The book is devoted to the philosophical and aesthetic study of laughter as a cultural phenomenon. It deals with the widest range of problems associated with laughter and comic. The work analyzes the most significant theories of laughter in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, G.V. F. Hegel, A. Schopenhauer, A. Bergson, Z. Freud and others). In the original author's concept, laughter is defined as a phenomenon built on the "game of illusions" and thereby directly related to virtual reality.