Recognition Rewarded
Today I was driving down a random dirt track, having lost radio reception just as a comedy segment was starting, and I began thinking about PFH's Cauchy/Gaussian humour thing. The idea that laughter comes from the surprise of being led to make a (higher?) mental connection that we were not expecting (or words to that effect).
Why the pleasure?
Making cognative leaps is beneficial behaviour. Making new connections requires effort, and I believe that our biology has developed a pleasure reward for thinking. Just as sugar-rich foods are pleasureably sweet to palates tuned to favour the nutritional benefits of such high energy foods, our brains get a pleasure kick from making unaccustomed cognative connections. I noticed when doing unaccustomed math that the pleasure I was experiencing on a physical level was more than simply being pleased with my own cleverness, or relief at solving a puzzle.
Other animals do derive pleasure akin to humour from play, the equivalent to slapstick, but, not surprisingly, forms of purely cerebral humour seem to be confined to humans.
Even at a very basic level, simply recognising things is a survival advantage. But not all recognition is rewarded with pleasure. Firing up familiar synaptic paths does not give us our endorphin (or whatever) rush. It's new connections that are rewarded.
(Could there be a link between the wash of 'reward' pleasure and the amazing and implausible - and sometimes brilliant - leaps of belief that highly manic people make? I've seen people who've appeared to be stuck at the point of 'amazing realisation' for days on end. Could there be a feedback loop in there perhaps? Hmmm...)
That would explain why leaps between disparate points and perspectives are the most intensely pleasureable - as long as they are harmless, or at least not immediately threatening. People describe being 'struck by inspiration' or 'realising with a jolt'. I think that in that first instant of making a connection,(if we are not conditioned to expect pleasure by the presence of a known entertainer/comedian or cues of that ilk)the mind has yet to differentiate between good and bad implications of the new realisation. Unless we are primed for it, it takes a moment for the laughter to kick in. Which would explain why there is often a pause after a truly unexpected funny event before people begin to laugh.
Might it have a bearing on why people laugh hysterically - when something unexpected happens that is bad, the mind releases it's pleasure reward for the realisation in that first instant, effectively throwing the wrong switch, inducing laughter?
Delicious. Funny.
A connection with some instances of pica?
Some people find humour in things that are not benificial. Cognative conenction reward gone awry.
Some people find non-nutritional things tasty. Pleasurable flavour reward gone awry.
Meh. Probably drawing too long a bow.
Why the pleasure?
Making cognative leaps is beneficial behaviour. Making new connections requires effort, and I believe that our biology has developed a pleasure reward for thinking. Just as sugar-rich foods are pleasureably sweet to palates tuned to favour the nutritional benefits of such high energy foods, our brains get a pleasure kick from making unaccustomed cognative connections. I noticed when doing unaccustomed math that the pleasure I was experiencing on a physical level was more than simply being pleased with my own cleverness, or relief at solving a puzzle.
Other animals do derive pleasure akin to humour from play, the equivalent to slapstick, but, not surprisingly, forms of purely cerebral humour seem to be confined to humans.
Even at a very basic level, simply recognising things is a survival advantage. But not all recognition is rewarded with pleasure. Firing up familiar synaptic paths does not give us our endorphin (or whatever) rush. It's new connections that are rewarded.
(Could there be a link between the wash of 'reward' pleasure and the amazing and implausible - and sometimes brilliant - leaps of belief that highly manic people make? I've seen people who've appeared to be stuck at the point of 'amazing realisation' for days on end. Could there be a feedback loop in there perhaps? Hmmm...)
That would explain why leaps between disparate points and perspectives are the most intensely pleasureable - as long as they are harmless, or at least not immediately threatening. People describe being 'struck by inspiration' or 'realising with a jolt'. I think that in that first instant of making a connection,(if we are not conditioned to expect pleasure by the presence of a known entertainer/comedian or cues of that ilk)the mind has yet to differentiate between good and bad implications of the new realisation. Unless we are primed for it, it takes a moment for the laughter to kick in. Which would explain why there is often a pause after a truly unexpected funny event before people begin to laugh.
Might it have a bearing on why people laugh hysterically - when something unexpected happens that is bad, the mind releases it's pleasure reward for the realisation in that first instant, effectively throwing the wrong switch, inducing laughter?
Delicious. Funny.
A connection with some instances of pica?
Some people find humour in things that are not benificial. Cognative conenction reward gone awry.
Some people find non-nutritional things tasty. Pleasurable flavour reward gone awry.
Meh. Probably drawing too long a bow.
posted by Jac | 9:03 am
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