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 ( 7828 )
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Two Views of the Top
Posted on 17 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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You Can't Have Too Many Irises
Posted on 17 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Is GPT-3 a Structuralist? A Brave New World in Which Language Exists Beyond the...
Tobias Rees, Non-Human Words: On GPT-3 as a Philosophical Laboratory, Dædalus, Spring 2020. In [Saussure's] words, “language is a system of signs that... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Large Language Models Generate Usable Plans When Aided by a Symbolic Planner
People are flexible, creative thinkers, and we express a lot of those thoughts -- plans, explanations, stories -- in language. So, how much of thinking can be... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photoshop at Night [across the Hudson River]
Posted on 16 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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You CAN Have Intelligent Conversations on Twitter
You need to build a community, which isn’t hard, and you need to be civil. You don’t have to participate in the craziness. Sure, you can’t avoid it, some will... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Learning to Control a Computer with Your Mind
Ferris Jabr, The Man Who Controls Computers With His Mind, The NYTimes Magazine, May 13, 2022. Dennis DeGray is paralyzed from the neck down. Read more
Posted on 15 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sunday's a Good Time for Irises, Too
Posted on 15 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Symbols and Nets: Debriefing
It’s been several days since I’d uploaded my most recent run on “Kubla Khan” to the web: Symbols and Nets: Calculating Meaning in “Kubla Khan.” It feels like I’... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Flowers for a Saturday Afternoon [irises+]
Posted on 14 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The So-called “hard” Problem of Consciousness
Here’s what Wikipedia says: The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how we have qualia or phenomenal experiences. Read more
Posted on 14 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Star Trek: Picard, Discovery, Strange New Worlds [Media Notes 73]
I’ve watched the first season of Star Trek: Picard, and bunch of episodes from the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, and two episodes from Star Trek: Strang... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Super AGI Poses for Their Fans [pronouns: They, Their, Them]
Posted on 13 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Arithmetic and Machine Learning, Part 2
Continuing from my post of 4.26.22, Why is simple arithmetic difficult for deep learning systems? I posted this to LessWrong on 5.11.22: I’ve been thinking abou... Read more
Posted on 13 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rodney Brooks on Compromising About Human-level AI
From [FoR AI] Steps Toward Super Intelligence II, Beyond the Turing Test: One argument is that we should not need to take into account how humans come to be... Read more
Posted on 13 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lilacs
Posted on 12 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Postscript on Method [Symbols and Nets: Calculating Meaning in “Kubla Khan” ]
Yesterday I gave notice of my new working paper on "Kubla Khan." Today I'm posting the methodological post script. * * * * * I can hear the voices now: Naa, naa... Read more
Posted on 12 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Views on 13th Street in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted on 11 May 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Symbols and Nets: Calculating Meaning in “Kubla Khan”
A new working paper. Title above, abstract, table of contents, and introduction below. Download at: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Using Keyframes in an End-to-end Deep Model to Project the Future Course of a...
KEMP: Keyframe-Based Hierarchical End-to-End Deep Model for Long-Term Trajectory Predictionabs: https://t.co/bYLSFQ5bGv pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 11 May 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
