Humor and Joy in Learning

Humor

One might surmise that the evolutionary function of humor was to make a person feel joy instead of fear when he experiences something that is totally foreign to his existing knowledge structure.

But I think this situation could only occur if the person had closed down his "implicit learning" system, because "implicit" (unconscious) learning automatically integrates new and different experiences, even if they're incongruous. That is its function.

Maybe Nature prepared us with a "sense of humor" to face this exact scenario where instead of keeping our mind open, we for whatever reason did keep our ideas fixed (like "encoding algorithms"!).

Is this system denied to lower forms of life? Why would it be? Of course, they don't have language and so "explicit learning" is denied them. But are they capable of shutting off their unconscious learning system, as humans are, and so hobbling themselves from seeing reality? Are they, like us, capable of keeping their knowledge structure from changing? If so, why wouldn't they too feel the sensation of "humor" (indistinguishable from other instances of joy) just as we do when having a totally incongruous experience? Just because they don't laugh, that isn't proof they don't feel joy!

Chinese sounds can be very amusing to the American ear, especially recordings that are made for children where the speaker is impersonating different literary characters. It is revealing that when listened to "unconsciously" these sounds are no longer amusing at all! They are merely more data to be integrated into the cognitive unconscious.

More About Learning Chinese

More About Learning Chinese

Probably the main stumbling block for Americans in learning spoken Chinese is the tone system. Most people probably find that, whereas the pin yin system is easy to learn, there is "no place" in our minds to put the tones.

What do they mean when they say that?

It is quite common for people to make such statements as "My mind just isn't cut out for math" (or physics, or languages, or etc.).

What that actually means is that they have not begun to grasp the particular subject implicitly. There is nothing like that in their "tacit knowledge" structure. It is "Greek" (or Chinese) to them.

In trying to learn the Chinese tones, they have used their tacit knowledge of English to help them remember the pin yin system. But there is nothing like the Chinese tones in the English language.

Thus the tones (not the handful of tones themselves, but which tone goes with which word) cannot be learned "explicitly". They MUST be learned "implicitly" (unconsciously).

In fact, an English speaker can easily do this, just as a small child in China learns the tones, by putting all his explicit knowledge out of his mind for the moment and listening with "new ears". Young children of either culture have an advantage because they have not yet either learned either the English or the pin yin writing system!

The pin yin system is not an aid to learning spoken Chinese. It is a hindrance. The problem is that when one listens to spoken Chinese, he sees the written (pin yin) word in his mind.

The trick to learning spoken Chinese is to stop oneself from recognizing anything about the spoken word. This includes the written word. The spoken word is not the written word. It is itself, and it includes its tone. Just say "Shh!" to keep the conscious mind from recognizing the individual word in any way.

(It is interesting that when one blocks his conscious mind from recognizing the spoken word, he also blocks it from "seeing" the written word in his mind. This is just more evidence that the "Shh Tract" is an all-encompassing learning tract).

In this manner of listening to the spoken word, one is always (falsely) quite certain that he is not going to remember anything! The cognitive unconscious learns from its own angles and at its own speed. It is mysterious and uncontrollable. It builds itself up, more or less gradually. But it can learn anything.

So the way people usually try to learn the tones is backwards. If one will first listen and learn the words, together with their tones, "implicitly" (unconsciously), the tones will become part of the "tacit knowledge" stored in the cognitive unconscious, and the conscious mind can then look and observe "at a glance" how the tone is made and the rules or patterns under which the tones are used in different circumstances. The trick is in (unconsciously) acquiring the tacit knowledge. That is the whole battle.

BOOK REVIEW: Arthur S. Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, An Essay (Part 2)

Children and Declarative Knowledge

Dr. Reber notes that young children acquire huge amounts of information "relatively independently of conscious attempts to acquire it and without much in the way of conscious knowledge of what they have learned", sometimes much better than older children "who tend to engage in more explicit-type learning." However, it seems that older children do better on "the explicit task." Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, 1003, pp. 94-97.

This is certainly in line with Shh Tract's claim that language is not necessary for cognition and can actually interfere with cognition. And that explicit learning (although "supported by conscious strategies for acquisition" (Ibid, p. 97) is not cognition at all. The basic fact is this: Explicit learning does not add to our procedural, or tacit, store of knowledge. It only adds to our "declarative knowledge." Declarative knowledge can be tentative knowledge gained by attempting to identify what is stored in our own cognitive unconscious, or it can be tentative knowledge borrowed from other people. But if "cognition" is our own personal knowing of "the outside world" (Shh Tract), explicit learning adds nothing to what is already in our cognitive unconscious..

American kindergartners readily learn Mandarin (See "Mastering Mandarin", San Francisco Chronicle, April 17, 2012). But it is almost impossible for adults to do so, probably because Mandarin has been rendered into English ("pin yin"). Adults just don't (or perhaps can't) listen.