I have to admit to a pretty strong negative reaction to this kind of equation, containing undefined terms that vaguely relate to common-language concepts. This “equation” can fit almost anything from humor to political leanings to amusement park ride enjoyment. At least provide a unit analysis and a quantitative definition of each if you want me to take it seriously.
References to other research in the area are required, if you’re going to present this as “the correct solution to this unsolved problem”. Some formal definition of the problem and previous failed attempts would go a long way toward making this believable. Your linked papers do have information about other writings on the topic of humor and theories behind it, but none (that I saw) defined the terms used in your equation or stated a problem in such a way that an equation “solves” it.
I’d also recommend you drop (or at least separate out) the evolutionary just-so story about a gasp turning into a laugh.
Note that I do strongly suspect the humor reaction is related to status and social signaling, just not quite as simply as is put here.
The equation represents the ratios and how to increase or decrease the humor of a situation, and does so in a compact form, so there’s no quantitative definition, however a “unit analysis” is probably reflected in the first paper (under “so if we don’t find something funny, it’s because). It’s also applied repeatedly in many ways in the second paper. Beyond that, I would probably need more information to know what doesn’t come across.
The best definition of the problem in the current papers is probably the cover quote, a theory that can consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny, and also reflect the degree to which something will be found funny.
A third paper with more formal and specific definitions of each may be a good idea.
In regards to “just so” stories, I understand the problem with hasty conclusions, meaning jumping to an explanation that fits a single specific observation without bothering to see if it reflects other evidence, but I don’t see how the term “just so story” would refer to a problem apart from that. An explanation that fits multiple observations while also being simple and logically consistent with a likely evolutionary pressure is probably just a decent hypothesis that’s worthy of investigation.
Lastly, I think the concept here is a simple one that expresses itself in complex ways, similar to how evolution has the mechanisms of variation and selection, which are simple to explain, but which express themselves in thousands of complex ways.
I don’t know how to measure any of the components, so I’m not sure how to use this to “consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny”. It feels a lot like it could be used to rationalize what different people find funny, but not in a way that extends to forward predictions.
Can you give some examples of things that this predicts to be surprisingly funny or not?
Well, we can take situations where the “equation” is clearly minimized, like if you just found out your Mother died tragically and are crying (meaning extreme anxiety), and see that basically no one is going to laugh at that time. Or that something happens that you simply never even know happened (so noticeability is 0), and obviously you won’t laugh at that. If you have no quality-expectation related to something (like if, for some reason, you’re trying to talk to a rock, unless you’re somehow insane you won’t laugh at the rock when it doesn’t answer, you would only laugh at yourself if you could picture yourself being so exhausted that you’d expect the rock to answer in the first place), so we can see immediately that the theory can class those situations as “definitely not funny.”
From there, when we start pushing those variables up from 0, we can see how things would thus enter into the funny zone. For example, a few days or weeks AFTER your Mom dies, if your anxiety starts to go down, and someone reminds you of something funny she did, THEN you would probably start to laugh. This is why, according to this theory, we say “too soon” when someone jokes after a tragedy. The anxiety level hasn’t gone down enough yet.
Likewise, when you start being able to see the funny thing that previously was out of your vision, then you start getting to the point where you can laugh at it. Or when you start talking to something that you might have a reasonable expectation would react, like your dog ignoring you calling his name, that is where laughter could begin to come in.
I tried to present examples that were “far-end” and isolated with the various variables in the equation, to hopefully demonstrate in a clear way how this can function to predict what will or won’t be funny. There are of course examples that involve multiple variables or where it’s more subtle and depends on our own individual opinions and things and moods that we could also do.
On page 15 of the second paper, under “bad jokes,” I tried to do exactly this...taking a joke that won a “bad joke” contest, analyzing it within the theory, and adjusting multiple things about it, including improving the pun, to the point that it gave me some urge to laugh at it.
Oh, lastly, in regards to surprisingly funny, something that violates a very deeply held expectation (with the other variables being within an acceptable range) would be an example of something that’s surprisingly funny, like if your boss who you’ve known for years suddenly has an epic fail. I have this on page 19 of the second paper under “I didn’t see that coming.”
I have to admit to a pretty strong negative reaction to this kind of equation, containing undefined terms that vaguely relate to common-language concepts. This “equation” can fit almost anything from humor to political leanings to amusement park ride enjoyment. At least provide a unit analysis and a quantitative definition of each if you want me to take it seriously.
References to other research in the area are required, if you’re going to present this as “the correct solution to this unsolved problem”. Some formal definition of the problem and previous failed attempts would go a long way toward making this believable. Your linked papers do have information about other writings on the topic of humor and theories behind it, but none (that I saw) defined the terms used in your equation or stated a problem in such a way that an equation “solves” it.
I’d also recommend you drop (or at least separate out) the evolutionary just-so story about a gasp turning into a laugh.
Note that I do strongly suspect the humor reaction is related to status and social signaling, just not quite as simply as is put here.
Hi Dagon,
The equation represents the ratios and how to increase or decrease the humor of a situation, and does so in a compact form, so there’s no quantitative definition, however a “unit analysis” is probably reflected in the first paper (under “so if we don’t find something funny, it’s because). It’s also applied repeatedly in many ways in the second paper. Beyond that, I would probably need more information to know what doesn’t come across.
The best definition of the problem in the current papers is probably the cover quote, a theory that can consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny, and also reflect the degree to which something will be found funny.
A third paper with more formal and specific definitions of each may be a good idea.
In regards to “just so” stories, I understand the problem with hasty conclusions, meaning jumping to an explanation that fits a single specific observation without bothering to see if it reflects other evidence, but I don’t see how the term “just so story” would refer to a problem apart from that. An explanation that fits multiple observations while also being simple and logically consistent with a likely evolutionary pressure is probably just a decent hypothesis that’s worthy of investigation.
Lastly, I think the concept here is a simple one that expresses itself in complex ways, similar to how evolution has the mechanisms of variation and selection, which are simple to explain, but which express themselves in thousands of complex ways.
I don’t know how to measure any of the components, so I’m not sure how to use this to “consistently differentiate between things that are funny and not funny”. It feels a lot like it could be used to rationalize what different people find funny, but not in a way that extends to forward predictions.
Can you give some examples of things that this predicts to be surprisingly funny or not?
Well, we can take situations where the “equation” is clearly minimized, like if you just found out your Mother died tragically and are crying (meaning extreme anxiety), and see that basically no one is going to laugh at that time. Or that something happens that you simply never even know happened (so noticeability is 0), and obviously you won’t laugh at that. If you have no quality-expectation related to something (like if, for some reason, you’re trying to talk to a rock, unless you’re somehow insane you won’t laugh at the rock when it doesn’t answer, you would only laugh at yourself if you could picture yourself being so exhausted that you’d expect the rock to answer in the first place), so we can see immediately that the theory can class those situations as “definitely not funny.”
From there, when we start pushing those variables up from 0, we can see how things would thus enter into the funny zone. For example, a few days or weeks AFTER your Mom dies, if your anxiety starts to go down, and someone reminds you of something funny she did, THEN you would probably start to laugh. This is why, according to this theory, we say “too soon” when someone jokes after a tragedy. The anxiety level hasn’t gone down enough yet.
Likewise, when you start being able to see the funny thing that previously was out of your vision, then you start getting to the point where you can laugh at it. Or when you start talking to something that you might have a reasonable expectation would react, like your dog ignoring you calling his name, that is where laughter could begin to come in.
I tried to present examples that were “far-end” and isolated with the various variables in the equation, to hopefully demonstrate in a clear way how this can function to predict what will or won’t be funny. There are of course examples that involve multiple variables or where it’s more subtle and depends on our own individual opinions and things and moods that we could also do.
On page 15 of the second paper, under “bad jokes,” I tried to do exactly this...taking a joke that won a “bad joke” contest, analyzing it within the theory, and adjusting multiple things about it, including improving the pun, to the point that it gave me some urge to laugh at it.
Oh, lastly, in regards to surprisingly funny, something that violates a very deeply held expectation (with the other variables being within an acceptable range) would be an example of something that’s surprisingly funny, like if your boss who you’ve known for years suddenly has an epic fail. I have this on page 19 of the second paper under “I didn’t see that coming.”
Hopefully this decently addresses the concern.