3. Theory of Humor
So Minsky adds jokes about stupidity. Freuds advocate could explain jokes about stupidity as manifestations of aggression against other people - stupid
things you do are never funny. I wouldnt call it a strong argument though. Minsky also shifts attention from urges to social prohibitions a bit; this raises the
level of intelligence in the reasons, and includes jokes about stupidity in an integrated manner.
Humor is the thought that there is a mistake, and this then produces laughter and good feelings.
Thus, we must add to our theory: Humor is produced by the thought that there is a mistake, but one which is not bad or harmful. This then produces
laughter and good feelings. Once the mistake is seen to be harmful, it is no
longer humorous. For example, we laugh if someone slips on a banana peel, but stop laughing if a leg is broken. Thus, for something to be humorous, we must not
take the mistake seriously, or as being bad. If we are too serious a negative emotion, we will not laugh at a joke. To be too serious is to say, This is bad or
fearful. There are also many other negative thoughts which may block humor. Shakespeare asked, Do you know the difference between a bitter fool and a sweet
fool? King Lear i.4.151 The mistakes of life create tragicomedy which if accepted create humor and insight, but if not accepted create tragedy.
In summary, humor involves the thought that something is a mistake which is OK.
We now know that humor is created by deviating from the: believed, correct, desired, expected, familiar, honest, ideal, intelligible, known, possible, probable,
proper, real, reasonable, rules, useful, usual, and so on. Humor is largely based on things we cannot understand, on contradiction, on nonsense, on meaninglessness,
on illusion, on things being what they are not, and not being what they are. It is as if things which happen are so strange that we cannot even understand them, and so
we react by laughing. We expect one thing to happen and the unexpected happens instead.
A basic form is, A is B, such as, You A are a fish out of water B. We may combine any two unlike things to create both humor and metaphor. Some
examples are: Logic is male. Women are homologous males. Space is a box with
no top, bottom, or sides. Fish are the fruit of the sea. A straight line is a flattened circle. Jealousy is chemical.
Metaphors are humorous because what appears to be nonsense turns out to make sense. Our weeds turn into flowers, our humor into insight.
The types of metaphor are also the types of humor.
Each type of humor already given is also a type of metaphor. For example, virtually all deviations are
metaphors
Ya smetimes difficult enough to find a humor expression ; we may see from from the culture view or the slank of the the style of language itself.
4. Grices THeory of CP CP CP CP