humour as consciousness existence creation, really
June 30th 2007 09:48
There are a lot of attempts out there to define what humour is. The more you think about it the less you realise you know about this basic and important aspect of human life.
Here's a whacked out idea I had for what humour might be. It is the creation of consciousness.
A lot of what's funny about jokes is based on what you didn't know, a perspective you hadn't thought of. Two fish are sitting in a tank. One says to the other: "Do you know how to drive this thing?". A bacon and a sausage are frying in a frying pan, the sausage says "Oh my god! We're going to die!" the bacon says "Oh my god! A talking sausage!"
That will always be my favourite joke. We don't find jokes funny if they are predictable.
Anyways, imagine if for every 16 seconds of your life you were conscious for 8 seconds, and for the next 8 seconds you are not conscious but your brain is still active and still forms memories of being conscious which are available to you in the conscious 8 seconds. Now I don't think this is the case or is really possible, but if it were the case you wouldn't feel any different. In fact it would probably be impossible to ever find out that you are only conscious half the time. You know sometimes when you're driving and you're in a conversation or thinking about something or singing along to music, and that's all you're really thinking about. And then suddenly you realise you haven't been paying attention to driving for like the last 10 minutes. You are going the right way and hope you stopped at all the appropriate lights and everything, but you weren't driving consciously. You were busy elsewhere. So unconscious doesn't mean asleep. You can still do some pretty complex stuff like make judgements of speed and distance, interpreting symbols, even judging what other drivers are likely to do, let alone changing gears steering and accelerating and braking.
So, now, I really should have written this when i first brought this up because it was a much more well rounded thought then, but instead i pursued a side track, anyways, the next ingredient is the joy of creation. Joy and creation are two sides of the same coin. I don't want to say that joy is caused by creation, because that still leaves us with the question of what is joy? I want to say that joy and creation go hand in hand, they are mutually inclusive. The first time i brought this up i mentioned when babies are born, at least our romantic notions of that event, it is a time of happiness and light for anyone even remotely involved. In general everywhere you look creation and joy are together. I'm not saying there aren't other emotions, but let's stick with the joy.
Now combine and stir. You find something funny not by analising it, not by working out which is the perspective you didn't know about before. You find it funny when you yourself see from that perspective. That is new consciousness coming into existence ie. being created. And what comes with creation? Joy! There you have it humour as consciousness existence-creation.
Damn, that didn't come out as well as i had it before. Put it another way, self awareness, awareness of other subjects and awareness of the objective world. It's a package deal. To be aware of any one of the three relies on the knowledge of the other two. Maybe I'll write about this topic later, but just go with it for now. So anyways, the objective world is just the intersection of all the subjective worlds. This is quite obvious, objective is what's available to everyone, what everyone agrees on, all the rest is subjective. But we have a special view of the objective world as solid, not malleable, etc. In a way, to be aware of another subject as a subject is to have some basic access to their thoughts or possible thoughts. For if there is an intersection of your thoughts, that might just be an object between you. Shit, I can't do it. Anyways, i'm just gonna say that what's hidden in a joke is something about the truth of the narrative you are imagining. When this is revealed to you, you find it funny, because something just came into existence, objectively, based on your fuller understanding of the subjective world of the joke teller.
PS breathing in = creation. breathing out = cessation. Laughing = many quick breaths in and out
Here's a whacked out idea I had for what humour might be. It is the creation of consciousness.
A lot of what's funny about jokes is based on what you didn't know, a perspective you hadn't thought of. Two fish are sitting in a tank. One says to the other: "Do you know how to drive this thing?". A bacon and a sausage are frying in a frying pan, the sausage says "Oh my god! We're going to die!" the bacon says "Oh my god! A talking sausage!"
That will always be my favourite joke. We don't find jokes funny if they are predictable.
Anyways, imagine if for every 16 seconds of your life you were conscious for 8 seconds, and for the next 8 seconds you are not conscious but your brain is still active and still forms memories of being conscious which are available to you in the conscious 8 seconds. Now I don't think this is the case or is really possible, but if it were the case you wouldn't feel any different. In fact it would probably be impossible to ever find out that you are only conscious half the time. You know sometimes when you're driving and you're in a conversation or thinking about something or singing along to music, and that's all you're really thinking about. And then suddenly you realise you haven't been paying attention to driving for like the last 10 minutes. You are going the right way and hope you stopped at all the appropriate lights and everything, but you weren't driving consciously. You were busy elsewhere. So unconscious doesn't mean asleep. You can still do some pretty complex stuff like make judgements of speed and distance, interpreting symbols, even judging what other drivers are likely to do, let alone changing gears steering and accelerating and braking.
So, now, I really should have written this when i first brought this up because it was a much more well rounded thought then, but instead i pursued a side track, anyways, the next ingredient is the joy of creation. Joy and creation are two sides of the same coin. I don't want to say that joy is caused by creation, because that still leaves us with the question of what is joy? I want to say that joy and creation go hand in hand, they are mutually inclusive. The first time i brought this up i mentioned when babies are born, at least our romantic notions of that event, it is a time of happiness and light for anyone even remotely involved. In general everywhere you look creation and joy are together. I'm not saying there aren't other emotions, but let's stick with the joy.
Now combine and stir. You find something funny not by analising it, not by working out which is the perspective you didn't know about before. You find it funny when you yourself see from that perspective. That is new consciousness coming into existence ie. being created. And what comes with creation? Joy! There you have it humour as consciousness existence-creation.
Damn, that didn't come out as well as i had it before. Put it another way, self awareness, awareness of other subjects and awareness of the objective world. It's a package deal. To be aware of any one of the three relies on the knowledge of the other two. Maybe I'll write about this topic later, but just go with it for now. So anyways, the objective world is just the intersection of all the subjective worlds. This is quite obvious, objective is what's available to everyone, what everyone agrees on, all the rest is subjective. But we have a special view of the objective world as solid, not malleable, etc. In a way, to be aware of another subject as a subject is to have some basic access to their thoughts or possible thoughts. For if there is an intersection of your thoughts, that might just be an object between you. Shit, I can't do it. Anyways, i'm just gonna say that what's hidden in a joke is something about the truth of the narrative you are imagining. When this is revealed to you, you find it funny, because something just came into existence, objectively, based on your fuller understanding of the subjective world of the joke teller.
PS breathing in = creation. breathing out = cessation. Laughing = many quick breaths in and out
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