This thesis explores how humor emerges from digital experiences. It hypothesizes that digital platforms create unintentional juxtapositions and allow for intentional interventions that promote unexpected connections and boundary confusion, rewarding thinkers with feelings of mirth. As information grows, our thirst for knowledge and love of absurdity increases. The machine reveals the emotionality of the human mind. We pursue, record, generate and share amusements across culture and time.

1. THESIS ONE
Digital Absurdity
Michael Silber | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

2. “Nothing in man is more
serious than his sense of
humor; it is the sign that
he wants all the truth.”
-Mark Van Doren
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

3. Hypothesis
This thesis presents the hypothesis that humor
emerges from the incongruities of digital experience.
Digital platforms present unintentional juxtapositions
and provide a means for intentional interventions,
promoting boundary confusion and unexpected
connections, which reward the active thinker
with feelings of mirth.
As our insatiable thirst for knowledge collides with
endless information, our love of the absurd is only
heightened. The cold/hard logic of the machine reveals
and accentuates the emotionality of the human mind.
We pursue, record, generate, and share each amusement,
broadcasting our humor across culture and time.
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

4. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

5. The Persistence of Humor
Through All Media
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

6. The Power of Humor
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

7. Philosophers on Humor
A Tickling of the Mind.
- Charles Darwin
A Mixture of Joy and Shock.
- Rene Descartes
A Sudden Glory.
- Thomas Hobbes
A Comparison Between Noble and Ignoble States.
- Aristotle
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

8. What is the
evolutionary/adaptive
explanation for the
existence of humor?
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

9. Humor Theories
Incongruity-Resolution Superiority
Relief Play
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

10. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

11. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

12. Perception
We only see what we look at. To look is an act
of choice […] We never look at one thing; we
are always looking at the relation between
things and ourselves. Our vision is continually
active, continually moving, continually
holding things in a circle around itself,
constituting what is present to us as we are.
-John Berger - "Ways of Seeing"
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

13. The Digital Experience
and Incongruity
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

14. Unintentional Incongruity
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

15. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

16. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

17. Intentional Incongruity
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

18. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

19. Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

20. “A sense of humor is the
only divine quality of man.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein