My theory about the reason we laugh: it's a reward for learning, for intellectual novelty, plus a social signal for same. That's why incongruity matters; the mundane is not novel, and therefore not funny. It's also why babies and children laugh so much: they have plenty to learn. That also explains why jokes get less funny the more you've heard them. Squealing with delight at peek-a-boo only works when peek-a-boo is new and interesting; for the rest of us, it's usually dull.

Bollocks! (I've been hanging out with crazy Brits and Welshmen this weekend.)

I wanted to laugh at the witty first reponse to this fun and interesting article, but instead Lexicon trashed the interviewee's theory of humor. Why not come up with a joke in response, Lex I Con?

I think there are probably several reasons for the existence of humor, and I doubt that learning is the first. Adam probably slipped on a banana peel and an ape guffawed, causing Eve to lose her head when the serpent offered her an apple.

(Did he just talk her into it? What hand did he use to give it to her? What moron, man or woman, takes advice from a slithering snake with a forked tongue? Could it have been a PEAR-able?)

What is an elephant's favorite game?

Squash.

I laughed at this till my sides hurt-I don't know why, I'm 54. I think absurdity and incongruity are what makes these jokes funny. Elephants are such dignified creatures, after all. I remember an elephant joke book making the rounds when I was in second grade. Imagine, they are still funny after all these years.

Actually, Lexicon's suggestion is perfectly compatible with the main theory developed in the article. When tension is released -- when we 'get it' -- something new is learned. But the absurdity is necessary, or else students in school and university classes would be laughing at new information from the teachers all the time (can you imagine the laughter in introduction-to-calculus courses?...) Babies laugh a lot, but I'm not sure this reaction has the same causes as adult laughter -- eventually it will have, but not initially. And also, every new thing they learn must look quite absurd at first -- what the heck is this thing? Oh, it's a chair! So it's nothing threatening, it won't eat me up...

Humor can also be when we recognize how absurd we are as individuals. Self-deprecating humor might be the highest form of therapy on the planet.

The way I see it, if you can laugh at yourself and your own idiocy, you're doing okay. At the very least, you're keeping your ego in check.

Wanna hear my favorite "A guy walks into a bar" joke?

A man walks into a bar and says, "Give me a beer before problems start!" The bartender sets a beer out in front of him. He chugs it, and then before the bartender can even walk off, he grabs his sleeve. "Give me a beer before the problems start!" The bartender looks confused, but draws another beer for him. This goes on for a while, and after the fifth beer the bartender is totally confused and asks the man, "When are you going to pay for these beers?" The man goes, "Ah, now the problems start!"

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "What is this, a joke?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-oxsMl3iCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExAw4hIhRIU

Sportz High-k-o-o-o-o-z-e

Tennis is not for just boys/men anymore…

i am MARIA

SHARAPOVA tennis grunt

I strike men’s balls hard

Sorry, fella, but no one is interested in this topic.

You know, for the sake of humor it's kind of sad that there are going to be fewer and fewer social boundaries as we advance as a civilization. There's a lot of humor in obliterating boundaries, and there's a smug self-satisfaction in knowing that you're above them.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you can actually have a group of people without having some sort of boundaries. They may not always be sexual or racial, but there will always be people that one group perceives itself as better than. And I think humor can go both ways along that axis, which is nice. It helps us cope with all these assholes we can't stand.

So I'm thinking of my three favorite jokes. One of them obliterates social boundaries, and a lot of my enjoyment comes from just how wrong it is. If you make the topics acceptable, a lot of the humor's gone. But it's also got a sort of mundane punchline - along the lines of "because she's dead." So there's an incongruity there between the setup and punchline.

The second is just an incongruous piece of absurdity. A mundane setup and a very unexpected punchline. But totally innocent, completely contrary to the previous joke.

The third is a take on a popular genre (the "My dick's so big" joke), which is funny in sort of an ironic way because the genre itself is a takeoff on assholes we can't stand, who actually have that sort of braggadocio. And the punchline involves a phrase that's just incongruous and silly.

So it's interesting to see how much of my own humor is related to social mores, and how much is sort of more primitive in that it's based on odd situations. But I still think that in a way it'll be a shame when we can't find humor in words and situations that make us uncomfortable, because we're past discomfort in silly things like sex and language.

So tell us your three jokes already!

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?

Because someone shot him.

Why did the second monkey fall out of the tree?

He was stapled to the first monkey.

Why did the third monkey fall out of the tree?

Peer pressure.

I didn't imagine the censors would get to them.

If you were interested in my jokes, I guess you'll just have to imagine what kind of joke might be too ribald for Salon.

Sorry.