Bob's Humor Playground

NOTE - WHAT IS HUMOR? Humor is an ongoing mystery that many philosophers have tried to solve. Many thinkers and supposed-thinkers have thought that the ability to find things funny and to laugh is a defining characteristic of the human race:

• 👑 THE SUPERIORITY THEORY: Plato and Aristotle thought that humor was saying or doing something to make one feel superior to someone else (or to one’s former self).

• 💨 THE RELIEF THEORY: Spenser saw humor as the release of bottled up energy, and Freud saw humor as a release of the constraint that was confining that energy.

• 🧩 THE INCONGRUITY THEORY: Kant and Schopenhauer looked at humor in terms of the unexpected – the pleasure of experiencing a cognitive shift.

• 🪁 THE PLAY THEORY: Many modern experts see humor as something that has evolved from and continues the play of animals and children.

• 🔄 THE DISPOSITION/REVERSAL THEORY: Since there is a double take or reassessment of an incongruity that occurs when a someone is properly disposed for humor, some experts think in terms of this.

• 🛑 THE HEURISTIC INTERRUPTION THEORY: Some humor theorists think of humor as an interruption of an automatic reaction thought process by conscious reasoning as an incongruity is perceived, and the riddle it contains is resolved.

• 🧠 THE DEBUGGING/GROOMING THEORY: Each time that we recognize and resolve an incongruity we experience a small elation that is part of our clearing up confusion in our minds like the debugging of our brains.

• 🥱 THE COUNTER-BOREDOM THEORY: When we deal with an incongruity we are experiencing a new thought that counters the boredom that we have from too much sameness in our lives.

• 🛡️ THE BENEVOLENT VIOLATION THEORY: When we perceive an incongruity, it violates something that we think of as normal, correct, logical or customary - when we realize that it is not dangerous we find it Humorous.

• 💡 THE CREATIVITY INITIATION THEORY: Various inventors and discoverers have described humor as the start of a process in which we bend, break and blend customary thoughts to create something new.

Whatever it is, humor involves a pleasurable exercise of the intellect that facilitates relaxation and alleviation of stress, lubricates the gears of society, and reinforces our nature as enhanced social animals.

INTERACTIVE SPIDER DIAGRAM:

POOLS OF CURATED EXAMPLES TO TRY OUT ON INTERACTIVE SPIDER DIAGRAM (You judge what causes the humor):

IRISH BULLS

QUOTES

COLORFUL ARKANSAS DEFINITIONS AND EXPRESSIONS

SAMPLE JOKES

DOWN TO EARTH SIMPLIFICATIONS

SOME INTERESTING READING ON HUMOR: 

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Humor; 

• “Laughter: An Essay on the Nature of Comic” by Henri Bergson; 

• Stanford Philosophy of Humor; 

• “The Act of Creation” by Arthur Koestler

• "A Pretty Good Joke Book", Sixth Edition (Garrison Keillor) | 2015: HyBridge 

• "Humour, A Very Short Introduction" (Noël Carroll) | 2014: Oxfoniversity Press 

• "The Psychology of Humor", 2nd Edition (Rod Martin and Thomas Ford) | 2018: Academic Press 

• "Wit’s End" (James Geary) | 2019: Norton

•  "Humor that Works: The Missing Skill for Success and Happiness at Work" (Andrew Tarvin) | 2019: Page Two

• "What are You Laughing At?"(Dan O'Shannon) | 2012: Bloomsbury Academic

• "Humor Theory: Formula of Laughter" (Igor Krichtafovitch) | 2006: Outskirts Press

BOOKS ON RELATED TOPICS:

• " Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) | 2008: Harper Perennial

• "The Hope Circuit" (Martin Seligman) | 2018: Public Affairs

• "Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence" (Daniel Goleman) | 2015: Harper Paperback Reprint