Link to originalHow the theory of compression explains humor.
Consider the following statement: Biological organisms are driven by the “Four Big F’s”: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, Mating. Some subjective observers who read this for the first time think it is funny. Why? As the eyes are sequentially scanning the text the brain receives a complex visual input stream. The latter is subjectively partially compressible as it relates to the observer’s previous knowledge about letters and words. That is, given the reader’s current knowledge and current compressor, the raw data can be encoded by fewer bits than required to store random data of the same size. But the punch line after the last comma is unexpected for those who expected another “F”. Initially this failed expectation results in sub-optimal data compression - storage of expected events does not cost anything, but deviations from predictions require extra bits to encode them. The compressor, however, does not stay the same forever: within a short time interval its learning algorithm kicks in and improves its performance on the data seen so far, by discovering the non-random, non-arbitrary and therefore compressible pattern relating the punch line to previous text and previous elaborate predictive knowledge about the “Four Big F’s.” This saves a few bits of storage. The number of saved bits (or a similar measure of learning progress) becomes the observer’s intrinsic reward, possibly strong enough to motivate him to read on in search for more reward through additional yet unknown patterns. While previous attempts at explaining humor (e. g., Raskin 1985) also focus on the element of surprise, they lack the essential concept of novel pattern detection measured by compression progress due to learning. This progress is zero whenever the unexpected is just random white noise, and thus no fun at all.
Funny things are surprising, they are incompressible … until we discover the pattern / understand the pointe. We react to resolving that contradiction with relief, with laughter.