There is no definitive answer since what one person finds funny another might not.

But one quality I have noticed that the majority of funny things seem to possess is the quality of being unexpected. Unexpectedness itself is often enough to make someone laugh. Especially if it is biological in origin (like farts or a sexual reference).

If something funny is repeated over and over it often becomes less funny. Although there are special cases where repetition makes something more funny.

Like I say, there is no definitive answer regarding fun. Obviously, one component of fun is mood. One can be in a good mood where one is more likely to find things funny. In extreme cases one might start giggling for no reason at all. At the other end of the mood spectrum one might be so depressed that there is nothing one can find funny.

Because of the indefinite nature of fun, it's not possible to list any rules or instructions regarding, "how to be funny". I think the most important point to keep in mind is that quality of being unexpected. That means you have to invent something new. So rather than making your goal trying to be funny, you can often achieve fun just by being creative and coming up with new ways of expressing things. And that's a satisying goal to pursue whether you produce anything funny or not.

I would like to end on a funny note but I can't. Someone glued my slippers to the floor.
 

It's a trick question, folks!

If I asked, "Does Cat exist?" then how would you answer?
You might say, "I don't know exactly what you mean but perhaps a cat named Cat exists."

That's why to avoid trickery the question should not be, "Does God exist?" but it should be
"Does a god named God exist?"

Because that question can easily be answered yes by everyone.
 

This question appears in many forms, like: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Why does anything exist all? What is the purpose of life?

Maybe those questions are all reactions to a feeling of finding ourself in a big complicated place, awesomely huge and complex, and wondering how this place happens to be here and why we are in it.

But as I think about it, I realize I would ask the same questions in a small simple place. For example, if I woke up in a grey room, just four walls and a ceiling and a floor painted grey, then I would wonder where it was, why it was there, why I was in it, and what was outside of it.

So really, questions like: What is the meaning of the universe? or Why is there such a thing as life? don't depend on the universe at all. They are just an essential component of our basic thinking. We locate ourselves. To locate yourself you have to know where you are and who you are and why you are there.

Normally, it's enough to know I am in my room typing on my keyboard for the reason that I like to write, but occasionally I wonder why I have a room and a desire to write. I could think through the history of it, how this room came to be and how I came to be in it, but I would have to start at some point in time where things were already in progress, like when I was born, and that wouldn't answer the question of how my parents met and why they got married, not to mention their parents and their parents' parents. Once you try to answer things historically you are taken back to the beginning of the universe.

That is, if the universe had a beginning. Current thought among people who think about such things allows for the possibility of an everlasting universe that swells and shrinks or even multiple or infinite universes. It doesn't much matter which theory is correct because what is happening now is happening now no matter what backstory you give it. And that's what is most important -- what is happening now.

But I used "creative force" in the title because of a mental image I had. There is a kind of mechanical clock that has a mainspring. The mainspring slowly unwinds and turns numerous gears to drive the clock hands around. If you think about all the activity and motions in the universe being like the gears and movements of the clock, then the "mainspring" of the universe would be the prime mover of it all.

In the clock you cannot see the mainspring unwind. It happens too slowly. Most wind-up clocks take several days to wind down. The mainspring is a steady force, but an invisible force.

If the universe had a "mainspring" then it would probably be undetectable to us, since apparently it takes billions of years to wind down. We would only know it as a mystery. The mystery of why there is anything, why there is life, why anything happens at all. I think it's safe to call it a "creative" force since it's very unlikely any state of the universe is ever going to repeat. Always something new to see. Even if we can't say why it's there to see or why we are here to see it.
 

I have enlarged my idea of existence to include everything. I got tired of questions like "Does God exist?" and "Is Santa Claus real?"

If you Google God or Santa Claus you will find they have millions of search hits. I would expect things that don't exist to not have quite so many hits!

So here is my current thinking on existence...

If it can exist, then it does exist.
If you can think it, then it exists.

In other words, I am saying that for something to NOT exist then it has to be inconceivable. You just cannot think it. Only that which has never been thought has a shot at non-existence. Once something appears in a mind then it has gotten a foothold into existence.

(Please note that there are millions of things that exist but have never been thought of by anyone. My point is not that something HAS to be thought before it can exist. My point is that once something IS thought, then it exists. There are other existing somethings which no one has thought of yet.)

I know there will be complaints that I have turned the idea of existence inside-out and ruined it. But to me it makes no sense to apply the label "nonexistent" to anything. If it doesn't exist, then how do you know what the IT is that does not exist? See my point? Nonexistent things can never be thought of... because why? They DO NOT EXIST!

Let's try some ordinary examples...
Do dinosaurs exist?
The ordinary answer might be: They do not exist TODAY but at one time they DID exist.

Oh really? And were you there? Or is that a conclusion you have drawn from studying things that you choose to call the preserved remains of dinosaurs?
It's not inconceivable, although very far-fetched, that a huge spaceship carrying artifacts that we now call "dinosaur fossils" once exploded in earth's upper atmosphere and scattered those artifacts all over our planet.
Don't roll your eyes at me! I'm just saying that you are quite willing to say something once existed that you have no way of being 100% sure it did.

Now consider the Platypus. What if I told you that although people once thought it exists but was extremely rare, recently it has been discovered that everyone who claimed they saw one was mentally ill and had a hallucination of such an animal? Kind of like what people say about people who see Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

The point is that we take an awful lot of information on trust. If something is repeated often enough we believe it. If there is disagreement about whether something exists or not, then we take sides.

Santa Claus is an interesting case because at one time he didn't exist. Then someone thought of him and he did exist, but only, so they thought, as a character in a story. Then people started dressing up like Santa Claus and handing out gifts like Santa Claus and now every year there are thousands of Santa Clauses walking around. And if someone should protest "Yeah, but there is no old fat guy living at the North Pole!" then some old fat guy could build a cabin up there and prove them wrong.

So I am tired of arguing with people about existence. Yes, it exists! Everything exists. That's what makes everything a bunch of "things"... existence! Things exist!


 

Just added "Memory"  to "Steve's Theory of the Mind" 
 

No, it's not.

It's probably not necessary for me to tell you that... unless you are one of them... them being the people who actually believe that. Do they really believe it? Or just hope that it comes true? Hard to say.

The world is filled with people who seem unable to get a very accurate grasp on reality. Maybe it's not easy. Maybe reality can be pretty slippery. But common sense should tell you that since the world has never ended on any day in the past, it's unlikely to end on any day in the future. That doesn't mean it won't end. But it does mean that you should never bet on it ending on any particular day. You will always lose the bet.
 

Money is a number. The number is used to mediate exchanges of goods and services in an economy. (See "What is an economy?" )

Instead of directly exchanging a service for a service, the service is performed for money and then the money is used to purchase another service.

Money has no value or worth of its own. It is simply a number used for accounting. However, at any particular moment in time, that number will correspond to some quantity of goods or services that could be purchased. That is the "purchase value" of the money number.

Since paper bills (dollars) are often used to keep track of amounts of money, people usually call those paper bills "money" and believe they have a value. But that value is only the purchase value of the number printed on the bill. The bills themselves have no intrinsic value and could become worthless if officially declared so. (In a time of war and conquest, for example, like the Confederate money after the American Civil War)

The "purchase value" of money is a variable, not a constant. Throughout most of history and in most economies the "purchase value" of money within a given economy slowly declines.

In modern times there is much more interaction between different economies. This is sometimes called "globalization". The result of globalization is to put more pressure on the purchase value of money so that it is even less stable today than in previous history. It's not uncommon for the purchase value of the money used by an economy to make large swings depending on current events in the world. Generally, it's the unexpected disasters that cause the largest swings.


 

An economy is an agreement between two or more people for the exchange of goods and services.

If you have a forge in your backyard and make shovels and give them to your neighbors in exchange for some of the food they grow in the gardens they dig with your shovels... that's an economy.

Division of labor is the key idea of an economy. Each person has a job to do and everyone works together for the benefit of all.

When economies become large then they usually switch from direct exchange by bartering to using money as a medium of exchange. (See "What is money?" )
 

Creativity is not some mysterious force, talent, or power. Put simply, it's making decisions.

For example, think of a musician composing a song. The song has to begin on a note. There are only 12 notes in the musical scale. He just has to decide which one to begin on.

Then he has to write the second note. There are still only 12 notes in the scale. Once again... just decide which one to use!

Do you know the song "Somewhere over the Rainbow"? The beginning is very dramatic, those first two notes ("Some - where..."). However, the second note is the same note as the first note, just repeated an octave higher. How many composers doodling at the keyboard have played that octave jump? But one composer decided to use it to begin his song. Creativity equals making decisions.

If you want to be more creative, start making more decisions.

Some people have a lot of trouble making decisions. I'm not sure why. Maybe you are one of those people. The only reason I can think of for trouble is that a person would be afraid of making the "wrong" decision. But what is a "wrong" decision if you are trying to be creative? Isn't creativity about creating something new? Then what would a "wrong" decision be? And how do you know it's going to be wrong before you make it? Wouldn't you have to make the decision FIRST and THEN decide whether it was wrong or not?

So I don't understand why a person would be afraid of making decisions. And I can't think of any other reason why a person would be unwilling to make decisions.

It's just so simple. If you want to be creative then decide to be creative. Decide to do something. Decide how you will begin it. Decide how you will end it. Decide what you will put in the middle.

After you have your creation completed you can decide whether you made any wrong decisions... AFTER you have made them.

But be careful about deciding what is right and wrong. Just because something has never been done before doesn't make it wrong. If you think like that then the only decisions you will ever be able to make are decisions that copy the decisions other people have made. And that won't be very creative, will it?
 

Writing (and reading) seek to answer the question: What word comes next?

Writing is a string of words. But not just any words. That's why I said "string" instead of "list".

Although
it's
true
that
any
writing
can
be
written
as
a
list,
it's not true that any list is "writing".

A computer-generated list of random words is not writing. Writing is a string of words that have been deliberately chosen by someone.

A string of words is like a necklace of beads. You could assign one color of bead for nouns, another color for verbs, another for adjectives, and so on. Perhaps the punctuation marks could be spacers? Whatever you write can then be represented by a long string of colorful beads.

Engrave those beads with the Braille spelling of your words and a blind person could "read" your necklace with his fingers just like a sighted person would read your page with his eyes.

When you write, the most important question to be answered is: What comes next? All you have to do is add the next bead to the string.

When you read, the most important question is: What comes next?

For readers, at the level of ideas and plot and meaning, the basic question is still: What comes next?
You might suppose two important questions for the reader would be: What does it mean? and How do I feel?
But those questions are answered automatically when someone reads.
If he doesn't understand what he is reading then he stops reading it.
And either he has an emotional response or he doesn't. He doesn't need to ask whether he does.

If you keep in mind that the essence of writing is: What comes next? Then you will see that there can be no such thing as "Writer's Block" nor is there any need for a "Special Talent" to be a writer. All you need is the desire and will to add another word to a string of words.

That's why some people say that writing is a craft. You are making jewelry. Necklaces. Whether it will be cheap costume jewelry or museum-quality art jewelry is determined partly by how much effort you make to improve your craft and partly by how much of yourself you put into what you do. That's the mysterious part - putting yourself into it. That part I cannot explain.

REMEMBER THIS: What is important is not how many words you write or how pretty the words are... what is important is how you string the words. The goal is to make the reader want to know what comes next.