The riddle: "When is a horse not a horse: When it's a horse of a different
color" is like "a horse is a horse", a tautology; but when the tautology is
resolved one is left with an implied statement, "a horse of a different
color" is/is not the same as "a different colored horse". The original
statement survives to replicate "When IS a horse not a horse?". The final
statement is an axiom "A horse is not a horse when 'of a different color'
refers to horse and not when it refers to color." One of the interesting
things I've noticed about humor is that it negates itself; and though a
riddle survives to resolve the negation, a joke does not. "That was no
lady, that was my wife" says a lady is not a lady, a lady-wife is not a
wife-lady...a wife is not a wife? This is a negative tautology "A wife is a
wife, not". There are levels to humor whereby the punchline is removed
several forms* from a logical resolution so that there is a release when
the final psychological mechanism is sprung...an exhalation, a HA.
An exclamation is an un-modified reaction to something...like the "HA"
above. While the HA appears not to be a statement, it has both object and
subject implied and resolved to a single point "a lady is not a wife//HA/a
wife is not a lady....a wife is a lady/HA Ha/a lady is a wife...a wife is a
wife/HA HA HA/ a lady is a lady...a wife is a lady/HA HA HA HA/a lady is a
wife...which returns to the original a wife is a lady (a wife is not a
lady)/HA/a lady is a wife (a lady is not a wife). The exclamation HA, HA
HA, HA HA HA, HA HA HA HA, HA is--as a whole--tautological (the final
statement referring back to the original perfectly); and also, each separate
exclamation is a tautology represented as a point between two tautologies.
A command is an implied statement along the lines of "go to the room"
equals/does not equal "go to the room"; as a command is a statement with an
implied question. The ability of the command to question itself sets up a
continuence of the statement--will the command be go to the room *does*
equal go to the room, or will the command be go to the room does *not* equal
go to the room. The command may negate itself go/don't go. The command may
state itself "go", the command may question itself "don't go?" The
balancing of this statement leaves an implied statement (like "you"
understood in "go to the store"). This implied statement is "going to the
store does itself, is a phenomenon". This is falsifiable statement being a
teleology (which by definition says that the statement is contingent on the
outcome)
There are probably parts of this one which is not easily understood: A
statement which is not understandable is " tongues"...and the person who can
translate decides if the statement is self-referential, continuous, or shows
a relationship between that which continues and that which remains. They
say that a person speaking tongues cannot translate for themself (as this
would be a joke).
Brett
Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
error in an opponent.
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"