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Laughter
I occasionally research through Blackburn's philosophy text for interesting entries: Laughter is an unexpected, academic, philosophy entry.
The entry begins with:
'We laugh at things that are laughable, but also laugh exultantly at a success, or bitterly at a failure, or at the unexpected or even typical.' (212).
A lack of incongruity, as in something not being in harmony, (212), reads true to me as an aspect of some laughter. The incongruent does not fit. It is not compatible, whereas the congruent is the opposite.
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| Blackburn, page 212. |
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| Blackburn, page 212. |
In basic agreement with the Blackburn entry:
Cited
Very little is known about the specific brain mechanisms responsible for laughter. But we do know that laughter is triggered by many sensations and thoughts and that it activates many parts of the body.
Cited
Contrary to folk wisdom, most laughter is not about humor; it is about relationships between people. To find out when and why people laugh, I and several undergraduate research assistants went to local malls and city sidewalks and recorded what happened just before people laughed. Over a 10-year period, we studied over 2,000 cases of naturally occurring laughter.
Cited
We found that most laughter does not follow jokes. People laugh after a variety of statements such as “Hey John, where ya been?” “Here comes Mary,” “How did you do on the test?” and “Do you have a rubber band?”. These certainly aren’t jokes.
We don’t decide to laugh at these moments. Our brain makes the decision for us. These curious “ha ha ha’s” are bits of social glue that bond relationships.
Ask difference
Incongruity (noun) The state of being incongruous, or lacking congruence.
Incongruity (noun) An instance or point of disagreement "dissimilarity|discrepancy|inconsistency"
Incongruity (noun) A thing that is incongruous.
Incongruency (noun) incongruence.
Wiktionary
As my second Blogger website is Satire Und Theology, researching and writing it, I view incongruity and incongruency as a source of a significant amount of laughter, humour and satire. Theologically, the incongruent is often a sign of error in thought and action. There is often a lack of harmony and compatibility in reasoning and deeds and this provides fuel for satire. Granted this incongruity and incongruency is only an aspect of laughter and humour; a person might receive laughter from others for wearing the same type of shirt every day and that could be considered congruity and congruency.
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