mindsquirt

Alex, my pride and joy, has a pretty good sense of humor. Over the weekend, she was laughing (very hard) at my wife prancing around and singing a silly song. This made me ponder what in the world babies think is so damn funny.

So far, I have seen Alex (10 mo) laugh at being tickled, and people doing silly things, like me dancing, my wife singing and frolicing, and grandpa putting a pillow on his head as though it was his hat. It is really striking that someone who cannot yet comprehend language can laugh, not just at something tactile, like tickling, but at situations, like her parents acting silly.

When we see her laughing now and then, we say "she has a good sense of humor". This lead me to then wonder how a sense of humor is developed. Although I don't know, I would reason that a sense of humor is learned (nurture as opposed to nature). If that is so, how could she be laughing already at 10 months?

Maybe at this stage, she is just extremely "entertained", and that makes her laugh. I mean, she can't "get" absurd jokes. She can't comprehend those kind of things. For instance, if I wore my clothes backwards and talking backwards one day, she wouldn't think that was funny. she probably wouldn't notice.

My wife and I, and for that matter my family and friends, all have tremendous senses of humor. In fact, that is basically what I have in common with all my friends, is that we like to get together and say clever things. So, I think she will have a pretty good sense of humor when she gets older.

What is humor anyhow? Is it our way of keeping ourselves happy, and dealing with stress? I would guess that non-primates don't laugh. I suppose that humor is a bi-product of being able to think abstractly. Most humor I have found is absurd or ironic situations. Do dolphins laugh? Is that chattering thing they do laughing? They are smug, those dolphins.

There are so many unanswered questions. Thoughts? Below is a bonus picture of that little cherub looking very un-humerous.