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 ( 7846 )
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Miriam Yevick Now Has a Wikipedia Entry
The entry is quite recent. I didn’t notice it until yesterday but, judging by the article’s history, it went live on January 1, 2026. It contains some... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Diffusion of Sunlight
Posted on 15 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Recursive Self-improvement is an Incoherent Idea
The discourse of artificial intelligence contains a number of technical terms that are only nominally technical; they don’t actually have technical definitions... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Roy Eldridge & Charlie Shavers - The Trumpet Battle
From YouTube: High note trumpet kings Roy Eldridge and Charlie Shavers go head to head, no holds barred. Recorded at Carnegie Hall, NYC, Sept. 13, 1952. Read more
Posted on 15 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken, the Hudson River, Cherry Bloosms, the Empire State Building and Orange...
Posted on 14 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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LLMs, the Nature of Language as a Computational Object, and Arithmetic as a...
Early in my undergraduate career at Johns Hopkins I learned about Gödel’s proof, this strange argument that there are statements that are true in arithmetic... Read more
Posted on 14 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Language is a Lower-dimensional Projection of High-dimensional Neural Dynamics.
But it also allows for content addressed memory. That’s very important, for it gives fine-grain control over the memory and planning systems. That’s the job of... Read more
Posted on 13 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neuro-symbolic Computing Sneaks in Through the "back Door" [a Transitional...
I note that the "scaffolding, tools, memory, retrieval, planning, decomposition, verification, and other system-level affordances" are all symbolic techniques. Read more
Posted on 13 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Synchrony as a General and Widespread Phenomenon
I once asked @stevenstrogatz a simple question.Why do so many systems in nature fall into rhythm?He smiled, almost amused by how deep that question actually... Read more
Posted on 13 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Glimpses
Posted on 12 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Character of Jesus and Beauty as a Category of Christian Thought
Peter Wehner, ‘The Reason I’m Not an Atheist Is That I Think the Philosophical Arguments Against It Are Unanswerable’, NYTimes, Apr. 12, 2026. Read more
Posted on 12 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Staging Increases the Value of Homes on the Market and They Sell Faster
Bhattacharya, Puja and Li, Sherry Xin and Wang, Yu and Wu, Cedric and Zheng, Xiang, Visual Cues and Valuation: Evidence from the Housing Market (December 07,... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Yesterday's Walk
Posted on 11 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Harpo Marx Plays Liszt's Hungarian Rhaposdy No. 2
đš✨ Harpo Marx Meets Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 – one of the most dramatic, fiery, and technically dazzling piano pieces... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ezra Klein and Fareed Zakaria Discuss the Moral Degeneracy of Donald Trump and...
Ezra Klein and Annie Galvin, The Civilization Trump Destroys May Be Our Own, NYTimes, Apr. 10, 2026. Here's the beginning of the interview: Ezra Klein: Fareed... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Civil War Among Chimpanzees
Carl Zimmer, These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. NYTimes, Apr. 9, 2026. Near the end: And the researchers are still trying to... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: A Recent Assortment
Posted on 10 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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My Music on New Savanna and 3QD
I’ve got quite a lot about music on New Savanna, including quite a bit about my own music. Here’s posts about my interest in jazz, and here’s posts... Read more
Posted on 09 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Daffodils and Pansies
Posted on 09 April 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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What Place Will America Have in the World Order That’s Beginning to Emerge?
Steven Erlanger, A Cease-Fire for Now in Iran, but a Blow to American Credibility, NYTimes, Apr. 9, 2026. Historical analogies are never exact. But with the... Read more
Posted on 09 April 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
