Humor

What is humor? WHy do we laugh? why does it exist? What is its purpose?

All attempts to explain humour thus far have been fucking ridiculous, especially RedCream's.

It's time we looked at the facts.

Laughter/ amusement is genetic and in some instances influenced by culture and man of the causes can be narrowed down to these definitions. There may be more.

1: Observing and/or thinking about absurd/unusual occurances.
2: Tickling and other playful physical activities with someone you know.
3: Schadenfreude, we laugh at other's misfortunes or we are bigotted.
4*: To defuse a situation and "reset" strong emotions.

*This may be the utilisation of humour rather than the cause of it, though possibly this resulted in an evolutionary incentive to elevate the intensity of humour or to intellectualise it in humans.

Animals certainly have humour 2, but may possible have humour 1 and 3. It is possible to make a baby laugh by pulling funny faces or tickling them and toddlers, especially boys, seem to laugh a lot at other people's misfortunes.