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
-
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 )
-
Large Language Models as a Cultural Technology
https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/large-language-models-cultural-technology AI and Humanity Recent work on large language models has focused on whether or not... Read more
Posted on 17 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
An Elevator Between Hoboken and Jersey City
Posted on 17 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
GPT-3, the Phrasal Lexicon, Parry/Lord, and the Homeric Epics
GPT-3 and Homer? You’ve got to be kidding. No, I’m not. What’s the connection? First, I look at large language models, mostly through tweets by David Chapman,... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Houses in the Jersey City Heights, Plus Roses
Posted on 16 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Two Parameters: Mechread and Parset [plus a Note on E-flat]
For the last two years I've been corresponding with a friend of mine from the old days at RPI, Bob Krull. Bob was in communications and did a lot of empirical... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How to Change Your Mind [Media Notes 75c] – On the Visual Style.
Chris Vognar, With ‘How to Change Your Mind,’ Taking a Trip With Michael Pollan, NYTimes, July 25, 2022. I suspected that something like this might be going... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kim Stanley Robinson on Just How Much Money Does One Person Need? [+ Drive |...
Ezra Klein interviews Kim Stanley Robinson, NYTimes, July 15, 2022. KIM STANLEY ROBINSON: Maybe I would say that it’s probably crucially important to focus on... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Liberty State Park [urban Pastoral | Hallucinated City]
Posted on 15 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Matt Ygelesias on Eroding Business Norms and Musk Backing out of His Twitter Deal
Matthew Ygelesias, Under the Tuscan mailbag, Slow Boring, July 15, 2022. The normative foundation is the idea that there is something to being a good businessma... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Virtual Co-working [work Mode]
Lora Kelley, Would You Pay $40 a Month to Have Strangers Watch You Work? NYTimes, July 15, 2022. For a monthly fee of $39.99, users can schedule unlimited... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Pastoral
“This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” is one of my favorite poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is about the presence of nature even in the city. Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Will It Take to Bring the Price of This Robotic Pet Dog Under, Say, $249?
More on Japan's robotic companions. They're not all as expensive as Aibo (above). There's this story from CBS, including a story about robotic dogs in a... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How to Change Your Mind [Media Notes 75b] – Psilocybin Brings Depth to the...
As I’ve already indicated, I found the first episode in Michael Pollan’s series, about LSD, to be disappointing. The second one, about psilocybin, is much... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Language Models (Mostly) Know What They Know
In "Language Models (Mostly) Know What They Know", we show that language models can evaluate whether what they say is true, and predict ahead of time whether... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Psychedelic Camera
Posted on 13 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
How to Change Your Mind [Media Notes 75] – LSD for Serious People, but...
How to Change Your Mind is a four episode miniseries on Netflix based on Michael Pollan’s book of the same name. It has four episodes, each named after a... Read more
Posted on 13 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Waffles at Turning Point
Posted on 12 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Ramble: Waffles and AI [the Physical World, Algorithms, Memory]
I’ve been feeling a need to write a substantial blog post, whatever that is. That’s one thing. But my brain is, if not fried, in no mood for painstaking... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hydrangeas in Pink and Bllue
Posted on 11 July 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
My Main Response to LeCun's Position Paper: Why Are Symbols Important? Because...
Yann LeCun recently posted a major position paper that has been receiving quite a bit of discussion: Yann LeCun, A Path Towards Autonomous Machine... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
