Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
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Global Parameters in a Neural Net: ChatGPT Talks to Kids
In my post on ChatGPT as a tutor I asked it to explain digestion to a three-year-old. It did so, rather well I thought. I subsequently added an addendum about... Read more
Posted on 06 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: More Fog on the River
Posted on 06 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Evolution of Peace
Luke Glowacki, The Evolution of Peace, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 100 DOI: https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 05 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Discursive Competence in ChatGPT, Part 1: Talking with Dragons
Version 1, January 5, 2022 Title above, URLs, abstract, contents, and introduction below: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 05 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here We Go Again, Scott Alexander Hoists Another Bay Area House Party
Scott Alexander, Even More Bay Area House Party, Astral Codex Ten, Jan. 3, 2022. “I know this kind of socialism isn’t popular, here in the Bay,” she tells you. Read more
Posted on 05 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Incremental Research Has Been on the Rise Between 1945 and 2010
Park, M., Leahey, E. Funk, R.J. Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time. Nature 613, 138–144 (2023). https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 05 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: AI for the Next Era [the Middle Layer]
The whole interview is interesting, but I was particularly struck by Altman’s comments about a “middle layer” model, between the so-called Foundation models... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Take a Walk on the Beach
Posted on 04 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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From Simon’s Ant to Machine Learning, a Parable
Simon’s ant is a well-known thought experiment from Chapter 3, “The Psychology of Thinking: Embedding Artifice in Nature,” in Herbert A. Simon (1981), The... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Remember the Sabbath...[a Different World]
Ezra Klein, Sabbath and the Art of Rest, NYTimes, December 3, 2022. From the introduction: Do we know how to truly rest? Who would we be if we did? Read more
Posted on 03 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Mondrian" House Along the River in Hoboken
Posted on 03 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Naturalistic Study of the Linguistic Behavior of Artificial Intelligence
This is draft material from the introduction of a working paper I’m about to finish: Discursive Competence in ChatGPT, Part 1: Talking with Dragons. Read more
Posted on 03 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Does a Manned Mission to Mars Make Sense?
Michael Ceglowski, Why Not Mars, Idle Words, 1.1.23. Like watching paint peel: The buildup to Mars would not look like Apollo, but a long series of ISS-like... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Half-way Through My Eighth Decade: What Next?
At the end of 2017 I wrote a post in which I reflected back on my intellectual life, Reflections on entering my eighth decade and why it portends to be the... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
India Rising on the World Stage
Roger Cohen, Russia’s War Could Make It India’s World, NYTimes, Dec. 31, 2022. The article opens: Seated in the domed, red sandstone government building unveile... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Color Play for the New Year
Posted on 02 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI DEBATE 3: The AGI Debate [hosted in Montreal]
The Pivotal Discussion in Shaping the Path of AGI's Global Discourse. Five panels of the world's most distinguished researchers and experts on AGI : Panel 1:... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sabine Hossenfelder on the Possibility of Human Extinction
Correction to what I say at 11 mins 50 seconds: A supervolcano eruption ejects more than 1000 cubic kilometers of matter (not 1000 cubic meters). Sorry about... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Yesterday's Walk in the Fog
Posted on 01 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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One World Center, Sea Gulls, a Train Coming into the Station [and a Blue Mug, Wh...
Posted on 31 December 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
