Essay:Humour

As a psychologist/programmer, there are a diverse range of issues I have taken an interest in. After building an evolution modeler in Java, I was struck by a thought.

Why do we have a sense of humour? Psychiologically, how did we as humans develop a response to absurd ideas, the ability to mock or laugh at crazy things that make no sense?

I do find it odd thinking about it. As a direct benefit, laughter doesn't really do anything, time spent laughing could have been better spent making a spear or hunting, but regardless, when confronted with something funny, we laugh, despite the absurdity of laughing at absurdity.