[FRIAM] gelotophilia

[Steve Smith]

As I read the interchange about GPT-3 and the Chinese room, I was drawn
off into side-musings which were finally polyped off to a pure tangent
(in my head) when DougC and NickT exchanged:

    NLT> Dog do joy; why not computers?

    DC> dog is highly interconnected - hormones, nerves, senses, and
    environment. neurons are not binary . every synapse is an infinite
    state variable.

While Joy and humor are not identical, there is some positive
correlation.   Poking around, I was only mildly surprised to find that
there was a body of literature and in fact international organizations
and conferences on humor (not mimes or clowns or  stand up comedians,
but real scholars studying the former as well as regular people).   I
was looking for the physiological complexes implied by humor or joy.   I
haven't (yet) found as much on the topic as I would like, maybe because
I got sidelined reading about 2 neologisms (ca 2007) and a related
ancient (Greek) term:   /Gelotophobia/, /Gelotophilia/, and
/Katagelasticism/.   My limited Italian and Spanish had me reading it as
"Gelato" or "Helado" which translates roughly into our own "Ice Cream",
though the ingredients differ toward less rich technically.

Their meanings, however are roughly:  Fear of being laughed at; Love of
being laughed at; and the Pleasure of laughing at others.     These are
apparently more than the usual discomfort or warm feelings we might get
from being laughed at, or from laughing at others, but a more deep and
acute sense of it.

    https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/

    https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf

Part of why I bring it up on this list is because as I study myself and
others as we exchange our ideas, observations, and occasional
(un)pleasantries, I am fascinated by the intersection between
(convolution amongsT?) personal styles and perhaps more formal
"training" each of us might have learned from our parents, among our
peers, by our teachers, our workplaces, possibly professional
organizations, etc.  

It appears to me that institutions of higher education enforce/impose a
certain code of personal conduct first on their participants
(undergrads, grads, postdocs, staff, faculty) which is a microcosm of
the larger world.  White Collar and Blue Collar contexts are also
similarly dissimilar, and within those, a cube-farm of programmer-geeks
and a bullpen of writers, and a trading floor of traders (all white
collar, taking their showers at the beginning of the day) have a wide
spectrum while blue collar workers (taking their showers at the end of
the day) do as well.   Construction crews,  oilfield roughnecks,
cowboys, farmhands, etc.   each have their own myriad ways of
interacting... sometimes *requiring* a level of mocking to feel
connected, etc.  There may also be a strong generational component... as
we cross roughly 3 generations. 
Greatest/Boomers/X/Millenials/Zoomers/??? and all the cusps between.

But what I was most interested in is related to the original discussion
which is what is the extended physiological response to humor, joy,
mockery that a human (or animal?) may have which a synthetic being would
need to be designed to include.   Perhaps a properly broadly conceived
General Artificial Intelligence would ultimately include all of this as
well, and as deep learning evolves, it seems that there is no reason
that a GI couldn't simulate the physiological feedback loops that drive
and regulate some aspects of humore?

- Steve

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