"We interrupt, infer, guess, exclaim, ignore. And, at a deeper level, we express a “meta-attitude” about what we’re saying and doing even as we say and do it. Human beings have the ability not only to win at “Jeopardy!” but to feel a little embarrassed about winning on “Jeopardy!” Nor is this affect merely “emotional,” in the classic Kirk-to-Spock sense. (“Have you…no feelings! No ability. To go…beyond logic and know what’s in…a human heart?”) Empathy and sympathy, jokes and wordplay, are as necessary to intelligence as pure reason: the poker playing program breaks down because it can’t put itself in the mind of the guy across the table. Wit and puns aren’t just decor in the mind; they’re essential signs that the mind knows it’s on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program."
— Adam Gopnik, “Get Smart” in April 4th edition of The New Yorker
