Humor is infectious. It lightens burdens, inspires hope, connects us to others, increases our insight, keeps us grounded, focused, alert, and happy.
Laughter is a universal language that stimulates both sides of the brain. It allows us to get messages quicker and remember them longer. We all learn more when we are having fun. Writing this blog is a creative exploration in sharing thoughts that make us laugh, smile, or think. Welcome and have a nice day!
In a Toy Story 3-esque like experience, my teenage son, daughter and I decided it was time to sort through the boxes of childhood toys we still had stored in our garage. Doing so, we came across an assortment of objects that got thrown into those boxes: one of my Montblanc pens (which, incidentally, I'm really happy to have back), hard-as-a-rock, potentially vitrified candy, free milkshake coupons for making honor roll, a sock, and an assortment of melted rubber bands.
My son and I had a rather lengthy dialogue on precisely whathad turned these pristine rubber bands into a sticky mess, which had then solidified, ultimatelybecoming as brittle as a poorly cast ceramic vase.
As I ran through high school chemistry lessons searching for a clever answer, my son decided to elucidate me:
"Natural rubber," he began, "is made of polyisoprene chains that slip past each other when the material is stretched. When raw, the substance is too sticky and soft to be of much use, so it is toughened with the addition of chemicals, like sulphur, which creates cross-links between the chains, making the rubber stiffer and less sticky. According to all the "How It's Made" episodes this kid has watched growing up, this process is called vulcanization.
"Over time," he continued, ultraviolet light and oxygen in the air react with the rubber, creating reactive radicals that snip the polyisoprene chains into shorter segments. This returns the rubber to something like its original state - soft and sticky. Meanwhile, these radicals can also form new, short cross-links between chains. This hardens the rubber and eventually it turns brittle (see above photo). Any vulcanization agents left behind, far less cunning than ninjas, (he chuckled over his clever aside) contribute to the process."
But wait! He wasn't quite done ...
"Whether a rubber band goes stick or hard depends on the relative rates of these processes, and these rates in turn depend on the rubber's quality (additives, fillers, dyes) and how it is stored. Heat and light speed up the reactions, and the presence of strong oxidizers such as ozone creates even more radicals. The fate of all rubber bands depends on the temperature in the room, and on whether you have a desk by a window or near a machine such as a copier that creates ozone."
Elucidating, he offered this final bit, "Polymer chemistry of rubber is pretty messy, so it is actually difficult to answer precisely. If we put some rubber bands in the refrigerator, the chemical reactions would be slower, if we put them on top of the desk with the light shinning in on them, it will speed up. The reaction rate is about double if an 18°F rise in temperature. Of course, we can't forget quality. Designer rubber bands have a different chemistry than inexpensive office brands. There are so many factors, including whether or not the rubber band was stretched out in a rubber band gun, that really, I just can't say precisely why these particular rubber bands melted."
I joined social media (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr...) to get a better understanding of what other people find funny. Since April 2011 I have since shared thousands of jokes, written countless articles, some purposely absurd, many off topic, others reflective - all with the general intent to explore how information is processed, categorized (as funny or otherwise), and ultimately, how it is utilized by us humans and the algorithms we create.
Little Miss Fia
Mimics smiles to communicate when she is happy
COMEDY
Cicero best summed up comedy:
"An indecency decently put
is the thing we laugh at hardest."
This is not humor.
(note the cranky, erudite tone)
Throughout history comedy has utilized sarcasm, rudeness, vulgarity, insecurities and other such tactics to elicit laughter, which most often arises from social awkwardness and shame.
Comedy dates back to Greek, Arabic, and other Levantine erotic tales and foolstories. Scholars of dirty jokes have traced comedy back to folklore, along with myths, proverbs, legends, nursery rhymes, riddles, and superstitions. The subjects explored under the guise of comedy include intercourse, scatology, racism, obscenities, blasphemous jokes, and distasteful, offensive, or otherwise disgusting concepts.
Although these so-called "jokes" are easily recognizable, comedy should not be confused with humor. Comedy is that which accompanies the rise and fall of civilizations. Its climax being the moment when an individual is made to feel uncomfortable, which does not always coincide with the punchline.
It is no wonder why Freud is the subject of much comedic material. For a scholar who purported too few words as a definition of a joke, he left the world with plenty of words to fuel one-liners so long as there are individuals attracted to aberrations in social behavior.
In the Athens of Demosthenes, there was a comedians' club called the Group of Sixty, which met in the Temple of Heracles to trade wisecracks. It is said that Philip of Macedon paid handsomely to have their jokes written down; but the volume, if it ever existed, has been lost.
On the Roman side, Plautus refers to jestbooks in a couple of his plays, while Suetonius tells us that Melissus, a favorite professor of the emperor Augustus, compiled no fewer than 150 joke anthologies. Despite this, only a single jokebook survives from ancient times: the Philogelos, or "Laughter-Lover," a collection in Greek that was probably put together in the fourth or fifth century A.D.
It contains 264 items, several of which appear twice, in slightly different form. Hierocles and Philagrius, its two attributed authors, probably forgot to compare notes. There is scholarly speculation that the Hierocles in question is actually the fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher of that name who was once publicly flogged in Constantinople for paganism, which, as one classicist has observed, "might have given him a taste for mordant wit."
Mordent wit is not the same as vulgarity, though it does sometimes dip into the galley of stock characters such as the drunk, the miser, the braggart, the attention-starved man or woman, and those difficult to be around individuals with hygiene issues.
Higher forms of mordent wit involves absent-minded professors and egg heads, similar to today's Hipsters (or as the French call them, bobos, short for "bourgeois bohemians").
One might argue that it is biased to associate scholars and professors and the more affluent members of society as representing "higher" forms of wit, but this distinction is made not for socio-economic reasons, but instead for the types life experiences socio-economic privilege brings.
HUMOR
This blog was originally titled, "Sophy 'softly' Laughing" .. because humor is subtle. It is that nearly indistinguishable element that causes us to laugh with others, and to acknowledge our idiosyncrasies, without scorn, judgment, or bias.
Humor is akin to the smile of mind you experience when you watch a toddler stumble about as they take those adorable first steps. It is not their stumbling or falling that makes us smile - no one in their right mind wishes harm upon another - it is the recognition of our humanity in another that makes us smile. It is a smile of mind that reminds us we are all human, or more broadly put, that we all coexist in the experience we call existence.
Scholarly Research on Humor
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) was a secretary to eight popes over a half a century. During the time known as the Western Schism, he traveled throughout Europe in search of lost works of ancient literature. From the dungeons of remote medieval monasteries he rescued precious manuscripts. Had he not laboriously deciphered and copied these rotting manuscripts, they would have been lost into oblivion. Thanks to him we have Lucretius's De Rerum Natura and Quintilian's Instituto Oratoria, as well as many of the orations of Cicero, the architectural writings of Vitruvius, and Apicius's works on cooking.
Not only was he one of the greatest book-hunters in history, but according to what he left behind, he wielded a wicked pen, satirizing the vices of the clergy (which he shared) and lambasting rival scholars in his Ciceronian Latin.
In his inventiveness he invented the roman font. As chancellor of the Republic of Florence after his retirement from Curia, he became that city's biographer. Yet, for all his professional accomplishments, Poggio ended up being best know for his book of jokes.
The Liber Facetiarum, usually called simply the Facetiae, was the first volume of its kind to be published in Europe. In this collection of 273 items - jests, bon mots, puns, and humorous anecdotes - the expansive Arab-Italian novella can be seen turning into the swift facezia.
Several of the jests have been traced to tales told by Procençal bards in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But much of it came out of a joke club in the Vatican called the Bugiale - the "fib factory." Here papal scribes would gather at the end of a tedious day spent drafting bulls, dispensations, and encyclicals to shoot the breeze and tell scandalous stories.
Admittedly many of the jokes were about rigorous (intimate) exercise and poked fun at the morals of churchmen, but not a word of condemnation was publicly expressed by the Vatican. Perhaps because it was in Latin, and thus "savored" or kept into context by the clerical class without corrupting the morals of the masses (who were illiterate and/or could not read Latin).
The Facetiae would easily make the modest blush. Is it an example of scholarly exploration into all those things that make us uniquely human or is it an aberration shared across socio-economic classes, an inherent aspect - even if only one aspect - of our humanity we'd rather hide? The answer to this question is up to the Reader to consider.
Poggio is an example of a scholar exposing human aberrations to a very small, erudite audience. While much of what he shared was in jest, his audience, the educated rarely just laughed. It is not surprising that one of his reasons for sharing humor was to highlight less than ethical behavior in a quest for deeper understanding - in the name of scholarly exploration.
Ancient jests have been shared over and over again. They have been the source of letting go of tension (release theory of humor), they have been the source of social chagrin, that which more cultured people shun, and many other things, including the material for Beatrice, the razor-tongued comedienne of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
The English took what Poggio started and turned the humorous tale into the joke. In the seventeenth century twenty-eight of Hierocles' Philogelos jokes were appended into an edition of his Commentary on the Golden Words of Pythagoras.The jokes soon circulated in print form throughout all of Europe.
Thanks to the popularity of these jokes, English humor got shorter and punchier. The most popular generation of jokebooks flourishing in the Georgian era were published in Joe Miller's Jests. The book went through so many editions that a "Joe Miller" eventually became associated with "a stale joke."
Stale or not, these jokes endured, in one form or another. What has remained is the question,
What makes something funny?
Laughing, literally ...
Men and women change their names for many different reasons. Entertainers change their names all the time, and married women take the names of their husbands. When Facebook shortened my name from Sophy Laughing to Soph Laugh, I kept it.
I legally changed my last name to Laughing to explore first-hand the reactions of others upon hearing the name Laughing. This highlights my pre-existing hypothesis that when people hear positive words they feel more positive. For me the word "laughing" conjures up images of happy, smiling people.
Colleagues I have known for years react differently. Some applaud me, claiming I am a maverick, and an "out of the box" thinker, some commend me on my bravery, stating what I have done is at great risk to my professional career, and others, well, they either say nothing or tell me that they "don't get it".
Since when did the world get so serious about something as made up as a name?
My LAUGHING EXPERIMENT, while initially a philosophical exploration into humor (aesthetics), is now as much an exploration of how personal identity changes by virtue of a name change as it is how people identify with positive word association.
Personal Identity
Socially Accepted Name Changes
Personal identity, in philosophical circles, is discussed under the protean term self, with self meaning 'person'. But self is sometimes associated with the immaterial, with spirit, or under the subject of consciousness ... Descartes' ghost in the machine.
Outside of philosophy, Who am I? is one of the most important questions people ask themselves, and others. We associate identity in relation to gender, socio-economic class, careers, hobbies, interests, beliefs, preferences, and even coffee drinking habits.
People discuss self identity every day. It is the singularly most discussed philosophical topic in the world, and dates back to ancient times. Every generation discusses their likes and dislikes, which further associates (or disassociates) them from others. Who we are is the question every investigative reporter aims to answer when they probe into the personal lives of celebrities or politicians.
Everyone is fascinated by the subject of self identity, irrespective of whether they define it in practical or philosophical terms. Personhood and those persistent things that continue to make us 'us' are being questioned every day, and not just against personal habits, life circumstances or life choices, but against artificial intelligence.
What does it take to classify a robot or manmade object as human? Consciousness? How does one define consciousness? How does one imbue wires and circuits with that intangible force that animates flesh and keeps it from rotting?
In Plato's Phaedo, it is hope (and fear) that keeps people wanting to believe in existence after death, in eternal self identity.
Does biological death put an eternal end to one's existence?
Humans do not have the opportunity to answer this question unless they have been declared 'dead' by a medical professional and brought back to life.
But even a near death experience cannot answer the greatest philosophical question of all time:
Is there life after death?
Perhaps not in the way in which we currently identify life or self.
Changing one's name, changing one's personal identity, is like a mini-death.
I associate my name change as getting a two for one lifetime. Two identities for the price of one lifetime.
Philosophical Considerations
One might examine my LAUGHING EXPERIMENT as an experiment as falling under the category of Game Theory. A philosophical approach in decision making explored publicly with a multitude of economic agents, in relation to risk and uncertainty.
One might relate my LAUGHING EXPERIMENT to epistemology, with how we know things, including ourselves - and truth. Am I the same person or am I a different person because my name is different? Is truth related to reality or perception?
One might associate my LAUGHING EXPERIMENT with ethics, with those legal systems we have in place that ensure justice. Is an individual justified in making a name change? What would happen if everyone in society changed their name? Is it easier for an unknown person to change their name? If someone has a prominent family name would changing their name diminish their social credibility?
I am still exploring humor and the nature of self-identity, still exploring what makes others laugh, still exploring that which I consider funny, and if you want to go so far as to make this claim, without a shadow of a doubt, still thinking I'm one of the braver Philosophical Humorists in the world - mostly because I was willing to take make legal my philosophical inquiry.
That's my story and until I write another one, I'm sticking by it.
Society is a metaphysical abstraction. And as an extension an economy is simply people engaging in commerce with one another. Still, there is need to manage these transactions, to protect the welfare of the individuals engaging in supply/demand transactions, if only to regulate interest rate mechanisms.
As bodies invested with 'spirit' our experience of living is a matter of perception, and relates to a unity of inner acts and potenials, in which we discover ourselves as the organizer - as the composer of our own organic constitution.
The "we" we experience, the inner "I" appears to be a living thing we invent, the presence of another version of ourselves, accompanied by other presentations, which join and once alive or revived, mutually transfer meaning between themselves our our many selves.
Without the ability to transfer meaning 'we' would not exist. That is, the inner part of the other held within would not be perceived and thus would not be utilized as a catalyst against which we perceive self.
Only through intuition, applied to language, and then deducted from communication and speech do we interpret signs and symbols of organic experience. When we analyze the initial function of language inside the constitutive system, it underlines the impression produced, as we introduce ourselves to the notion of our other, of our soul from the other organic body.
We are the living current of our other world, language reduced in the worldly sphere of continuous acts in the analogic transfer of one meaning to another.
In other more poetic words:
"The Sun is bright," said the dark sky of night.
Like history, the notion of "I" of "we" of "society" is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction.
Applying sound analytics and critical thinking skills are the foundation upon which all Western thought is built. They are the inerrant methods for establishing authority for truth in the modern world. The way we approach analytics is critical to our understanding of content and context, and in how we ought to respond in relation to information. Therefore it is necessary to recognize the importance of several key elements of analytical study or critical deconstruction, interpretation, and application in order to extract the most value from reading a given article.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
THE AUTHOR'S INTENDED MEANING
The wrong question to ask: What does it mean to me?
This question implies that authority rests with me.
It therefore means what the reader wants it to mean.
The right question to ask: What is the author's intended meaning?
This question examines the information for its intended content/context.
It is thus interpreted in relation to the author's intended meaning. The author is the individual sharing the information.
A further question to ask: How does the author's meaning apply to me?
This question recognizes the author's knowledge of, or perspective on a given subject, and their purpose for writing the article.
The "take away" is the principle meaning which can affect an reader's interpretation of a given subject.
Analytics is not judging, but rather interpreting.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
CONTEXT
What is meant when an author writes, "I'm blue."
My skin is covered in blue paint.
I am an Avatar.
My skin is turning blue, and I'm going to pass out.
I'm feeling down.
The context of the information is directly related to the specific situation in view and has significant bearing on what the author intends to convey.
If the author's skin is turning blue and he or she is about to pass out, the author may also be feeling down. However, when the author claims he or she is blue, it is the readers job to understand that the author is not requesting that someone sit down and counsel him or her about how to feel better; he or she wants someone to call 911 or get them medical assistance quick!
While additional interpretations may be made by observation and associated implication from a specific way in which an article or sentence is worded, statements typically have one intended meaning (unless they are double entendres).
THE IMPORTANCE OF
OBSERVATION
Articles are filled with intended meanings to reveal to us how we ought to think about a given subject from another individual's perspective and design. I like to think of reading articles as discovering the underlining principles held by another in order to examine my own thinking on, or knowledge of a subject.
The intended meanings are golden nuggets of additional perspectives that we must extract from the text. Like an archaeologist mining for fragments of an incomplete story, no one perspective, not even our own, holds ultimate authority. Each piece merely provides additional context in an ever evolving unfolding of information for our consideration. The truth claims (pieces) are aspects of many complex ideas and cannot always be cross-examined without the advent of additional truth claims to further our understanding.
Some comment (on articles) rashly, agreeing or disagreeing with the text. These readers are very close to the surface of the subject matter; others, such as those who click "like" and think about rather than comment on a given subject are typically those who recognize another perspective, appreciate or reject that perspective, and move onto the next thought that interests them. They may revisit the thought again later, or simply file it away, allow it to fade into the recesses of their subconscious, inside the mind's massive, continually overwritten processing vault.
Whether or not we choose to affirm/reject the perspectives of others as being in alignment/contrast with our own, articles and their corresponding perspectives are presented (often times for free) for our consideration. They have as many interpretations as readers, but most are misinterpreted.
To fully understand an article one must invest the time, patience, and commitment it takes to consider the perspectives and their intended meanings; these perspectives are treasures and worthy of the effort, in particular when the activity results in an enhancement to our own perspectives or knowledge of a subject.
New ideas are fresh ideas...
When reading an article most of us simply skim the information for take aways. We instantly recognize familiar wording as complementary, while divergent concepts stand out. Many argue and disagree with that which they do not understand or with that which they disagree rather than asking the author why the information was presented in a certain context. Asking questions requires us to engage our critical thinking skills.
Through careful reading and critical examination we can arrive at an accurate interpretation of an article, but this analysis requires a time commitment that few of us are wiling to invest given the demands on our time (our most precious resource). Thus, the most clearly written articles are those most easily understood. These articles can be revisited when we have more time (and the desire) to consider their deeper meanings and relevance to our own way of thinking.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
MOVING FROM BROAD TO SPECIFIC
"Sign up for Free!" This is advice shared across the advertising world. This advice intends to persuade a specific action, namely, to sign up [for something]. If we begin our observation from a broader scope before signing up, this phrase illuminates a process:
Is the advice current?
If yes, the advice may or may not be followed.
If no, the advice is outdated and inapplicable.
For which activity is this advice applicable?
Is the author authorized to give the advice?
Are there clues in the text that further describe or imply what will happen after taking the advice?
Does the author clearly identify who should take the advice?
Are there clues in this advice or in similar advice that further describe the context and the conditions under which this advice should be accepted or rejected?
Are there clues indicating the benefit or cost associated with taking this advice?
What is the author's purpose for giving this advice?
Is the advice contained in a particular section of a larger context?
Are there any clues that would indicate what the author is trying to achieve by offering this advice?
What sections surround the section in which the advice is found?
Sections do not necessarily abide by intent, because articles/advertisements are sometimes later edited to help clarify the text; articles are not always "inspired".
What is the context of the passage containing the advice?
What is the main idea of the passage?
Are there clues or sub-points that support the main idea?
(These questions can only be answered after utilizing the smaller units of the article.)
What information surrounds the advice?
Have I properly grouped/classified the information to carry across the whole idea of the article?
Articles may also contain links to other articles. Have I investigated additional information prior to making an informed decision/conclusion?
It is sometimes necessary to reexamine commonly utilized words for additional meaning. Language style differs from one author to the next. Do not assume that a word utilized by one author is utilized in the same way as another.
One does not need to be a literary scholar to read an article (but it helps). By investing a little more time in the articles that interest us, we can interpret and ultimately contribute more to further the intent of the article in the comments section. We can also use this section to clarify - not attack - what the author has shared.
An analytical approach to reading articles allows us to interpret and consider information in a way we may not have previously considered. Reading is not an exercise in dramatic theater. It is an activity by which we bring in new information for our mind's consideration, elucidation, and ultimately, for our intended use or purpose in a furtherance of our goals, be those edification or utility.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
BRIDGING THE (UNDERSTANDING) GAP
After arriving at the main point of an article using a broader scope as well as examining the fine details, it is important to be able to bring the information shared by the author into our present context for application. For example, if the reader is skilled in the task of analytical interpretation and takes away nothing else from this article other than Thomas Paine's keen insight: "... a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right," which references a particular habit of mind, then this thought alone is one of value as it provides the ready with information worthy of deeper consideration. It is also practical to examine how we think given the thousands of rationalizations and interpretations we make on a daily basis.
Whenever we are confronted with new information, certain information is immediately apparent. What is not readily apparent is the more complex associations one can make when stepping back to consider a subject in a different light.
What we recognize in the perspectives of others is largely based on our habits of mind, the information our mind's encompass, and the understanding that has developed and deepened as we have worked through these ideas.
The keys to extracting more from an article are found in the following habits:
persistence
managing impulsivity
listening with empathy and understanding
thinking flexibly
thinking about your thinking (metacognition)
striving for accuracy
applying past knowledge
questioning and posing problems
thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
I'm going to tell you the most important secret in modern business: the supervillains have won. It didn't happen in a massive battle that no one remembers, and it's not the result of hidden schemes concocted by secret puppet masters. It happened while society was busy going to work every day, dreaming of better times to come, and checking their Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest feeds on their smartphones.
The richest 1% of people own nearly half of global wealth, says report by Credit Suisse
The richest 1% of the population are getting wealthier, owning more than 48% of global wealth. This "paradox of plenty" is astonishing, and could be a trigger for a longer recession.
According to the Credit Suisse global wealth report, a person needs just $3,650 - including the value of equity in their home - to be among the wealthiest half of world citizens. More than $77,000 is required to be a member of the top 10% of global wealth holders, and $798,000 to belong to the top 1%.
The bottom half of the global population owns less than 1% of the total wealth, said the annual report, now in its seventh year.
Anti-poverty campaigners, Pope Francis, demanding just distribution of the world's bounty, and millions of people across the globe are FINALLY starting to take notice.
Supervillains vs Batman
Let's compare the Supervillains of the World's Global Economy to the Superhero protector of Gotham City: Batman, that obsessive, manipulative, and emotionally closed off, even from his closest companions, billionaire industrialist and notorious playboy. But how different, really, is Batman from the real Supervillains of the World's Global Economy?
Econ students at Lehigh University crunched some numbers and determined thatit would cost $2.8 million to show world's criminal scum that cities, err, rather, that industry means business. After all, stealing from innocents (who then file insurance claims) costs industry money.
The students compared Wayne Enterprises' construction division to real-worldTurner Construction, which nets about $39 million. Because Wayne Enterprises is in defense, they also considered L-3 Communications' net income of $956 million in 2011. They compared the securities division with struggling Bear Stearns, which still reported an annualized net income of $684 million.
In summary, Wayne Enterprises has an approximate net income of $1.45 billion. If Wayne Enterprises trades at a similar ratio to General Electric, a public company with a significant defense sector, trading at around 16 times its earnings, then Wayne Enterprises would be the 121st largest firm in the world by market capitalization.
And Bruce? Assuming he has a 50% controlling stake in the firm, he'd be the73rd richest person in the real world, and in the fictional world, the fourth richest, putting him ahead of Iron Man.
You're thinking:
"But Bruce Wayne swore an oath to rid the city of evil. He fights crime as a vigilante. He's a Superhero not a Supervillain!"
And you'd be right. But despite his oath to put an end to the most influential and corrupt figures in Gotham City, his presence in Gotham actually inspired more criminals like Catwoman, Dr. Hugo Strange and his Monster Men, and his greatest nemesis, the Joker. Later came the Scarecrow, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Mister Freeze, and the Penguin.
So, why compare the Superhero Batman with the Supervillains of the World's Global Economy?
ANSWER:
The inequality of wealth gives rise to crime, which ironically is precisely what motivated Batman's personal vendetta against criminals in the first place.
The richest 1% of the population refusing to equally divide the world's resources will eventually cause the entire world economy to plummet deeper into a recession from which we cannot emerge, which will only give rise to more crime.
It will take a Superman or Superwoman with a "Quest for Peace" to save the world from the Parallax-like Supervillains of the World's Global Economy intent upon rewriting the history of the universe, with them seated on the proverbial golden throne.
Disclaimer: The author has referred to the richest 1% of the economy as Supervillains based on the inequality of wealth distribution on the planet and the corresponding crime and unhappiness inequality produces.
