HUMOR

The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humor include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humor-induced behavior to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humor to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humor to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.

Humor can be verbal, visual, or physical. Nonverbal forms of communication - for example, music or art - can also be humorous.

Root components

• being reflective of or imitative of reality
• surprise/misdirection, contradiction/paradox, ambiguity.

"The following sentence is true."
"The previous sentence is false."

Methods

• hyperbole
• metaphor
• farce
• reframing
• timing

Behavior, place and size

Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture in the documentary "Funny Business" that an object or a person can become funny in three different ways. They are:

• By behaving in an unusual way
• By being in an unusual place
• By being the wrong size

Logical ambiguity and self-contradiction is analogous to visual ambiguity and impossible objects, such as the Necker cube and impossible cube, or many of the drawings of M. C. Escher.

The following brain structures are currently thought to be involved in emotion:

• Amygdala — The amygdalae are two small, round structures located anterior to the hippocampi near the temporal poles. The amygdalae are involved in detecting and learning what parts of our surroundings are important and have emotional significance. They are critical for the production of emotion, and may be particularly so for negative emotions, especially fear.
• Prefrontal cortex — The term prefrontal cortex refers to the very front of the brain, behind the forehead and above the eyes. It appears to play a critical role in the regulation of emotion and behavior by anticipating the consequences of our actions. The prefrontal cortex may play an important role in delayed gratification by maintaining emotions over time and organizing behavior toward specific goals.
• Anterior cingulate — The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is located in the middle of the brain, just behind the prefrontal cortex. The ACC is thought to play a central role in attention, and may be particularly important with regard to conscious, subjective emotional awareness. This region of the brain may also play an important role in the initiation of motivated behavior.
• Ventral striatum — The ventral striatum is a group of subcortical structures thought to play an important role in emotion and behavior. One part of the ventral striatum called the nucleus accumbens is thought to be involved in the experience of goal-directed positive emotion. Individuals with addictions experience increased activity in this area when they encounter the object of their addiction.
• Insula — The insular cortex is thought to play a critical role in the bodily experience of emotion, as it is connected to other brain structures that regulate the body’s autonomic functions (heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc.). This region also processes taste information and is thought to play an important role in experiencing the emotion of disgust.
• Cerebellum - Recently, there has been a considerable amount of work that describes the role of the cerebellum in emotion as well as cognition, and a "cerebellar cognitive-affective syndrome" has been described. Both neuroimaging studies as well as studies following pathological lesions in the cerebellum (such as a stroke) demonstrate that the cerebellum has a significant role in emotional regulation. Lesion studies have shown that cerebellar dysfunction can attenuate the experience of positive emotions. While these same studies do not show an attenuated response to frightening stimuli, the stimuli did not recruit structures that normally would be activated (such as the amydal). Rather, alternative limbic structures were activated, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate gyrus, and the insula. This may indicate that evolutionary pressure resulted in the development of the cerebellum as a redundant fear-mediating circuit to enhance survival. It may also indicate a regulatory role for the cerebellum in the neural response to rewarding stimuli, such as money, drugs of abuse, and orgasm.

Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or may be thought to be. Reality is often contrasted with what is imaginary, delusional, in the mind, dreams, what is abstract, what is false, or what is fictional

Bad taste is generally a title given to any object or idea that does not fall within the normal social standards of the time or area.

Popular themes of the Black comedy include murder, suicide, depression, abuse, mutilation, war, barbarism, drug abuse, terminal illness, domestic violence, sexual violence, pedophilia, insanity, nightmare, disease, racism, disability (both physical and mental), chauvinism, corruption, and crime. By contrast, blue comedy focuses more on crude topics, such as nudity, sex and bodily fluids.

Types of irony:

Comic irony: Irony that is humorous (whereas much irony is not)

Dramatic irony: When the audience (or reader) knows a fictional character is making a mistake, because the reader has more information than the character.

Tragic irony: A type of dramatic irony. In tragic irony, a character's actions lead to consequences that are both tragic, and contrary to the character's desire and intentions.

Historical irony: A kind of situational irony that takes a long period of years for the irony to become evident.

Socratic irony: When a person asks questions, pretending not to understand, to lure the interlocutor into a logical trap. (Socrates, in Plato's dialogues, was a master of this technique.)

Fatalism : predeterminism, compatibilist predestination, defeatism.