We often laugh at a good joke or a well-crafted comedy without considering why we are laughing in the first place; in analyzing the comedy, our minds do the work for us, and we react according to the outcome of whatever process is going on in our heads. If the comedic occurrence happens to align with whatever secret guidelines of ‘funny’ have been hard-wired into our human minds, then we almost involuntarily let out a repetitive gasping for breath that we have been conditioned in this culture to call ‘laughter’. Surprisingly, this phenomenon, which also includes the baring of teeth, does not incite aggression in others around us – as it surely would in most other mammals – but creates an atmosphere which makes us feel comfortable with them. I don’t know about you, but in my opinion this whole humor thing is just plain weird.
With a joke, we hear the punch-line, and nearly instantly, according to a set of unwritten critical guidelines, we judge whether or not the thing was funny, and we involuntarily act accordingly. What exactly is it in a joke that causes our minds to be amused to the point of an uncontrollable fit?
I guess I’m so interested in all this because I recently came across Isaac Asimov’s “Jokester,” an odd short story about the origin and nature of jokes (online here), and it really got me thinking about how humans have evolved to understand the secret language of ‘funny’.
I’m no professional psychologist, and the following really is all just slightly-informed speculation, but I’d like to try to put my finger on ‘funny’. Here’s one of the best jokes I’ve picked up:
“A woman and her three young daughters were sitting around the dinner table when the first daughter turned to her mother and asked, ‘Mom, why did you name me Rose?’
‘Well, my dear, when you were born a rose petal floated in through the window and landed on your head, so we named you Rose.’
The second daughter chimed in. ‘Why did you name me Butterfly?’
‘Well, my dear, when you were born a butterfly flew in through the window and landed on your head, so we named you Butterfly.’
Finally, the third daughter spoke up. ‘AHRJAGUFAAEE’
‘Keep it down, Cinderblock.’”
I’ve always thought this was hilarious, but why? When I look closely, I see that this joke, beneath all its framing, is really just a brain puzzle – a rat’s maze for your mind as Asimov might say.
The joke can be split into two parts, with the first part being the steady and predictable flow of information, and the second part being the sudden shift in the sequence of information that happens to still perfectly follow along logically. In this joke's case, the first part would be the repetitive questions regarding the origins of the daughters' names and the mother's repetitive responses, and the second part would be the unexpected break in the pattern of the story when the mother reveals the third daughter's name -- which still follows the mother's presumed process of naming.
When the second part of the joke reveals itself as something that does not follow the pattern of the first part, the mind instantly goes to work and quickly checks to see if the new unexpected piece of information logically fits with the rest of the information in the first part. Plugging the second part through the sequence, the mind finds that it works in an unexpected way and feels accomplished at its own understanding. As the mind practices its logic like this, the ‘funny’ reveals itself to us as a reward – perhaps an incentive to strengthen the mind with more exercise. Unconsciously, our minds amuse themselves with this little logic exercise, and we can’t help but laugh.
I know I've only scratched the surface of the nature of laughter, and I'm no where close to putting my finger on 'funny', but I feel like I'm off to a good start, and I'm excited to read into the subject some more. If you know of any good sources, please feel free to let me know.
Got any good jokes to analyze?
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