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 ( 7628 )
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The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (aka Chicago World's Fair)
World's Columbian Exposition Read more
Posted on 18 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Should Laborers Own Shares in the Robots That Replace Them?
Nathan Gardels, When The Blue-Collar Backbone Meets Generative AI, No�ma, Feb. 17, 2023. Opening paragraph: U.S. President Joe Biden is doing the right... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Along the Shore
Posted on 17 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Cory Doctorow on Google's Anxiety About Its Corporate Identity [chasing the...
Cory Doctorow, Google’s chatbot panic, Medium, Feb 16, 2023. The lede: "On the infinite insecurities of a self-styled creative genius who really just buys... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stephen Wolfram is Looking for “semantic Grammar” and “semantic Laws of Motion”...
Wolfram has a very interesting account of how ChatGPT works, What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? Toward the end he talks about “Meaning Space and... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Long Story of How Neural Nets Got to Where They Are
This is a fascinating discussion between Stephen Wolfram and Terry Sejnowski. These guys, Sejnowski especially, are pulling names from all over the place.... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Brief Note on the History of Academic Literary Criticism
John Guillory writes about his recent book, Professing Criticism, in The Chronical of Higher Education (Feb. 13, 2023), ‘We Cannot All Be Edward Said.’ He is... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fog on the Hudson, "No Diving"
Posted on 15 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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ChatGPT: The Saga of Jack the Criminal
Back on January 30, 2023 I decided to see what kind of crime stories I could elicit from ChatGPT. Here’s a complete list of the prompts I gave it, in order: ... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sutan Gets a Totoro Birthday Cake and Visits Ghibli Park
On at least one occasion, probably more, Moe (aka Kimono Mom) has mentioned that her fans are familiar with anime. Anime also shows up in the videos here and... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Far and Near Along the Shore
Posted on 14 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why LLMs Are Good at Generating Code
13. Why do LLMs appear much better at generating code than generating general text?Because, unlike the real world, the universe that a program manipulates (the... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here's Your Fluid Mind for You, Lingonberries and Pretzels!
Posted on 13 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Fluid Mind of ChatGPT
Some time ago I posted a set of notes entitled, From Associative Nets to the Fluid Mind (2013). Here’s the abstract: We can think of the mind as a network that’... Read more
Posted on 13 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Purpose Makes Life Worth Living
David French, Men Need Purpose More Than ‘Respect’, NYTimes, Feb. 12, 2023. But is respect a key to happiness and meaning? Let’s consider veterans. They form on... Read more
Posted on 13 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hilary Hahn Doing the Work
#100daysofpractice Season 6, day 43. Play-through day. Increasing physical and mental endurance ahead of my Bach recitals. Anyone who’s planning on coming to th... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who Does “colorless Green Ideas” the Best, Noam Chomsky Or ChatGPT?
Noam Chomsky introduced colorless green ideas into the world in Syntactic Structures (1957), p. 15: 2.3 Second, the notion “grammatical” cannot be identified... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading Reading
To the extent that academic literary critics believe that, to properly read a text, you must reflect on it in writing, they are betraying a professional... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sabine Hossenfelder on the Mess That is Particle Physics
About the video: Why do particle physicists constantly make wrong predictions? In this video, I explain the history and status of the problem. Read more
Posted on 11 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Domestic Surveillance
Posted on 11 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
