CAN AUTHOR’S BE PRE-PARDONED FOR BOOKS THAT LIKELY WON’T SELL?
AH! Gotcha there, didn’t I? That statement is what would be called a “mash-up” in literary genre jargon. It’s a statement constructed in pop-speak combining several gone-viral issues into one question that seems to mean one thing, but could mean countless ones. It’s the heart of comedy — the “inside joke” that leads the listener or reader to a false or unexpected conclusion. Worse yet, an entirely plausible appearing question that’s not at all plausible. Sort of. No, completely impossible. And yet? I would hold, it’s the basis for the world drama surrounding politics. What can one do but laugh?
But why are such statements or questions “funny,” and why does it conjure smiles or laughter? The great psychiatrist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, felt that we laugh to release tension and “psychic energy” that builds from incongruities and paradoxes. That is, it’s an emotional “reset” when the human computer experiences a glitch or is subject to a real or imagined informational overload (a sort of distributed denial of service hack). However, Ben Healy in an article entitled “What Makes Something Funny?” in the March 2018 issue of The Atlantic says, “Researchers found only 10 to 20 percent of remarks that prompted laughter to be remotely funny.” Hmmm.
Part of the problem is based on the definition of the word, “funny.” I mean, it’s supposed to be fun, amusing, hilarious. But it can also mean unusual, unexpected, incongruous. So, something funny, should be, at the least, amusingly incongruous. According to the same article, another way of saying this might be that humor is a mental reaction to a struggle to distinguishing true from false, right from wrong, and harmless from dangerous — not all all funny in the first sense. Alternatively, there’s the “quantum theory of humor” within which scientists are attempting to see if artificial intelligences (AIs) can create images that appear “funny” to viewers, alongside legions of attempts at creating authentically funny chatbots. Is this the prelude to AIs writing books and hosting talk shows? And what if something is definitely comical to one AI about a statement or question created to be funny by another AI, but, seriously, not all all funny to a human?
Anyway, in answer to the question “Can authors be pre-pardoned for books that likely won’t sell,” I would say, no, if all AIs are issued credit cards, but yes, if political institutions soon begin issuing indulgences. Is that funny or not?
Sincerely,
Raymond Gaynor
Author of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020); Co-author with A. G. Hayes of QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and with William Maltese of TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009)
Author website at https://garymartine.yolasite.com/raym...
Author Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/raymond.gayn...
Author Twitter site at https://www.savantbooksandpublication...
Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/Raymond-Gaynor...
Amazon Goodreads author page at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Savant Bookstores page at https://savant-bookstore-honolulu.squ...
Distributed by Savant Distribution at https://www.savantdistribution.com/
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
But why are such statements or questions “funny,” and why does it conjure smiles or laughter? The great psychiatrist, Dr. Sigmund Freud, felt that we laugh to release tension and “psychic energy” that builds from incongruities and paradoxes. That is, it’s an emotional “reset” when the human computer experiences a glitch or is subject to a real or imagined informational overload (a sort of distributed denial of service hack). However, Ben Healy in an article entitled “What Makes Something Funny?” in the March 2018 issue of The Atlantic says, “Researchers found only 10 to 20 percent of remarks that prompted laughter to be remotely funny.” Hmmm.
Part of the problem is based on the definition of the word, “funny.” I mean, it’s supposed to be fun, amusing, hilarious. But it can also mean unusual, unexpected, incongruous. So, something funny, should be, at the least, amusingly incongruous. According to the same article, another way of saying this might be that humor is a mental reaction to a struggle to distinguishing true from false, right from wrong, and harmless from dangerous — not all all funny in the first sense. Alternatively, there’s the “quantum theory of humor” within which scientists are attempting to see if artificial intelligences (AIs) can create images that appear “funny” to viewers, alongside legions of attempts at creating authentically funny chatbots. Is this the prelude to AIs writing books and hosting talk shows? And what if something is definitely comical to one AI about a statement or question created to be funny by another AI, but, seriously, not all all funny to a human?
Anyway, in answer to the question “Can authors be pre-pardoned for books that likely won’t sell,” I would say, no, if all AIs are issued credit cards, but yes, if political institutions soon begin issuing indulgences. Is that funny or not?
Sincerely,
Raymond Gaynor
Author of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020); Co-author with A. G. Hayes of QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and with William Maltese of TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009)
Author website at https://garymartine.yolasite.com/raym...
Author Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/raymond.gayn...
Author Twitter site at https://www.savantbooksandpublication...
Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/Raymond-Gaynor...
Amazon Goodreads author page at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Savant Bookstores page at https://savant-bookstore-honolulu.squ...
Distributed by Savant Distribution at https://www.savantdistribution.com/
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
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