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Some might approach this in a down to earth way, in a funny way, in a dry and thorough systematic scientific way, and I want to hear all of it!

What purpose does humor serve for human beings?  Do animals have humor?  

Lets flesh this out!

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Humour to me helps to see Life in a lighter way, it is good for our health, it helps to communicate in non threatening ways.. It just helps all along!

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the best medicine at the best price

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Originally Posted by Noah Harvey:
Some might approach this in a down to earth way, in a funny way, in a dry and thorough systematic scientific way, and I want to hear all of it!

What purpose does humor serve for human beings?  Do animals have humor?  

Lets flesh this out!

Actually one fundamental and universal aspect of humour gets often overlooked. Humour just like the morals is a weapon of war. It's the most effective weapon in the war of all against all. A moral prescription is an advance warning in that war." Don't do that or else" is the general meaning of the warning while humour is its most effective specific variety. It is easier to disregard any serious censure whereas making an enemy into a joke is much more effective in destroying the enemy. That's the best weapon against competition and thus humour is egalitarian in nature and is an expression of the universal envy, fear and hatred the humans have for each other. Everybody wants to get ahead which is not easy with everyone else wanting exactly the same while being put down by any success of others. Humour examines every success in the hope to find in it signs of failure in order to destroy it.
The straightest path available to the human imagination is to claim to have won already thus to be ahead of every one else. That is the line of least resistance and it would be universally followed if not for the Danger of being laughed at, the danger that is keeping every one in check threatening  each moment to prick the bubble of the pretence to have won for oneself and have defeated all the rest already.  The danger of being made a laughing stock is ever present making everybody toe every body else's line most of the time; it lets everybody know that any claim to any personal significance at the expense of any one else if made without being backed up in the most compelling fashion may be mercilessly laughed at with the pretender being reduced back into nothing by the laughter.
Yet ironically the humour is promoting the very competition it is waging the war against. The threat of being made into a joke keeps everybody pretending they are happy to be equal in their common insignificance yet it cannot stop from rushing right ahead all those who are cunning enough,  are capable of trying harder, willing to disregard the danger and can see through the mechanism of that universal mutual put-down that the humour serves.

That is the moral aspect of humour and each time the defences are lowered and the shield of egalitarian pretence is dropped the humorous arrow strikes its victim, killing the pretence and making the pretender know their insignificant place at the very bottom of the existential ladder.

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normally i dont disagree with serge, but holy ****, i cant get behind humor being a 'weapon of moral war' though i do agree that all war is 'moral' not in what happens IN said war but the justification of all wars and madness, i would argue more that in the sense of 'enmity' humor serves as a kind of disintegration not as one against another, but as disintegration of both 'target' and 'oppressor'

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Originally Posted by Jane Smith:
normally i dont disagree with serge, but holy ****, i cant get behind humor being a 'weapon of moral war' though i do agree that all war is 'moral' not in what happens IN said war but the justification of all wars and madness, i would argue more that in the sense of 'enmity' humor serves as a kind of disintegration not as one against another, but as disintegration of both 'target' and 'oppressor'

What I said is not all what humour is for and it may not apply to every kind of humour yet all that is present as one of its basic elements. I just decided to look at it from this angle which is far from being an exhaustive view of humour in general. It is only true as far as the roughest side of it goes, yet as far as it does go humour serves as a universal moral weapon just like I said. Otherwise, how would you explain why being laughed at is not a sought after distinction but is something so unanimously feared?

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Originally Posted by Jane Smith:
normally i dont disagree with serge, but holy ****, i cant get behind humor being a 'weapon of moral war' though i do agree that all war is 'moral' not in what happens IN said war but the justification of all wars and madness, i would argue more that in the sense of 'enmity' humor serves as a kind of disintegration not as one against another, but as disintegration of both 'target' and 'oppressor'

What I said is not all what humour is for and it may not apply to every kind of humour yet all that is present as one of its basic elements. I just decided to look at it from this angle which is far from being an exhaustive view of humour in general. It is only true as far as the roughest side of it goes, yet as far as it does go humour serves as a universal moral weapon just like I said. Otherwise, how would you explain why being laughed at is not a sought after distinction but is something so unanimously feared?

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Originally Posted by Serge Kim:

Originally Posted by Jane Smith:
normally i dont disagree with serge, but holy ****, i cant get behind humor being a 'weapon of moral war' though i do agree that all war is 'moral' not in what happens IN said war but the justification of all wars and madness, i would argue more that in the sense of 'enmity' humor serves as a kind of disintegration not as one against another, but as disintegration of both 'target' and 'oppressor'

What I said is not all what humour is for and it may not apply to every kind of humour yet all that is present as one of its basic elements. I just decided to look at it from this angle which is far from being an exhaustive view of humour in general. It is only true as far as the roughest side of it goes, yet as far as it does go humour serves as a universal moral weapon just like I said. Otherwise, how would you explain why being laughed at is not a sought after distinction but is something so unanimously feared?

being laughed AT may be 'moral weapon' but being laughed WITH is what i was getting at, depends on ones level of schadenfreude and sadism