[Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 86, Issue 9
Pedro C. Marijuán
pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com
Wed Feb 9 14:16:42 CET 2022
Dear Youri and FISers,
Thanks for your reflections on humor.
Curiously, within the crazy variety of themes my research group was
focusing while I was active in IACS institute, laughter got our
sustained effort (Jorge Navarro worked a lot on it).
We approached it as an evolutionary phenomenon related to the extension
and intensity of inter-individual bonding in social groups.
We published a couple of papers, an introductory one:
--"The Bonds of Laughter: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry into the
Information Processes of Human Laughter"
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1010/1010.5602.pdf
And a more polished version in Kybernetes journal:
--"Laughing bonds: A multidisciplinary inquiry into the social
information processes of human laughter"
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/K-02-2016-0026/full/html
Given the highly peculiar sound structure of laughter and our
neuroscientific hypotheses, we had contemplated its possible application
as an auxiliary tool in the detection, diagnostic, and prognostic on
several mental disorders (particularly in depression). We developed an
ad hoc experimental methodology, applied to a competitive research
project, and got the project and very promising applied results--with a
stream of publications. For instance: "Validation of laughter for
diagnosis and evaluation of depression". In: Journal of Affective
Disorders
<https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Journal-of-Affective-Disorders-0165-0327>
160(1–3):43–49 DOI:10.1016/j.jad.2014.02.035
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.02.035>
In spite of the dissolution of our group, the project is still
potentially alive. There is an important hospital of Madrid willing to
work on our methodology & software and finally develop , say, a
"commercial" program and App. (Other partners would be very welcome!)
About humor, I have always had a high respect for it; as being related
to laughter mechanisms, it differs in the importance of language,
meaning, and social context.
Probably our main research hypothesis applies there, but it should have
more development and sophistication. The evolutionary context of "play"
becomes central.
Humor appears essentially as a play with words (also images, or actions)
that by the the act of playing "degrade" the usual serious thing to a
childish or abstruse occurrence, making then a strong contrast. The
difficult point is that it has to be solved "positively" out from a
benevolent or distanced position. Otherwise it becomes sarcasm or just
malevolent ridicule.
Humor in science is not welcome as Youri comments. I think the enormous
bureaucratization and technologization of our profession matters quite a
bit.
In any event, as long as playing is sufficiently maintained and welcome
as a social attitude in adults too --and not condemned-- there is some
hope...
Best--Pedro
El 06/02/2022 a las 16:31, Youri Timsit escribió:
> Humour, systems and information
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> All these discussions around humour could lead to the following question:
> Does humour in a given system contain information about itself and about
> the system to
> which it is addressed?
>
> In system, we can for example include religion, science or art or try to
> extend this
> reflection to any physical system and thus find an equivalent of humour in
> biology, physics, mathematics and information theory.
>
>
> Any system contains a series of rules and conventions that give it
> structure and maintain
> consistency. One might, at first glance, suggest that humour is an element
> that
> endangers the order of this structure. In one way or another, it questions
> and
> challenges certain rules, plays with conventions and thus undermines the
> established order in a given system.
>
> Of course, there are certainly different categories of humour... (I am not
> familiar with
> the philosophy of humour, nor with the work that has considered the place
> of
> humour in information theoryŠ)
>
>
> Let's take, for example, a play on words: a shift in meaning turns a
> discourse on its head,
> but also the entire semantics, the entire edifice of a language, and this
> is
> perhaps why it can make people laugh, it's associated with the vertigo of
> the
> order of a world that vanishes in a fraction of a second. What suddenly
> makes
> one laugh? the awareness that nothing holds together?
>
>
> Umberto Ecco, the great semiotician, placed humour - the laughter of
> Christ - at the centre
> of his novel 'The Name of the Rose'. He showed that religious orthodoxy
> left
> little room for humour, which could threaten its coherence and very
> existence.
>
>
> In Western music, another system based on multiple conventions ranging
> from the rules of
> harmony to bourgeois decorum in concert halls, humour has little place. A
> musical performance, such as a classical music concert or an opera, would
> be
> the place of a musical discourse of course, but also of a ceremony, a
> ritual
> even, intended to reinforce the established order, the social structuring
> of
> the Western bourgeoisie. It is very rare that humour and derision disrupt
> these
> ceremonies (see the movie of F. Fellini, Prova d¹orchestra).
> However, some composers have made a point of teasing out these
> rituals: Haydn, for example, broke with protocol in his 'farewell
> symphony',
> where the musicians leave one by one before the end of the piece... the
> opposite can be seen in the film The Concert (2009, Radu Mihaileanu),
> where the
> two trumpeters arrive late with large bags filled with jars of sweet and
> sour
> pickles at the Théâtre du Chatelet of Paris. These scenes create a comic
> effect that shakes up the order and rituals of the Viennese or Parisian
> upper
> middle class in a bittersweet way. The humour here carries a message: it
> disturbs, disrupts and questions conventions, but also the conventions
> associated with 20th century musical representations.
>
>
> Science, like religion, is not conducive to humour: the seriousness of
> scientific
> theories and the experiments that are supposed to demonstrate them do not
> tolerate humour. However, a scientific theory should be, Œin theory¹,
> refutable
> (Popper) and in this respect, ephemeral.... Being aware of the brevity of
> existence should however encourage a certain distance, humour and
> derision...
> but unfortunately, we rarely laugh at a scientific conference. Most
> researchers
> take themselves very seriously and it must be admitted that you don't come
> to a
> seminar to have a laughŠ
> I would dream of a congress where after the conferences, actors or clowns
> would take up
> our speeches by caricaturing them... this would create a more cordial
> atmosphere between researchers. David Lodge, in a "small world", also
> made fun of scientific rituals, we should make all students read it...
>
>
> With his Cantatrix Sopranica, George Perrec has
> made a mockery of scientific protocol! A magnificent parody of an article
> published in Nature, with colourful bibliographic
> references and a beautiful caricature of the scientific method that is both
> serious and grotesque. Serious and Grotesque are unfortunately the
> qualifiers
> that one could attribute to many articles published in "Great"
> journals... and that one finds retracted quite early (see the Lancet
> episode).
> The established order and the Narcissism of researchers (see Science,
> narcissism and the quest for visibility from Bruno Lemaitre; DOI:
> 10.1111/febs.14032) is a major obstacle to humour in research.
>
>
> Thus, one could hypothesise here that humour contains indispensable
> information: this
> information challenges and shakes up the rigid rules of a system and
> allows it
> to evolve.... If we extrapolate to biology, the appearance of a mutation, a
> sequence shift, would therefore be a form of humour... ? the humour of DNA?
>
> Youri
>
>
> Le 06/02/2022 12:00, « fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es on behalf of
> fis-request at listas.unizar.es » <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es on behalf of
> fis-request at listas.unizar.es> a écrit :
>
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>> 1. Re: [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>> 16--CLOSING (Loet Leydesdorff)
>> 2. Re: [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>> 16--CLOSING (Francesco Rizzo)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2022 11:13:14 +0000
>> From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet at leydesdorff.net>
>> To: karl.javorszky at gmail.com, fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>> 16--CLOSING
>> Message-ID: <emba24b591-9376-42ee-bc49-0d7eff2db1b2 at pc2014>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> Dear Karl,
>>
>>> The Lecture by Youri has opened many approaches towards understanding
>>> the general concept of information, specifically in a biologic context.
>>>
>> The concept of information, defined specifically in a biological context
>> is for that very reason not the general concept of information. This
>> confusion does not help for the understanding. In economics, for
>> example, one should not work with a biological concept of information.
>>
>> Information can be measured in bits and bytes. I have not heard a single
>> argument in this discussion of how the biological theorizing leads to
>> (proposals for) the measurement of information. Without the beginning of
>> an operationalization, the theory remains a pure philosophy. I don't
>> think that one should go for a biological philosophy, including social
>> darwinism etc.
>>
>> Best,
>> Loet
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2022 14:59:24 +0100
>> From: Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com>
>> To: Loet Leydesdorff <loet at leydesdorff.net>
>> Cc: fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] [External Email] Re: Fis Digest, Vol 85, Issue
>> 16--CLOSING
>> Message-ID:
>> <CAEvKwyTCjpP63GCsbVK1pD00zU-725AMZd1y9JQAny3f0caMzA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Caro carlo e Cari tutti,
>> nessuna scienza dell'informazione, compresa quella di Shannon, pu? basarsi
>> sull'esattezza delle misurazioni delle variabili dei fenomeni
>> che analizza e studia, figuriamoci l'economia. D'altra parte all'economia
>> interessano pi? le valutazioni che le misurazioni. Cio? il prezzo
>> o valore di mercato di un bene (capitale) pu? calcolarsi tenendo conto
>> dell'affidabil?t? e della probabilit? dei dati della cosiddetta realt? di
>> mercato e dei comportamenti degli operatori economici (acquirenti e
>> venditori) che, fra l'altro, stabiliscono un rapporto di complementarit?
>> con i beni economici medesimi.. Nascono cos? i valori normali dal punto di
>> vista soggettivo, sottesi. da un'economia quantistica.
>> Questo per?, come economista, non mi ha impedito di elaborare una teoria
>> del valore basata sulla legge dell'informazione in uno con
>> il processo produttivo di tras-in-formazione, di cui la Fis si ?
>> (pre)occupata in passato.
>> La legge generale e universale dell'informazione consiste nel prendere o
>> nel dare forma a tutto e a tutti: alle persone, alle idee e alle cose-.
>> Sulla base di questo procedimento che, in maniera interattiva e
>> relazionale coglie il relativo valore delle differenze, ? possibile
>> esprimere
>> giudizi di valore, pi? o meno attendibili. Quindi v'ha una sola legge
>> dell'informazione, ma infiniti modi di misurarla-valutarla.
>> Spetta alle diverse discipline teoriche o alle pratiche operative darsi le
>> norme o regole ad-atte alle proprie specifiche misurazioni o valutazioni.
>> Ad es. gli economisti matematici, che a partire dal diciannovesimo secolo
>> hanno incominciato ad applicare il calcolo infinitesimale al fine di
>> quantizzare-quantificare le variabili della produzione e della
>> distribuzione della ricchezza, sono in irreversibile crisi, in grande
>> sfacelo, fuori strada,
>> perch? incapaci di comprendere e vedere-leggere la realt? economica
>> capitalistica.
>> Vi chiedo scusa se sono stato pi? lungo di quanto volevo essere.
>> Un abbraccio
>> Francesco
>>
>>
>>
>> Il giorno sab 5 feb 2022 alle ore 12:13 Loet Leydesdorff <
>> loet at leydesdorff.net> ha scritto:
>>
>>> Dear Karl,
>>>
>>> The Lecture by Youri has opened many approaches towards understanding
>>> the
>>> general concept of information, specifically in a biologic context.
>>>
>>> The concept of information, defined *specifically *in a biological
>>> context is for that very reason not the *general *concept of
>>> information.
>>> This confusion does not help for the understanding. In economics, for
>>> example, one should not work with a biological concept of information.
>>>
>>> Information can be measured in bits and bytes. I have not heard a single
>>> argument in this discussion of how the biological theorizing leads to
>>> (proposals for) the measurement of information. Without the beginning
>>> of an
>>> operationalization, the theory remains a pure philosophy. I don't think
>>> that one should go for a biological philosophy, including social
>>> darwinism
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Loet
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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