This is much closer to my model of humor as well. I think most humor can be categorized as novel patterns of ideas at a certain level of abstraction, that the brain is not used to processing.When the brain gets used to the pattern, the joke and similar jokes are no longer funny.
I find it unlikely that sexual selection hasn’t played a major role in the development of humor given that people report it as highly attractive. If humor is mostly novel patterns, then pattern recognition is a skill required to be good at it. Being funny could therefore be a proxy for intelligence. This seems to be he case if you look at the IQ scores of comedians.
Displaying honest signs of intelligence seems adaptive in general in a social primate for various obvious reasons. Combining novel frames might also allow you to convey a concept in a way that is challenging a taboo without risking to actually make statements that are taboo. A useful tool in ancestral politics.
The playfighting theory does a very good job of explaining why tickling and scaring people make people laugh on the other hand. My guess is that humor and laughter started out with the evolutionary purpose described by the theory, before being adapted for other purposes like sexual selection and tribal politics.
This is much closer to my model of humor as well. I think most humor can be categorized as novel patterns of ideas at a certain level of abstraction, that the brain is not used to processing.When the brain gets used to the pattern, the joke and similar jokes are no longer funny.
I find it unlikely that sexual selection hasn’t played a major role in the development of humor given that people report it as highly attractive. If humor is mostly novel patterns, then pattern recognition is a skill required to be good at it. Being funny could therefore be a proxy for intelligence. This seems to be he case if you look at the IQ scores of comedians.
Displaying honest signs of intelligence seems adaptive in general in a social primate for various obvious reasons. Combining novel frames might also allow you to convey a concept in a way that is challenging a taboo without risking to actually make statements that are taboo. A useful tool in ancestral politics.
The playfighting theory does a very good job of explaining why tickling and scaring people make people laugh on the other hand. My guess is that humor and laughter started out with the evolutionary purpose described by the theory, before being adapted for other purposes like sexual selection and tribal politics.