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(Auto-generated)Welcome back, you wonderful people who matter so very, very much.

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I realize that I've been very straightforward with this.

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I haven't made a lot of jokes and I do do that and I do voices, but I didn't want to

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jump into any of that while I'm doing the reading of the book because this is something

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that I poured my life for 10 years and and is something that I feel is my responsibility

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to get out there that this is probably the biggest thing I will ever do and I'm doing

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it right now.

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So I'm very straight to the point typically in these episodes and I just want you to know

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that after we finish with the book, this podcast is going to keep going.

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I'm going to keep coming back and talking to you about this, but different understandings

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of stuff like this and I'll be taking questions the whole time and definitely will be answering

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some of those questions.

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It's the greatest thing in the world about talking to somebody else about a subject that

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you're struggling to understand, which is still me.

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I'm still learning this stuff.

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This is a near bottomless pit of discovery.

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So many aspects of our lives that it's there's no way I'm going to discover it all.

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But when you're trying to figure something out and it's core, talking to somebody else

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is your best course of action.

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We've discovered that the brain acts much like an eyeball.

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Say you walk into a room with your eyes closed and you open them just for a few seconds.

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The eye doesn't take in everything all at once.

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It darts around and the first thing it darts to are the things that have the biggest amount

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of contrast, have the largest incongruity.

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These are things that stand out and the brain does something very similar when it's puzzling

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over something it doesn't understand.

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It tends to like a moth to a flame just keep batting its head against that same light bulb.

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The biggest contrast, the thing that's creating the most emotional turmoil.

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It will flip to the other things, but mainly it's flitting to the other things looking

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for support for this big glowing light bulb of emotion.

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And when in conflict with something learned or something that you're trying to figure

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out that means something to you, we have this heavy draw towards that which we have, that

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which is making the most emotional conflict, that which stands out, that which is in contrast,

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that which we don't understand.

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And we keep beating our heads against that light bulb like moths and it makes for a pretty

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crummy problem solving.

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But when you have to explain it to somebody else, when you bring them up to speed, you

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force your brain to reorganize the information in a way that you would never look at.

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That's why programmers have the rubber ducky.

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I did a episode of code help on it.

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I forget what the terminology for it is, but basically it's where you take a rubber ducky

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and you explain how it's supposed to work.

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Coders and programmers, you said they'll go through line by line of the code and explain

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to the ducky what this line is supposed to do.

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All right, let's move on with the show.

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I don't know if you guys ever noticed this, but when I welcome you wonderful people who

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matter so very, very much back, that's the only people that I welcome.

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That's because the only people that exist are the ones who matter so very, very much.

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Haha, gotcha.

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If that doesn't make sense, that likely means you haven't listened to all the other episodes,

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which are absolutely vital to understanding the impact of what I'm revealing in the next

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chapter.

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So go back to the beginning, please, and I think you'll learn.

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The chapter that I'm about to read to you, as you may have picked up there, it's the

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last bit of prepping you for chapter 8 that I'm doing, and you need all the previous chapters

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and preferably the preface to take on chapter 8's seconders.

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You know what I'm talking about.

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It's going to be go time.

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So let's get covered on the very last of the setup before the payoff.

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Chapter 7 Theories

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Now, Mike was not the first to spend time meditating on why people laugh.

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It's actually a question that countless big brains have stepped up to attempt to answer.

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It's now believed to be the very first vocalized language human beings developed, its purpose

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being a social gesture to gain others' trust.

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It's the simplest sound that we make, merely a squeezing of the lungs in a rhythm, and

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most people don't even modulate the pitch of the sound with their vocal cords.

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It seems to be something that is at the core of us, and is frequently synonymous with being

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happy.

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No wonder it's drawn so much attention.

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There's been many theories on why we laugh that span centuries and centuries of research

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and observation, and yet it's still a question that most people pull back from instinctively.

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I spent hours as a teenager sitting in a chair in our living room, posing one query after

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another, exploring the nature of man, the universe, and philosophy by way of logic and

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recalled observations, and I flinched back the moment the question, why is something

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funny came into my mind.

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It was too abstract, too nebulous, and honestly frightening in a very unique way.

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It was as if the answer to that question was hidden in a place that I dared not go.

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Something within me recognized that.

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Eventually, after I found the breaking laugh and began to see it for what it was, and why

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it was, I plunged into these theories and then drew back and unfocused my eyes a bit

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and started to see how they were all related, and I began to see why I had instinctively

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recoiled.

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But as I said, great minds have undertaken the task of determining what humor is, why

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something is funny, and why we laugh.

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Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, our first philosophers, were among the very first to

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try their hands at the subject, though you may find that they held a very negative viewpoint

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of why we laughed.

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Plato preached that we should avoid laughing as it causes one to lose control of their

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emotions.

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He stated that someone that gives way to violent laughter provokes a violent response.

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Plato also proposed that when we laugh at someone, it's usually at the absurdity of

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the person, that we take a pleasure in how ridiculous someone else is, and that this

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is an evil vice.

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Aristotle agreed with him, referring to wit as educated insolence, the means between boorishness

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and buffoonery.

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These thinkers gave us superiority theory from this.

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We laugh as a form of ridicule when we feel superior to someone else.

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Most of the context for laughing in the Bible is pretty supportive of this school of thought.

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Thomas Hobbes generally agreed with this way of thinking.

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He stated that the idea that laughter is self-applauds can nevertheless be defended by pointing

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out that even though someone else's joke occasions my laughter, what I'm laughing at, what produces

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my joy, might be that I can see the point and thus appreciate my superiority.

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In short, when I laugh, I'm both patting myself on the back and simultaneously being a jerk.

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René Descartes came to a very similar conclusion in Passions of the Soul.

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He wrote, and by the way, I'll put a little side note here, this voice, I'm going to do

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this voice, I know that he was French and they lived in the Netherlands later, but I

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can't do a French accent, so if it's okay, I'm going to do the voice that I hear in my

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head when I read his words, specifically on this passage, I hear this voice.

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Division or scorn is a sort of joy mingled with hatred, which proceeds from our perceiving

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some small evil in a person who we consider to be deserving of it.

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We have hatred for this evil, we have joy, and when that comes upon us unexpectedly,

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the surprise of wonder is the cause of our bursting into laughter.

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We notice that people with very obvious defects such as those who are lame, blind, van I,

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hunchbacked, or who have received some public insult are specially given to mockery, for

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desiring to see all others held in as low estimation as themselves, they are truly rejoiced

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at the evils that befall them, and they hold them deserving of these.

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Or put another way, we laugh when we see someone getting what we think they deserve.

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So then Francis Hutchison came on the scene, and while he agreed with some of the things

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said, he largely denounced superiority theory as the universal reason for laughter.

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He pointed out that we often feel superior to animals and people, and we don't feel

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the urge to laugh.

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In stressful situations, people on the verge of crying start laughing, and that doesn't

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really fit the model either.

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So several thinkers, including Sigmund Freud, proposed that laughter was a release of pent-up

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tension or nervous energy, eventually becoming known as relief theory.

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They believe that emotions build up energy, that anger builds to striking out, fear builds

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to fleeing or fighting, nervousness builds nervous energy, which in contrast doesn't

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really build to doing anything but laugh.

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Now Freud believed this to be the case, but thought that the two most pent-up energies

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were hostility and sexual desire.

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One of the other laughers proposed by Sigmund Freud was one in which we release the energy

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that we psychically build up as we're preparing ourselves to pity the victim of a joke.

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That we are given an out in the form of a punchline to laugh off that pity instead.

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Around the same 18th century period, an opposing argument arose, incongruity theory.

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This one stated that it's the surprise, the unexpected aha moment that garners a laugh

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from us.

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This theory states that humor is setting up one explanation.

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This theory states that humor is setting up one expectation, only to find it turned on

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its ear at the punchline.

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This was the theory that Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, along with countless

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philosophers were pushing for.

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We laugh at that which we didn't expect and that which seems out of place.

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Few quick examples for you.

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I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.

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Now he got in my pajamas, I'll never know.

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The last thing I want to do is insult you, but it is on the list.

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Sure, I'd love to help you out.

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Now which way did you come in?

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My mind's made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts.

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I'll tell you, bureaucrats cut red tape.

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Lengthwise.

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Listen, take my advice, I'm not using it.

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And jokes like these were made to believe things are headed in one direction, quite

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often by cleverly having the outcome be a different meaning of a familiar phrase that's

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used in the setup of the joke.

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It's our predictive nature that provides this platform for incongruent humor.

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And for a long time, incongruity theory was the most current and accepted theory of humor.

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Until McGraw and Warren hit the scene, these were the three main theories that the human

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race had determined was the truth behind why we laugh.

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Or at least the closest we've ever gotten to answering it.

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Not one of these theories accounts for all the instances in which people laugh, especially

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tickling and play fighting.

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Then in 2014, a two-page theory published by Dr. Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren changed

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everything.

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McGraw, who had previously spent a great deal of time focused on the study of emotions and

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expectations, had uncovered the first universal theory on why we laugh.

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Now the gist of the surprisingly short paper is that there must be a balance between benign

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elements and violation elements for humor to occur.

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So what does that mean?

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Benign elements are things that are unchanging, comforting, normal, non-offensive, non-threatening,

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predictable and safe.

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Violation elements are a bit harder to describe.

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It's something that's not right.

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It's something unpredictable, something that threatens.

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It's stuff that's not okay.

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That element that makes a joke too far.

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And there needs to be a bit of both in the balance.

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But the balance of the mixture is set by the nature of the relationship between the listener

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of the joke or viewer of the situation and the victim of the joke or lander of the prep

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form.

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If the two people are close, then benign will normally outweigh the violation significantly.

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Something as simple as a very small stumble while walking with somebody you love dearly

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can be funny enough to produce out loud laughter.

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But the violation must be kept relatively light.

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Inversely, a person you've never met has allowed a lot more violation.

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I can't sell you hard enough the sheer brilliance of the theory, particularly when it comes

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to the part regarding the relationships between humor and, well, relationships.

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If you don't care about someone, we can laugh more easily at their pain, anguish,

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and especially their embarrassment, even more so if that person is fictional.

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For anyone that's ever been thoroughly humiliated, they know how crushing that can be.

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It's a totally different kind of hurt.

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One that takes you down from within.

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But if we know or care about the victim, simply missing the straw in their drink while trying

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to capture it with their mouth and making a derpy face can send a best friend into heaving

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fits of laughter.

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It's like the optimal zone of humor or area in which something garners the biggest laugh.

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It's like it slides into different positions up and down a gradient scale of clean to dirty.

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There are a lot to not at all.

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Benign to violation.

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The genuine laugh.

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To the breaking laugh.

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There we are.

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Knocking at the door of chapter 8.

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Breaking.

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And that's it for me.

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Thank you for coming to the reading.

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And if you haven't figured it out yet, and you're hitting skip to next episode when I

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start giving the links, you are missing out.

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I always follow the links part, which I try to make quick each time, with a personal statement

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to you.

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So you can check out the YouTube channel at youtube.com slash could help you can contact

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the podcast will help mail at gmail.com.

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And talk about this stuff, ask questions or hear what others think at r slash the laughing

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matters on Reddit.

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You can stay up to date with the show's Facebook page at facebook.com slash I can help and

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of course, the laughing matters calm.

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So until next episode, take note of when you laugh the genuine laugh.

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Identify it when you laugh from loving without aim.

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Notice how good it feels to genuine laughs versus any other kind of laughter.

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Just know what it is when you're doing it.

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Know why it's happening.

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You do that.

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You can call on it in the dark.

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When things get dim.

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When you're hurting or lonely.

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When everything feels so confused that you keep losing sight of which way is up.

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You can still be good to them.

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Of course, you know how to love them.

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If you've left the genuine laugh, then you've loved them all before.

230
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:27,640
And you know for a fact that you're capable of doing it.

231
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Be good to them.

232
00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:30,640
Be good for them.

233
00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:34,720
And you're going to be green.

234
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Be sweet.

235
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:37,480
By everybody.

236
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:51,680
It sounds like an awesome band name.

237
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:53,280
Preferably the Preface.

238
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Dibs.

239
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:55,280
Y'all dibs.

240
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:58,280
That's mine.

241
00:18:58,280 --> 00:18:59,280
Preferably the Preface.

242
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:19,200
You're at the doorstep of the breaking laugh.

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00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:37,600
We will see you for chapter 8.