39. What is Humor?

It's the destruction of a pre-conceived notion set up by the first part of the joke, with another, relatively similar but unexpected conclusion. Eg. My dog has no nose. How does he smell? -- you set up the pre-conceived notion that you're talking about the dog's ability to smell (mentioning the nose). The punchline tears this down - "awful", with another, equally valid conclusion, which ripples through, tearing down the pathways that were set up in the brain for the original, expected conclusion to the set of events described. The act of tearing down the connections and allowing others to come through is what causes us to laugh.

It's also a social thing; People laugh more around others. The Victorians used to use 'ripple' seats in theatres where stooges would laugh at the right point to get the rest of the audience running. The is also (unfortunately) the reason why we have laugh tracks - and I wish we'd stop using the stupid things.

Simon Cooke
(From the MSNBC Technology board)

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