Isn’t it not entirely rational to declare something so unequivocally, based on: “Our best guess...”?
Nope. That we can only guess means we don’t understand; what we don’t understand, we ought to analyse, rationally if at all possible.
“Rene Descartes died, therefore he stopped thinking” isn’t funny.
This section in quotes is the only conclusion you can draw from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Humans are familiar with the concept that death stops brain function, so the section outside the quotes is invariant over all subjective viewpoints. Therefore, someone trying to make a joke about Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” is almost certainly going to commit some form of logical fallacy, because the only non-fallacious route isn’t a joke. That is, “joke” strongly implies “fallacy”, because “correct” strongly implies “not funny” (implicit assumption that “funny” is a necessary condition for “joke”).
“What we don’t understand, we ought to rationally analyze....”
Absolutely.
And what “our best guess” imples to me is that we don’t fully understand “funny” or “joke” or “comedy” So we ought to rationally analyze that issue. What I feel you did there was you took your interpretation of “our best guess” as good enough and moved forward with unequivocated confidence to apply it to a joke that someone wrote. I feel like there is a procedural lapse there. You were anayzing The Joke At Hand, while admitting that we do not really understand “jokes in the abstract”.
Thus: we don’t understand what makes certain bird sounds pleasing to people, but I am going to make an unequivocated statement that this bird sound is objectively not pleasing, based on our best guess.
anyway...
“Rene Descartes died, therefore he stopped thinking” … is the only conclusion you can draw from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”.
You are assuming a causality that the “being” creates the “thinking”. One could also assume that the thinking creates the being, which is where the joke forms.
I personally think it’s neither: “thinking” is evidence of “being”, the causality being ambiguous.
Nope. That we can only guess means we don’t understand; what we don’t understand, we ought to analyse, rationally if at all possible.
This section in quotes is the only conclusion you can draw from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Humans are familiar with the concept that death stops brain function, so the section outside the quotes is invariant over all subjective viewpoints. Therefore, someone trying to make a joke about Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” is almost certainly going to commit some form of logical fallacy, because the only non-fallacious route isn’t a joke. That is, “joke” strongly implies “fallacy”, because “correct” strongly implies “not funny” (implicit assumption that “funny” is a necessary condition for “joke”).
“What we don’t understand, we ought to rationally analyze....”
Absolutely. And what “our best guess” imples to me is that we don’t fully understand “funny” or “joke” or “comedy” So we ought to rationally analyze that issue. What I feel you did there was you took your interpretation of “our best guess” as good enough and moved forward with unequivocated confidence to apply it to a joke that someone wrote. I feel like there is a procedural lapse there. You were anayzing The Joke At Hand, while admitting that we do not really understand “jokes in the abstract”.
Thus: we don’t understand what makes certain bird sounds pleasing to people, but I am going to make an unequivocated statement that this bird sound is objectively not pleasing, based on our best guess.
anyway...
“Rene Descartes died, therefore he stopped thinking” … is the only conclusion you can draw from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”.
You are assuming a causality that the “being” creates the “thinking”. One could also assume that the thinking creates the being, which is where the joke forms.
I personally think it’s neither: “thinking” is evidence of “being”, the causality being ambiguous.