid"; this fits our brain's pattern for plausible status-lowering mistakes, and we are amused.

But (1) a pun is no more plausible-but-wrong than any number of mere mistakes that don't produce any humour at all and (2) a pun need not involve any sort of mistake at all; the punning interpretation may... (read more)

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0EGarrett
First, regarding puns, yes that's how I explain them. But puns and misplacements frequently aren't funny...they usually create humor through 2nd person laughter (at someone else's bold and forced punnery, showing either their lameness or utter disrespect for people who don't like puns), or through being layered with something else (misplacement combined with further physical failure) Misplacement by itself is kind of like a hamburger patty without any salt, bun, lettuce or tomato. If it's a wrong enough misplacement, it CAN be funny, just like you CAN eat the plain old hamburger patty without preparing it...but it's pretty uncommon. The "flushed with success" example is a layered pun. It's not just the patty. The person is pointing out first that they didn't use puns, implying that it's lame, obvious, easy or silly, then immediately doing it. This is combined with the misplacement. So you get both him purposefully doing something that he just implied isn't good humor, AND the sense of misplacement...it's a hamburger patty combined with some seasoning, which is what we normally see. Plushed with success might still be somewhat funny because he's failing at punning or still "stooping to it" after mentioning it, but not as funny as "flushed" since that has more pun characteristics. By the way, I'm well-aware that this is one of the least obvious aspects of the theory, and I'm also well-aware that this is the most ripe for me to focus on and try to put more clearly and speak more about. I'm not proclaiming that this is or was stated perfectly, but I do have a strong feeling that I've gotten a handle on what's going on and just need to trim and organize the thoughts on it well. At the risk of overgeneralizing (we're covering a lot of ground here)...I'm essentially saying that yes, all humor is laughing at someone, but it's done for the purposes of peaceful group organizing, so it's not as evil or threatening as that might seem...and a lot of laughter is when someone s
3gjm
Puns I really don't think you're engaging with the actual points here, which are (1) that puns and similar jokes can be funny simply by being clever, without any "misplacement" required; and (2) that even when a "misplacement" is involved, your theory doesn't appear to identify any reason why the pun should be funnier than a mere plausible mistake that no one would be amused by. I agree that the particular one I cited, which was simply the first I had to hand, has an extra layer to it that enhances the humour. I already drew attention to that and made clear that it wasn't the relevant point. Let me try again without that distraction. I'll take, in fact, one of your own examples, the "kidney beans" joke from your longer paper, which I shall modify a little further to bring out a point. Imagine that you are reading a scholarly article on a cannibalistic tribe in some faraway place, and you find this passage: "The Ougalou people consume human flesh only on special occasions such as a victory over another tribe. Their staple diet otherwise is a dish of kidney beans." I suggest that you might find this quite amusing, if you happened to notice it (I suspect it would be easy to pass over without noticing). There is no "misplacement" here; the dish of kidney beans is (in my hypothetical scenario) perfectly correct. It's just funny that cannibals should turn out to eat kidney beans. There is no one here to lose status (the author hasn't made any kind of mistake; neither has the reader). Now let's take an example more favourable to your theory, where arguably there is a "misplacement". It happens to be due to the same person who made the "flushed" pun; it purports (not very seriously) to be a quotation, and it goes like this: <<< "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking copse." -- Johnny Appleseed. >>> So, there's a "misplacement" of sorts here: in some sense "copse" is obviously a mistake for "corpse", and with that "corrected" one has the sort of thing that (say
0EGarrett
I feel that puns, when by themselves, all play off of our misplacement instinct. But not all puns are equally funny. Some things are more "out of place" then others. And the more "obscure" your pun, (the more out-of-place) the funnier it will be. (assuming of course that it's noticeable, low anxiety and the other requirements) I think I know what you're saying though. The "flushing" example fits in BOTH places, and thus isn't "misplaced" by itself in the actual sentence where it's used. That's probably an example of a pun which, by itself, would not be very funny. Something that could be out of place but not really...so you see it as potentially a small chuckle. But if "flushing" had less in common with where it was (rather than fitting in both places), I think it would be funnier. That "double meaning" or "double placement" in flushing might earn a small chuckle, similar to how you might see a button on a computer that looks like candy and suddenly find yourself feeling a tiny bit hungry. Obviously this is a subtle case we're discussing so we might need to speak more. Yup, you're absolutely right, I would laugh at that. I think I did correctly see what you're putting across too. In addition to what I said above, I also feel this is likely the brain's misplacement instinct being triggered by something that looks VERY much like a misplacement. After the fact of course, you may realize that it's not misplaced, but laughter is a reflex that serves its purpose by triggering in the moment to allow others to potentially see the fail and adjust their opinion of the social order. So it senses the potential misplacement and reacts, like how you might feel what you think is a bug on your arm, pull your arm away, then realize it was just a hair. It was the potential thing that caused the reflex. This is a great thing to bring up. Typographical errors CAN produce funny, if they are very egregious, or if they get layered with some other fail. Think of the "Autocorrect Fa
0EGarrett
Can we clear up one thing before we start? You said I'm "replying dismissively." This would imply that I'm acting as though other people aren't worth talking to. I'm posting this exactly BECAUSE I want to talk to other people about it, and I'm going to great lengths to try explain my idea. I also don't see myself insulting anyone...the worst I've said is that I don't care as much for certain other theories because they aren't clear enough, don't reflect the evidence that I think is important, and aren't as simple as I suspect the answer in this case should be. These aren't insults towards other people. To say I'm talking "dismissively" (or bring up "fools" or "cranks," I don't see a fool or crank anywhere) is starting on the wrong foot, I'm not here to engage in insults or slapfights with other people. My enthusiasm is for the ideas, and yes, certainly, for my first thread, I've chosen something that I think could be an important idea and that I'm excited to share. As long as we are starting with this understanding, I can happily talk about the substantial things you've brought up? Fair enough?
0gjm
No: as if other people's contrary opinions aren't worth addressing, beyond saying "nope, my theory is right, and here's why". I wasn't intending to suggest that you insulted anyone, and I don't think you have. I wasn't suggesting that you regard anyone as a crank, but that the way you're presenting your theory comes across as rather crankish. And I certainly wasn't suggesting that you are wanting to "engage in insults or slapfights"; not at all.
0EGarrett
Not worth talking to, not addressing their opinions...I'd put those under the same umbrella. My replies aren't in the vein of gainsaying other people or baldly declaring that I'm right. I've developed this theory for quite a few months now (after being a writer and working professionally as a story analyst for years)...and I've had conversations with a lot of people about various aspects of it. My responses here aren't "Nope, I'm right." They're more along the lines of..."Yes, that is a valid concern that I've heard before. Here's what I determined about it, or why I think the theory can explain that." Keep in mind also, I'm not a perfect communicator. There's no way I can know how other people view what I'm saying or what makes sense or doesn't make sense to others...so I need to see people's replies to know what I should expand on from the theory or put my energy into clarifying. I'm also not going to get into a discussion where I'm being called names. If "crankish" is someone who presents a theory based on over 10-years of work in a field they've studied obsessively, writes over 30 pages of papers attempting to clearly show how the theory works in as many cases as they can imagine...presents it with enthusiasm, and politely tries to clarify the idea, address concerns and discuss it...then I'm happy to be a crank, and I think a whole lot of other people should be "cranks" in that way. I'm not going to discuss anything else related to name-calling. I'm going to address the substantive points in a friendly and respectful way. If you want to do the same, I hope you will stay, if you want to focus on names, this isn't the thread for you.
1gjm
I'm very happy to discuss the substantive points, at least to the limits of my patience :-). I'd thought you might find it useful to know that you're coming across as crankish. I would, with roles reversed. I haven't called you any names. I suggest you may be being quicker-than-optimal to take offence.
0EGarrett
This is natural reciprocal altruism. If I was bickering a bunch of calling names, I wouldn't mind receiving it back. But I'm going out of my way not to do so, so I'm less tolerant of receiving it. Similarly, not every reaction someone has is a sign of personal weakness of them. Including "quicker-than-optimal to take offence." Focus instead on the ideas and not trying to force things into aspersions on others.
[-]Manfred100

A skeleton walks into a bar. It orders a lager and a mop.

Congrats on your first post!

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[-]Dagon50

I have to admit to a pretty strong negative reaction to this kind of equation, containing undefined terms that vaguely relate to common-language concepts. This "equation" can fit almost anything from humor to political leanings to amusement park ride enjoyment. At least provide a unit analysis and a quantitative definition of each if you want me to take it seriously.

References to other research in the area are required, if you're going to present this as "the correct solution to this unsolved problem". Some formal definition of the... (read more)

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0EGarrett
Hi Dagon, The equation represents the ratios and how to increase or decrease the humor of a situation, and does so in a compact form, so there's no quantitative definition, however a "unit analysis" is probably reflected in the first paper (under "so if we don't find something funny, it's because). It's also applied repeatedly in many ways in the second paper. Beyond that, I would probably need more information to know what doesn't come across. The best definition of the problem in the current papers is probably the cover quote, a theory that can consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny, and also reflect the degree to which something will be found funny. A third paper with more formal and specific definitions of each may be a good idea. In regards to "just so" stories, I understand the problem with hasty conclusions, meaning jumping to an explanation that fits a single specific observation without bothering to see if it reflects other evidence, but I don't see how the term "just so story" would refer to a problem apart from that. An explanation that fits multiple observations while also being simple and logically consistent with a likely evolutionary pressure is probably just a decent hypothesis that's worthy of investigation. Lastly, I think the concept here is a simple one that expresses itself in complex ways, similar to how evolution has the mechanisms of variation and selection, which are simple to explain, but which express themselves in thousands of complex ways.
0Dagon
I don't know how to measure any of the components, so I'm not sure how to use this to "consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny". It feels a lot like it could be used to rationalize what different people find funny, but not in a way that extends to forward predictions. Can you give some examples of things that this predicts to be surprisingly funny or not?
0EGarrett
Well, we can take situations where the "equation" is clearly minimized, like if you just found out your Mother died tragically and are crying (meaning extreme anxiety), and see that basically no one is going to laugh at that time. Or that something happens that you simply never even know happened (so noticeability is 0), and obviously you won't laugh at that. If you have no quality-expectation related to something (like if, for some reason, you're trying to talk to a rock, unless you're somehow insane you won't laugh at the rock when it doesn't answer, you would only laugh at yourself if you could picture yourself being so exhausted that you'd expect the rock to answer in the first place), so we can see immediately that the theory can class those situations as "definitely not funny." From there, when we start pushing those variables up from 0, we can see how things would thus enter into the funny zone. For example, a few days or weeks AFTER your Mom dies, if your anxiety starts to go down, and someone reminds you of something funny she did, THEN you would probably start to laugh. This is why, according to this theory, we say "too soon" when someone jokes after a tragedy. The anxiety level hasn't gone down enough yet. Likewise, when you start being able to see the funny thing that previously was out of your vision, then you start getting to the point where you can laugh at it. Or when you start talking to something that you might have a reasonable expectation would react, like your dog ignoring you calling his name, that is where laughter could begin to come in. I tried to present examples that were "far-end" and isolated with the various variables in the equation, to hopefully demonstrate in a clear way how this can function to predict what will or won't be funny. There are of course examples that involve multiple variables or where it's more subtle and depends on our own individual opinions and things and moods that we could also do. On page 15 of the second pa
[-]Stefan_Schubert50

I find this post funny. How does your theory account for that? (No objection, I'd just find it funny to hear your explanation.)

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2EGarrett
You might find the post to be completely insane or an epic fail below what you expected, so you laugh at the poster, or you might find the post to have handled the subject so quickly that you laugh at yourself or at others for not having seen it before. Those seem to be the two most likely situations.
4Stefan_Schubert
I find it funny that humour is treated in such a dry scientific manner, with a "humour equation". I wondered how you would account for that in terms of your five factors, expected quality, displayed quality, noticability, validity and anxiety...but nevermind - it was mostly just a joke! ;)
0EGarrett
In that case it probably felt inappropriate so you laughed at either me or your own expectations being wrong. The quality expected was in how you thought the subject would be treated, the low quality is in either what you saw from the original post or what you found out about your own expectations. Obviously I really meant to say it also, so it was valid, and you can see it fine so it's noticeable, and there's no threat here...especially since we're online and detached from each other, so I think there was no cause for anxiety. The joke in this case that you were telling is likely of the "imagine how wrong or inappropriate it would be if I actually said or felt this," since I think it would be ironic for me to have proposed a humor theory that was laughably bad. I wasn't sure how you or others would take the post, and I also didn't have much "quality expectation" for how people would reply that could be violated by one that was of a certain type. (and of course some anxiety because I certainly wouldn't want this thread to turn out poorly). Thanks for the reply! I just like to analyze things within the theory as a form of exercise, and it helps me understand it of course.
[-]HalMorris40

This discussion would surely be incomplete without some mention of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I am hereby mentioning it.

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0EGarrett
Hi Hal, I never quite laughed at Monty Python, and in the course of writing the theory, I came across the idea that British people probably have expectations associated with people of different regional English accents (from what I understand there's a lot of issues associated with that there), so they can laugh at people who have those accents or perhaps the associated mannerisms doing foolish things (like the "Ministry of Silly Walks" bureaucrat), whereas I don't have that "Quality Expectation." There may be other reasons of course, as I know American people who love Monty Python, but that one jumped out to me and felt like it explained some of my own feeling about it.
[-]roland40

the other day I had to talk to a high status person and was very anxious. He made a joke and I burst out in laughter in a way that totally surprised me. Clearly my anxiety was channeled into that laughter. So more anxiety can also mean more laughter. I think this is a general rule, people always laugh at the emperors jokes.

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1EGarrett
This situation can be very similar to one of the ones with the relative being diagnosed with Alzheimer's above. You're concerned about how the person in question views the situation, which makes you feel anxiety. When they joke, it reveals that they have low anxiety or are in a non-threatening mood, which greatly deflates the tension for you. In that case, I'd say that the joke (without knowing much about it) greatly lowered your anxiety and thus elevated your laughter. It may also be, of course, that there's a secondary evolutionary adaptation to laugh in scenarios where you want to demonstrate social closeness that the theory doesn't reflect. I do think that the current parameters of it can explain it though.
1roland
It seems I got the causation backwards. Lowering of the anxiety increased the laughter and not the other way round.
[-][anonymous]40

How did you come up with the mathematical formulation for humor? This is not specific to your theory but, I think, a question worth asking whenever such a formula is presented and claimed to be fully explanatory - and presenting a flawed formula in such cases can detract from good analysis. There is now a long history in the mass media of "Scientists have found the formula for _" without sufficient quantitative data, as illustrated in this 2004 article from the Daily Telegraph.

And then, one may quibble about the boundary cases of a proposed ... (read more)

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1EGarrett
The equation doesn't have measurable units but instead represents the proportions and relationships of the variables. Any other study or article that uses some formula may or may not be a good idea, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think this form allows me to say the most in the least amount of space. (By contrast, there was a study going around recently that spoke about the "formula for happiness," with the "equation" using what seemed like 10 variables and tons of complex notation that seemed to probably take more work to use than to simply write it out). Re: Anxiety approaching zero, it's not intentional because you can end up in a tangential argument about what feeling amounts to "zero anxiety" then claiming that should make your head explode because the equation is undefined, so I'd rather offer an alternate form just to try to avoid spending time on that. Having said though, in paper 2 we mention Nitrous Oxide which seems to lower anxiety beneath our natural levels and has the side effect of making people laugh at all kinds of inappropriate and abnormal things. So artificial lower of anxiety DOES seem to amplify the overall humor people feel.
0[anonymous]
I am replying to myself because this is a different point, but still based on the question of how anxiety ought to modulate humor. How does your theory deal with the role of humor to break tension or deal with extreme adversity? These situations should probably be considered high in anxiety and thus should be more "humor-resistant" if I understand your theory. As an example, an older relative of mine, having been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's: "Well at least I won't wander off, as I can't get out of my wheelchair". This was hilariously funny at the time, and broke an awkward, painful, anxious silence. Similarly, humor on the battlefield, or among prisoners of war is well attested and also seems to be problematic under these terms.
0EGarrett
A good thing to bring up. There's several reasons this could occur, mainly because laughter communicates to others how much anxiety someone is feeling at the moment. In the example of your relative, you were probably quiet because you don't know what anyone else is thinking, for the person in question to tell a joke (or someone close to it), lets you know that they themselves aren't utterly depressed at that moment and thus lowers your own anxiety. Which probably readied you to laugh as well. An attempted joke at a horribly wrong time, if it's a big enough fail to overcome small amounts of anxiety, can make you potentially laugh at the person telling the joke for their utter lack of awareness. This is why a lot of comedy skits feature people doing stupid things at funerals. At the actual moment when you feel highest anxiety though, such as when your loved one actually dies or the moment when it's diagnosed, I would suggest that you won't laugh at a tension breaking joke. It requires time for that feeling to fade a bit and for everyone to be unsure about how other people feel about things. EDIT: I thought about this one in the shower. There's also the possibility that your relative wasn't joking, in which case you'd probably laugh (and I would too) because you expected them to be thinking much more dire thoughts. And the fact that their own response was a true result of a pragmatic, shoulder-shrugging type of analysis (not having to worry about getting lost due to being wheelchair bound), added validity to the idea that they were thinking about it that way. This would trigger us to laugh at our own expectations being so totally wrong. My own instinct is to say "oh, so that's it?" while I'm laughing, which also points to this being the reason.
[-]9eB120

I'm not sure I understand why it's quality expected minus quality displayed. It seems like something can be funny when you expected low quality and something of high quality is what is observed. Suppose your daughter says she has a drawing to show you, and she hands you something that Michelangelo would have drawn, and you laugh. It definitely seems like you would be laughing at the violation of your expectations, but the quality you expected was low. I guess you can recast it in terms of your expectations about your ability to set your own expectations, b... (read more)

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0EGarrett
Hi 9e, The first example is first-person laughter, where you laugh at yourself for your own expectations turning out to be so wrong, similar to looking for your phone then realizing you're on the phone already. I would hope this doesn't seem like a forced explanation (apologies if it does). We have standards about what we ourselves are capable of, and oftentimes we find out that we were way off-base. I like the example of finding out that you already had your phone because there's no one else involved and it hopefully thus isolates the issue and demonstrates clearly that you can laugh purely as a result of realizing your own errors. The second example is a good one, and that's something that I had to think about a lot. I eventually noticed that those incidents result from a misplacement, which almost always comes from something that has something in common with their surroundings but are noticeably out of place. I think that most often these are combined with some other source of humor, like the misplacement being combined with someone else's mess-up, or a reminder of a mess-up, or laughing at someone's bad pun. I wrote a bit more on this in the papers, right now I'm trying to do several different things so sorry if my explanation of that is jumbled (especially because that's one of the most important and least straightforward aspects). In regards to bullies laughing at the target, I think it involves them not feeling anxiety at the target's misfortune, and usually their laughter (I say usually because I'm not in their brains so I can't totally dissect or make concrete statements), seems to come from pushing the victim to new lows, like making them carry their bags or embarrassing them in new ways. This would put them below whatever quality-expectation the bully has of them. (apologies here, an expectation of very little quality is still a "quality expectation," sorry if the word "quality" sounds like it always means something above average. I know the word is s
-1sediment
This sounds fishy. In particular, it seems like a very ad hoc way to shoehorn a category of joke that doesn't quite fit into your theory - which is a failure mode that seems common to theories of humour.
0EGarrett
This is actually pretty easy to demonstrate though. You can laugh at your own expectations failing when you're alone, as per the phone example. So we KNOW this can happen. Now, let's change the expectation, and we can see clearly that the laughter will change or disappear. For example, when I look at Da Vinci's notebook, who I obviously think of as an amazing artist, I don't laugh the least bit at the quality of the drawings contained within, and no one that I know of looks at Da Vinci's notebooks and the amazing quality of his thought as a source of comedy. The different aspect that creates the humor in the case is your own expectations turning out to be wrong. We know this can cause humor by itself, and we know it's here in this case, so the theory addresses it quite clearly and it seems very well defined as laughter at the self. Here's one more piece of information that strongly indicates this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww2d_o0N62w Here, Michael Jordan, in his mid-30's, dunks on a center, and it makes the commentator laugh. Notice what he says..."Excuse me! I'm sorry!" In other words, apologizing for his own statement or belief that Jordan was no longer capable of that. He's laughing at how wrong he himself just turned out to be. (having said that, there is a separate emotional reaction that's triggered when someone's ability surpasses expectations, which I have as a solution to another classic "mystery" of human behavior, but that's for another topic)
0sediment
There may be such a thing as first-person laughter (laughing at yourself for having a mistaken expectation), but my point is that it seems like a stretch to say that the examples 9eB1 gave fit that pattern (though perhaps your phone example does). I'm working on a longer comment in which I'll explain my points in more detail.
0EGarrett
Well unfortunately we can't reach into each other's brains and experiment on the situations. I've dissected my own humorous laughter relentlessly to find these things, so I have to make some assumptions or estimations when discussing what makes other people laugh...especially given anecotes that naturally have limited information. Does the Youtube video help demonstrate the general principle I'm referencing though? That the commentator laughs after the dunk, but does so as he says "Excuse me, I'm sorry!" as a clear reference to he himself turning out to be wrong...?
[-]Cyan20

I invite you to spell out the prediction that you drew about the evolution of human intelligence from your theory of humor and how the recently published neurology research verified it.

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2EGarrett
Sure, from page 22 of the 2nd paper: "... Now, the reason for this, and what makes it especially interesting, is in what it reveals about the origins of our humor instinct, which is that it clearly evolved not only before language, but also before we had higher brain functions that allowed hypothetical scenarios or sophisticated deception." Our humor instinct comes from a part of our brain that was evolutionarily programmed in a time where our intellect expressed itself in terms of "A," then "B", and get "C." Put the animal in the fire, wait until it smells good, then eat it. Grab the stick, hit the branch, and the fruit will fall." This study was announced a few days ago in Harvard magazine (http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/09/was-the-human-brain-unleashed), discussing the basic parts of the brain compared to the more "advanced" ones in humans. "...the neurons in the sensory and motor areas seem to be playing a game of telephone, in which information follows serial paths, the cells in the association areas use a communications strategy more like the Internet—with lots of simultaneous connections and pathways. Buckner and Krienen looked for a simple way to explain this phenomenon. Association areas not only evolved later in humans, they also form later in an individual’s development." ---------------------------------------- The functioning of our "misplacement" instinct, as I found it in my studying of humor, seemed to indicate precisely that our early form of intelligence, and the laughter that came from, functioned only in terms of A-B-C and recognizing errors in those types of sequences, and our advanced functions that allowed more abstract and hypothetical thinking must have occurred later. The study seems to have used different methods to have arrived at the same conclusion.
1Cyan
Awesome, thanks!
0ChristianKl
When did it evolve? Do other primates have humor? Do dogs?
2EGarrett
Yeah, both other apes and dogs have been found to have their own forms of laughter. It's discussed in the last entry in the second paper with links to two studies. Apes' since of humor seems to be based entirely on physical fails, which makes a lot of sense since their use of tools and organization is limited (so I don't think they'd develop the misplacement humor instinct). Dogs is based on their own forms of play, like mock hunting and chasing and those other activities, so I think it's linked to what they see about your fitness in those matters. Both other apes and dogs are social animals with breath control and, at the very least, an "ABC" level of intellect, so within what I'm claiming, it would make sense for them to develop laughter. Obviously this is something that can be investigated far further though.
2ChristianKl
Do they engage in something like laughing during that activity? It might make sense based on your theory to make a few predictions for different species about which of those species should have something like humor and which don't. If later someone investigates you could validate your thesis.
0EGarrett
Yes I believe the dogs do, but I haven't spent a lot of time dissecting this or being able to study it (maybe I can figure out something the next time I'm dogsitting for my cousin). Here's the link... http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200911/do-dogs-laugh Regarding the second idea, that would probably be something good to do. Look at animals (other than humans) with breath control and consistent physical similarity, who thus have similar social situations as early man where they needed to organize themselves without knowing already who was the worker or the leader, and thus predict that they'd have a form of laughter. I haven't gone into the animal side of it too much yet, but I'll keep that in mind.
2ChristianKl
If you manage to use your theory of humor to get the dog to laugh, that would show that you nailed some universal essence of humor.
[-]Luke_A_Somers10

I've generally modeled humor the way Larson described it in The Prehistory of the Far Side, working from a model he read in MAD magazine - humor is based on simulating circumstances that create a rush that is normally created by abstractions (and thus more accessible to abstract channels humor is conveyed along than, say, eating or sex). The two main abstract rushes are are Social Dominance (put-downs) and Creativity/Discovery (every other kind of joke I can think of).

Discovery channels abrupt reinterpretation of old information, preferably repeatedly. It'... (read more)

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0EGarrett
Hi Luke, That explanation doesn't have much meaning to me. For example, I don't know what is meant by "a rush that is normally created by abstractions"), does this mean the rush of finding a new idea? We can certainly get a rush from learning something new, but I wouldn't always laugh in those circumstances. One of my criteria when working on this was that I wanted something that was simple and logical. This of course, doesn't mean that it's automatically correct (or that a complex answer is wrong), but I always felt like things that were that common and widespread probably are the result of some widespread and common evolutionary pressure that we could recognize. I also felt that the likely answer would have something in common with all the sayings and common understandings that we have about humor. Like that we "laugh AT" people, that sometimes people are offended by it, and so on. I thought there was valuable information there about how it functions and the roles it plays, and a "right answer" would probably jibe with those. But I'm not entirely clear on how the Larson concept works and would probably have to see a lot more clear examples of demonstrations of how it works to be able to get a grasp for it.
0Luke_A_Somers
Setup: So a young hippie, the (Respected Elderly Leader Figure) RELF, and (The Butt of the Joke) TBotJ are on a small airplane when suddenly the engine explodes. Before they can get up, the pilot runs out of the cockpit. He says, "The controls are dead and there are only three parachutes on this plane. Sorry, guys, sort it out yourselves!" Meanwhile, he's at the rack of parachutes, pulling one on. Then he dives out. TBotJ runs forward to the rack. He announces, "I'm (insert why he feels he's so important). The world needs me." Then he grabs and dives. RELF tells the hippie, (insert appropriately-styled statement that saving young hippie would result in more QALYs than saving RELF at first order) ---------------------------------------- OK, now we're in a pickle. Only one parachute, and the person with high social value is giving up their life to someone with unknown, probably low value. This is characteristically self-sacrificing of them, but we might expect that, inspired by the example, the hippy might make some sort of counterargument. What we wouldn't expect is a much better solution: --- punch line: "Don't worry, man. TBotJ just dove out of the plane with my backpack!" ---------------------------------------- Thus implying there are two parachutes left after all, so everything's okay. +! BUT wait a moment. How could TBotJ have not noticed that this was a backpack? Doesn't make sense. +! BUT wait a moment. Don't some hippies have really large backpacks with lots of doodads on them? Not so crazy. OR yeah, TBotJ is really that dumb +! The quality of the landing of the joke depends on whether the listener jumps through these hoops. Next example: ---- Setup: The Mad Hatter asked: Why is a raven like a writing desk? ---------------------------------------- At this point we recognize it's a riddle. Maybe we've heard the usual answers "Poe wrote on both" or whatever the other one is. Maybe we're trying to think of a new one. But we get instead... --- pu
0EGarrett
Okay, what we can do is compare the predictions of the two theories in relation to these. If they both have similar results (since they both mention pattern-breaking/misplacement), I think we can look instead for places where they might differ, or look for examples that might apply to one and not the other. Should we start with one? The first joke is unclear because "QALY" isn't explained, but I think I can fill it in well enough. We'll use a Hippie, Gandhi, and Justin Bieber for the butt of the joke. (apologies if you're a Beiber fan). Plane breaks, pilot runs out, says there's only three parachutes and grabs one. Beiber then says "I have 10,000,000 twitter followers! And grabs another parachute and jumps." Gandhi then tells the Hippie, "you are young, so you can create more happiness," and tries to give him the last parachute. And the Hippie simply shows him two more parachutes and says "It's okay dude, Beiber took my backpack." According to the theory I've posted, this is a layered joke with multiple detectable errors (quality gaps)...in both Beiber turning out to be fatally wrong, and in the listener expecting the Hippy to give an argument back to Gandhi. The reference to the listener having to jump through the hoops is probably nearly the same as saying that the listener has to have the expectation that Beiber didn't make a mistake and that the joke was going elsewhere. In this theory (my theory, the posted theory, whatever), I may be able to say that we get additional information about what makes the joke work. Since it states also that the listener must, for example, not be worried about Beiber (or the butt of the joke) dying. So if you used for example, the listener's child as the butt, they're a lot less likely to laugh. ---------------------------------------- Okay. This seems to be a distinction between the two theories where one could potentially give more accurate information about what makes the joke funny/unfunny then the other. What does this
0Luke_A_Somers
Oi, maybe I shouldn't have led with that one. It touches on put-down humor, which is what yours is best at and this is weakest at. (btw, QALY = quality-adjusted life years, a measure often used for comparing the effectiveness of interventions, especially medical or rescue interventions. Basically, 'you have more life left to live') Try the third one. We know it's a joke, so the reason is going to be dumb. This is about middle-of-the-road in just how dumb it might be, so there's no real difference in quality, just content. It went in an unexpected direction - so yes, you have a difference, but since it's not a better or worse direction, it's not a quality difference. If you're anxious, your joy-of-discovery would be swamped by fear-of-loss. I think the two come out around the same on that one.
0EGarrett
Ah, got it. By the way, I like the "low in search order" concept you mentioned above. This is similar to something I just noticed about this theory, which is that puns that are closer to what we already think (like for example, seeing "ass" in the word Association), are less effective than ones that are further down. I think this has to do with what we label as a joke being "too easy" and thus not as funny. Or I guess a pun being too easy. Anyway...the third joke. This "kets" joke is a bit more difficult for me to analyze since, as a non-physicist, I don't know the terms...so I don't have access to my own instinct to test the reaction. I can analyze why I DON'T laugh much easier than why I would. However, I think I can say a couple things from what I think would be funny if I did get it. I think you're right, first of all, that we KNOW a joke is coming (though I think we agree that in most cases it's more effective when we don't know it's coming). But we know it's coming and I think for people who know the terms it will still have humor. In this case, I think that what's important is that we don't know WHAT the joke will be, even when we know it's coming. Like being in the dark and fighting, you may KNOW a punch is coming, but if you don't know from where, it can still catch you off-guard. Now, I think this is a "layered effect", but almost superficially. I mean it takes the form of presenting an imaginable scenario of someone doing something very wrong (burning her ket). But that image doesn't immediately spring to mind for me. Maybe if I knew the term though, it would. Is a bracket/ket printed on a piece of paper? I think that would make it more imaginable (valid by the topic theory) and funnier. But beyond that, I think it's also largely a pun. Just as you COULD potentially picture the girl's error, the joke-teller is making an error themselves by putting a word where it's not supposed to be. This is a minor error of course, so it's a situation where I'd l
0Luke_A_Somers
The thing is, with a pure 'surprise' interpretation, it doesn't matter that you know there's a joke. There can't be any preparation - there will be a large deviation from expectations because the possibilities are all over the place. If you focus 'quality', then you can get a good estimate in advance and end up with a small difference.
0EGarrett
I'm pretty sure I agree with what you're saying, but I don't know exactly what you're referring to with this paragraph.
1Luke_A_Somers
You can have two very different ideas of very similar quality. Your theory predicts that finding one instead of the other can't be funny. That seems off to me.
0EGarrett
OH, okay I think I get it. You're saying that we might expect to find A, but instead find B in its place, and be may not actually be a bad thing, therefore it's not necessarily a sign of low-quality and this seems odd given the theory? Since "kets" isn't necessarily a stupid thing in and of itself? In that case, the act of misplacement can be an error even if the thing that's incorrectly there isn't a foolish thing. Like for example, let's say someone signs up for a speech by John Edward, thinking it's the psychic medium, and he wants to investigate. Instead when he gets there, it turns out to be the ex-presidential candidate John Edwards. In this case, John Edwards, the presidential candidate, is more respectable (IMO) then John Edward, but you still might laugh at the error, simply because it was still you not ending up where you intended to be. Now, if this is the issue (it may not be, if I misunderstood please clarify), I think the reason is that misplacement, including puns, are often found in "layered humor," where you can detect other signs of error or foolishness or low-quality by the people involved, along WITH the misplacement. You see this a lot in jokes and humor because it's extra funny. For example, someone might mistake one button for another on the elevator in a way that's funny...and AS A RESULT have the elevator close on their foot while they're trying to leave and make them fall. This is a layered misplacement joke that leads to further physical failure. You'll see that MUCH more often, because misplacement by itself isn't as funny...BUT a simple misplacement can still be funny. It's like hamburger patty. You can eat it without the bun and the lettuce and tomato...but you don't see that happening very often. If this isn't the issue you're bringing up, I apologize and maybe you can clarify for me.
0Luke_A_Somers
I guess I just see this broad wide open polydimensional space of ideas and humor, and you're condensing it down into a single line. It just doesn't seem right.
0EGarrett
...a single line that expresses itself in a broad wide open polydimensional space of ideas and humor. In the second paper we listed 40 examples of different "blooms" from this single seed. There are countless more. I don't think this is unprecedented at all. Take the Theory of Evolution. It's amazing to me (and of course what we're discussing is even just a small slice of its results). The whole of Evolution is also a single line (variation and selection) that expresses itself in thousands and even millions of ways. I'll continue thinking about what you've said.
0[anonymous]
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0EGarrett
From this article I see them referencing that there is joy in creating and recognizing new patterns, which I agree with and makes some logical sense. But "abstractions" by itself is very different, which can be just a representation of one thing in another medium, and which doesn't logically generate pleasure. The words "abstraction" or "abstract," also, according to my search function, don't appear on that page. Given that these can be unclear topics, we sometimes have to take care with our words.
[-]ChristianKl10

What is exactly do you mean with "humor"? There are many things that get people to laugh that traditionally aren't called jokes. Schadenfreude would be an example.

Is your theory supposed to account for non-joke instances that get people to laugh as well as joke instances?

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0EGarrett
There are non-humorous instances of laughter, like tickling for one. But I think Schadenfreude is very definitely humor. It simply requires that you have enough emotional distance from the person who failed that you don't feel anxiety as a result of what happened to them. Naturally, this is considered cruel by some people, because it indicates a lack of empathy or low-anxiety related to someone else's pain. But if you do have that lack of empathy or low-anxiety in those cases, your humor instinct will almost definitely be what's triggered by Schadenfreude.
2ChristianKl
Let's say I sit down with a shy person. We have some discussing and then I say nothing. While I say nothing anxiety is likely to raise in the shy person because of uncomfortable silence. Often when that anxiety is high enough the person starts laughing to reduce the tension of the interaction. Is that humor?
0EGarrett
I have that under "nervous laughter" in the second paper. People will often forcibly laugh in tense moments (like when confronted by a bookie to whom they owe money) to try to show or establish a low anxiety situation. We can do this any time though, so I don't think it's humorous, just a purposeful put-on.
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