Neuroscience is a joke

Voted the funniest joke by several million people:

"A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes have rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his mobile phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: ‘My friend is dead! What can I do?’ The operator, in a soothing voice, says: ‘Just take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.’ There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy’s voice comes back on the line. He says: ‘OK, now what?’"

                                                         -Richard Wiseman

The Neuroscience

“Humor is a cognitive event, in which an unconscious assumption is discovered to have been a mistake.”

“Humor happens when the operating system detects an error that other parts had overlooked. The brain's dopaminergic pleasure system rewards that survival-benefiting discovery with a jolt of mirth.”

“Laughter ..... expresses the detection of humor”

                                                         -Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett and Reginald Adams Jr

Sometimes the sense of achievement in just understanding the joke gives us a dopamine boost and a resulting ‘feel good high’!

Next time you need to transcend the doom and gloom, go find a joke or two!

                                                         -Ian Weinberg