On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:17:30 -0700, Baz wrote:

Amazing effort. thanks for sharing your work.

Fitting laughter or humor into a strict category is certainly a
perspective.

"The basic process of laughing can be defined as the displacement of
emotive neural activity, on the fear (negative) side of approach and
avoidance motivations, when it is denied expression by opposition or
redundancy."

Being a strict and Orthodox Layman, this seems forced.

Laughter is a result of process. Your point is that this is the result of
one type of process which is on the 'fear side of approach'. Laughter is
basically Fear as part of the primal "fight or flight" mechanic the
bridge being the emotive neural activity or displacement behavior.

In the case of the child being thrown into the air.

The absence of fear is not the reason the child laughs. It enables the
enjoyment to take place but the reason for the enjoyment is the sensation
not the absence of fear. A roller coaster ride without the height threat
would still generate enjoyment by sensation. Fear is certainly an element
but as an addition and enhancement to the base sensation of free fall.

Fear, as you describe it, can be a factor but it is a superficial element
to the event.

Laying laughter as fear into a joyous social occasion, you would then
have to classify all other associative activities as such, it seems to
me. If so you force most every 'positive' human activity into what seems,
to this layman, to be a rather narrow perspective.

A more open approach might be that laughter and humor are the results of
different types of processes. Laughter maybe a language in and of itself
used, instinctual or by conscious design, for many things.

All in all I must say, you intelligent people REALLY know how to break up
a party!!!