Bbenzon
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 ( 6385 )
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Comparison of Cultural and Biological Evolution
We discuss differences regarding the storage, acquisition, transmission, sorting and generation of traits, and possible implications especially for theoretical... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frameworks for Identity [in America]
This is from my book on music, Beethoven’s Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture (2001), pp. 269-273. I’m working a new post on identity and this will be useful... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Does Islamic Inheritance Law Have to Do with Algebra?
Her question is very good, and the answer might surprise some of you: in Al-Khwarizmi’s classic book (often regarded as the first algebra textbook), the main... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Multi-modal Transformer Architecture
"Spatially Aware Multimodal Transformers for TextVQA" poster #3236 on Aug. 27!Yash Kant (@yash2kant), Dhruv Batra (@DhruvBatraDB), Peter Anderson... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Great Stagnation, Another Voice Heard From, Jason Furman
Tyler Cowen interviews Jason Furman on a variety of things. On productivity: COWEN: If investment is important, does that make you an economic pessimist, given... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Brain's "face" Area is Sensitive to Touch as Well as Vision
The "fusiform" face area of the brain also churns to life in the blind who touch a 3D model of a face with their hands. https://t.co/IhzKny1WOe pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 26 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
If You Want a Nice Primer on How the Brain Works
that ranges from the whole shebang down to the level of individual neurons and cortical layering, I recommend this long post by Tim Urban, Neuralink and the... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI as Platform [Andreessen]: PowerPoint Squared and Beyond
Last December Kevin Kelly and Mark Andreessen had a conversation: Why You Should Be Optimistic About the Future (December 12, 2019) In that conversation... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hierarchies in Resting-state Brain Activity
The frequency gradient of human resting-state brain oscillations follows cortical hierarchies -> https://t.co/XIosYmxvVF "the dominant peak frequency in a... Read more
Posted on 25 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Perhaps These Conditions Aren't Mental Disorders at All (anxiety, Depression,...
Alison Escalante, Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders At All, Forbes, Aug. 11, 2020. What if mental disorders like anxiety,... Read more
Posted on 25 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Economic Growth and Statistical Semantics Tell Us About the Structure of th...
New working paper. Title above. Download at: Academia:... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Analogy as a Force in Cultural Evolution
The nub of this idea started sprouting at least 3yrs ago (EHBEA 2017!) really kicked off after @drstevilphd recommend I read Hofstadter Sander's "Surfaces ... Read more
Posted on 24 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visual Repreentation in the Mouse
Together with @UriCohen42 @DiamantakiMaria @eywalker @viajake @CellTypist @HSompolinsky and @AndreasTolias we show that a set of lateral visual areas visual... Read more
Posted on 23 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Influences on Word Meanings Revealed Through Large-scale Semantic...
Thompson, B., Roberts, S. G., Lupyan, G. (2020). Cultural influences on word meanings revealed through large-scale semantic alignment. Nature Human... Read more
Posted on 23 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Anxiety is on the Rise in America
Renee D.Goodwin, Andrea H. Weinberger, June H. Kim, Melody Wu, Sandro Galea, Trends in anxiety among adults in the United States, 2008-2018: Rapid increases... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Take a Walk Along the River
Posted on 22 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Saturday Ramble: GPT-3, Your AI Companion, Metaphysics, Instagram [& Identity]
Yikes! But I’ve been busy. And it’s not going to stop. GPT-3 update – GPT-X: The Star Trek computer and beyond Back on August 5 I’d issued my first working pape... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Our Quest to Understand the Brain – with Matthew Cobb
The brain might be the most complicated object in the universe. Matthew Cobb explains how we know what we know. Matthew's book "The Idea of the Brain" is... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How and Why Sebastian Cabot Created the First Business Corporation [Progress]
Anton Howes, Age of Invention: Birth of the Business Corporation. He opens: I discussed last time how the use of patent monopolies came to England in the... Read more
Posted on 21 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Deep in the Garden [Hallucinated City]
Posted on 21 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY