Humor is about being slightly off balance. That is why we always laugh at someone falling down. We come into this world of gravity after having lived 9 months in a gravity free environment, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to come to terms with gravity -- and laughing when we fail.
A child sees you put a spoon in the middle of the air and then laughs when it flies, of its own accord, through the air to the ground. Why doesn't it stay where you put it?
Evolutionarily speaking (if indeed one can speak evolutionarily) humankind stood up, then fell down and a sense of humor was born.
Scientists are continually making sense of the universe, only to fall off balance with a new discovery. According to an article by Glenn D. Stakman and Dominik J. Schwarz in the August, 2005, "Scientific American" the harmonious universe may be out of tune. In other words, they've found more discrepancies in a theory. This is why scientists laugh.
Nietzche says "the conditions of life might include error" and so our sense of humor -- laughing at incongruity and slips from balance -- may in fact reveal to us a deep truth about the universe in which we live. Everything that exists is constantly creating and breaking patterns. Set-up, build, punchline.
This blog is dedicated to finding "Humor in the Midst . . -- of Gravity".
Ms. Reiter's insights into the science of funny are breathtaking. I hope she will expand her horizons to include quantum mechanics. Everyone is always looking for a good mechanic. Higgs-Boson and 'brane theories need her particularly free thinking chops to help the CERN collider really bring things together.
ReplyDeleteI'm a new fan of this blog and will pay close attention going forward.
Touche. How could I not pick up this gauntlet? We are all quarks of nature. Blipping into existence momentarily, spinning around indisCERNably, and ultimately, improbably, crashing into each other. Happy little quarks. Glad I ran into you! Fortunate fall!
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