Philosophy Now Forum

If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Probably Have A Few Possessions
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-c ... ve-f-55262

“How about a little carving of a monkey?”

Walker wrote:If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Probably Have A Few Possessions
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-c ... ve-f-55262

“How about a little carving of a monkey?”

How is this funny?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Walker wrote:If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Probably Have A Few Possessions
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-c ... ve-f-55262

“How about a little carving of a monkey?”

How is this funny?

Heya Hobbes. Feeling better? With full cognizance that humour analysis is the very cause of humour falling flat, and the cause of knees saved from slaps, for appropriateness to situation and even thread, best to keep in mind this is a philosophy forum, so you have a responsibility that extends beyond the right to make noise. Namely, after you read these words, the continuance of the light and philosophical enquiry will subsequently fall upon your shoulders and if you fail in your responsibility, then this time the lights dim on this side of the table, and you will know. Brevity's counterpoint appearance as tired old humour just may not stir the winds of laughter, and failure to meet capacity may not stir response.

Under intellectual conditions that define philosophy as a dualistic endeavour, the tried and true of solid analysis is form and content, keeping in mind that form is a legitimate content, and that the words are aimed at capacity and not the specific knowledge that can be easily found in this day and age, if there is interest.

Form: a great stylistic buildup in the Stone Soup tradition.

Content: I could go on and on with this and likely be boring. Take just one to limit the snores. The content is funny because it views renunciation as a forced discipline that creates a conflict between rules for life, and desire. This is not humorous because it is a cause of suffering, although it is a cause. Hell, anything is a cause for suffering, depending on how you look at it. Rather, the link is humorous because it highlights a shared and egocentric view.

This is how in life you end up with people doing silly things with great intensity. This is why the Dadaists were serious about the silly. About the highlighter side. What deserves attention more than the serious, and what is more serious in holistic implication and effect than the lighter side.

For a Buddhist, the humor of Buddha rationalizing renunciation as an enforced discipline subject to rules is likely an inside joke, as connoted by the request to explain the humour.

By the time he was called Buddha, Buddha was beyond this level of comprehension. This mind displayed as humorous motion was subsumed by Buddha’s more encompassing horizon line, though this likely occurred to him.

Why, you may ask? Because in the mindful, perpetual realization of emptiness against which relative dualism is perceived to move as body, or move as thinking, and in light of the continuum that is mind, renunciation becomes a description of a mental state rather than a prescription for behavior, although it is also that for those who rationalize the rules as something that evolve with fashion.

If you feel some protestation of incomprehension rising up to see the light of day, keep in mind the answer to your question speaks to capacity, if not knowledge. Within certain horizons, just as the responsibility of continuance falls upon the dialoguer rather than the questioner, and just as the acquisition of specific knowledge falls upon the inquirer, so does the distillation of essence fall to the wise.

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Specifically, the little carving of a monkey is a humorous mental image because it is the last ingredient for the Stone Soup.

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If you don't see the humour in that, maybe this will clarify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhoeIKr6tdo

Walker wrote:If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Probably Have A Few Possessions
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-c ... ve-f-55262

“How about a little carving of a monkey?”

The satire does suggest a profound lack of understanding of ascetic ideas in the author - how a life devoted to inner discipline as a means of achieving peace and security as viewed through the eyes of one who seeks peace and security through external means, seeing this life as the only life.

Need a fan? You should be cooling with the mind instead - that way the meditator need never fear not having a fan. Ditto reasoning for most of the items mentioned, aside from the monkey carving, of course.

Because mind creates the bother, Buddhism suggests putting mind into the places that bother you. That get you heated up. This leads to the philosophical question, is the need to hear PC the same as the need to speak PC?

Answer: Hell no.

Would this artistic expression of music that ventures into conceptual performance art be classified as satire, or irony?

Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed
Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO8sD81NVTg

I have been thinking about the same since the past few days as I find myself joking a lot less these days after reading philosophy. Perhaps, philosophy didn't talk much about human survival tools and humour being a survival tool, it is quite understandable why humour didn't find a place in philosophy?!

I think humour evolved only after humans found the need for pleasing others, selling to others and entertaining others. Philosophy is not about any of three above - rationality, art, metaphysics, mind, politics, religion are not joking matters. Of course, post political economy, capitalism, atheism, digital communication - everything is a laughing & 'meme'ing matter.

Before browsing into this forum I thought it would be less about philosophy of humor, and more about humor in philosophy or philosophy in humor. I guess I just needed a laugh today. In case anyone else does, I recommend spending a few minutes on any of the following sites:

http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/phi ... index.html
http://consc.net/phil-humor.html
http://consc.net/phil-humor.html

Do you have a favorite?

No, ha-ha!

Walker wrote:

Even funnier, this reminds me of Bob.

PhilX

After a fender-bender, a very irate little person stormed out of his vehicle while hollering at the other driver, “I’m not Happy!”

Surprised at the vitriol, the other driver could only say, “Which one are you?”

Schroedinger's cat: https://goo.gl/photos/wudr791fFgEYT2F8A

How about … which one are you, Grumpy?

PC WARNING!

Q: How do you say pleasant in Chinese?

A: Preasant.