First off, I’m very sympathetic to a SoM-like picture where we learn a giant collection of abstract patterns of the form “When your thought pattern-matches to X, then it’s a bad idea to do Thing Y which you would otherwise do.” (Among other patterns.) That seems similar to what you’re calling “censors”, right?
I don’t particularly associate learning those patterns with laughter though. Like, I think back to when I was a kid practicing Olympiad-style math problems in high school: Early on I learned from experience “If you see a problem of this general form, try applying the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality”, and then somewhat later I would learn from experience an exception to that rule: “If you see a problem of this more specific form, then you’ll be inclined to try Cauchy-Schwarz, but don’t bother, it won’t work.” No laughing was involved during the process of learning that; it probably just looked like a kid sitting quietly in his room doing deliberate practice. Lots more examples like that: I know from experience hundreds of questions that I shouldn’t bother googling because I won’t find anything, and dozens of topics that I shouldn’t mention in the vicinity of certain relatives because they get very sensitive, and computer icons that I shouldn’t click in certain situations, and on and on. I don’t think any laughter was involved in learning or reinforcing any of those “censors”.
If the “creating or reinforcing censors” pattern isn’t sufficient for humor, is it necessary? Actually, maybe it is!! I wasn’t thinking this way last week when I wrote this post, but I was commenting here that maybe it’s impossible for a single conscious thought to create both Ingredient (A) an Ingredient (B). So instead, humor (and conversational-laughter) require thinking an Ingredient-(A) thought and an Ingredient-(B) thought in immediate succession, and maybe even flipping back and forth a couple times within the space of a second or two. And maybe the only way for that to happen in practice is that you’re thinking about a single “thing” but flipping back and forth between two different frames / analogies for that thing, one of which (call it “Frame 1”) triggers Ingredient (A) and the other of which (call it “Frame 2”) triggers Ingredient (B).
What does that have to do with the “censor” pattern? Well, during this process, your brain is incidentally learning / reinforcing the higher-level pattern that: “if something pattern-matches to Frame 1, then it’s possible to flip that thing to Frame 2, and vice-versa”. So in the future, you could be thinking a thought that seems to be a good plan, but this higher-level pattern jumps in and re-frames / re-analogizes it in a way that makes it feel like an aversive / bad plan. So if you’re laughing from humor or conversation, you’re incidentally learning or reinforcing a censor, I claim.
Fifth, an explanation in terms of surprise or physiological arousal is over-general. Here’s an example of a story: “I was crossing the street in the middle of the block and forgot to look left. Suddenly I realized there was a car careening toward me with screeching brakes. Fortunately the car managed to stop before I was struck, and everything was fine.” It’s got surprise, it’s got arousal, it’s got sudden relief. But it’s not funny.
When I think of that scenario, I feel like there’s no Ingredient (B). Or if there is, it’s not close enough in time to Ingredient (A) for the two to temporally overlap in the hypothalamus / brainstem. Like, I imagine almost getting killed jaywalking but the car stops inches from my legs. Standing safe on the sidewalk five seconds later, consciously I’d say “I am safe now”, but emotionally I don’t feel safe, or relaxed, at all. I would continue to feel extremely on-edge / jumpy / traumatized for at least minutes and possibly hours after that. Maybe the feeling gradually fades away and (B) gradually replaces it, but I would never have a juxtaposition of simultaneous (A) & (B) in my hypothalamus, I think.
Thanks, that was another really helpful comment.
First off, I’m very sympathetic to a SoM-like picture where we learn a giant collection of abstract patterns of the form “When your thought pattern-matches to X, then it’s a bad idea to do Thing Y which you would otherwise do.” (Among other patterns.) That seems similar to what you’re calling “censors”, right?
I don’t particularly associate learning those patterns with laughter though. Like, I think back to when I was a kid practicing Olympiad-style math problems in high school: Early on I learned from experience “If you see a problem of this general form, try applying the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality”, and then somewhat later I would learn from experience an exception to that rule: “If you see a problem of this more specific form, then you’ll be inclined to try Cauchy-Schwarz, but don’t bother, it won’t work.” No laughing was involved during the process of learning that; it probably just looked like a kid sitting quietly in his room doing deliberate practice. Lots more examples like that: I know from experience hundreds of questions that I shouldn’t bother googling because I won’t find anything, and dozens of topics that I shouldn’t mention in the vicinity of certain relatives because they get very sensitive, and computer icons that I shouldn’t click in certain situations, and on and on. I don’t think any laughter was involved in learning or reinforcing any of those “censors”.
If the “creating or reinforcing censors” pattern isn’t sufficient for humor, is it necessary? Actually, maybe it is!! I wasn’t thinking this way last week when I wrote this post, but I was commenting here that maybe it’s impossible for a single conscious thought to create both Ingredient (A) an Ingredient (B). So instead, humor (and conversational-laughter) require thinking an Ingredient-(A) thought and an Ingredient-(B) thought in immediate succession, and maybe even flipping back and forth a couple times within the space of a second or two. And maybe the only way for that to happen in practice is that you’re thinking about a single “thing” but flipping back and forth between two different frames / analogies for that thing, one of which (call it “Frame 1”) triggers Ingredient (A) and the other of which (call it “Frame 2”) triggers Ingredient (B).
What does that have to do with the “censor” pattern? Well, during this process, your brain is incidentally learning / reinforcing the higher-level pattern that: “if something pattern-matches to Frame 1, then it’s possible to flip that thing to Frame 2, and vice-versa”. So in the future, you could be thinking a thought that seems to be a good plan, but this higher-level pattern jumps in and re-frames / re-analogizes it in a way that makes it feel like an aversive / bad plan. So if you’re laughing from humor or conversation, you’re incidentally learning or reinforcing a censor, I claim.
When I think of that scenario, I feel like there’s no Ingredient (B). Or if there is, it’s not close enough in time to Ingredient (A) for the two to temporally overlap in the hypothalamus / brainstem. Like, I imagine almost getting killed jaywalking but the car stops inches from my legs. Standing safe on the sidewalk five seconds later, consciously I’d say “I am safe now”, but emotionally I don’t feel safe, or relaxed, at all. I would continue to feel extremely on-edge / jumpy / traumatized for at least minutes and possibly hours after that. Maybe the feeling gradually fades away and (B) gradually replaces it, but I would never have a juxtaposition of simultaneous (A) & (B) in my hypothalamus, I think.