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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Friday Fotos: Tall Buildings Along the Hudson
Posted on 04 June 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Three Critics on the Eclipse of the Novel and the Rise of Film [rank Shift |...
My friend, Adam Roberts, just yesterday (June 3, 2021) begins a review-essay: I don't propose, here, to write a proper review of Joseph Bottum's The Decline... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rememberance of Things Past
Did you know? While we forget most of our early childhood ('childhood amnesia'), we tend to over-remember things that happened to us ages ~16-25. Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Conscious Fly
Fascinating writeup on the consciousness of invertebrates. Spiders play games with their prey, wasps recognize faces, ants recognize their reflections. We are... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here's What I Was Eating While Drinking That Coffee and Doing Table-top Physics
Posted on 03 June 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Kids and Music 7: Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids [Born to Groove]
So far in this Kids and Music series I’ve mostly been looking at the music of gifted children. There’s nothing wrong with that, but, as my underlying... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Physicist David Deutsch Has Some Interesting Ideas [no Limits to Knowledge, We'r...
Tyler Cowen interviews David Deutsch. I more or less agree with Deutsch on this (and have argued the point against John Horgan, calling on my theory of long ter... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Table-top Physics: Turbulance in a Coffee Cup [entropy Increases]
See my working paper, A Primer on Self-Organization, for more about entropy and for some photographs of an ink drop diffusing in water. Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Underground Railroad [Media Notes 58] + Bonus Guide to Posts About Racial...
I’ve watched the first episode, “Chapter 1: Georgia”, of The Underground Railroad on Amazon Prime. I’ll not be watching more. Let me explain. After that I’ll... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
American Democracy is in Danger
2. Democracy - bear with me - is a bit like a sandcastle. By just holding an election, you can make something super basic that looks like a democracy. Read more
Posted on 02 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Thoughts on Why Systems Like GPT-3 Will Always Have Trouble with Common...
I develop an analogical argument about why natural language systems trained only on text will never be able to deal with common-sense reasoning. Read more
Posted on 01 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Short-term Memory for AI Agents
Cool work Andrew!— Ida Momennejad (@criticalneuro) June 1, 2021 Andrew Kyle Lampinen, Stephanie C.Y. Chan, Andrea Banino, Felix Hill, Towards mental time travel... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Formal Control of Improvised Performance [Miles Davis]
Miles Davis - Time After Time - Casino, Montreux, Switzerland, 20 July 1990 Miles Davis (tp) Kenny Garrett (as, fl) Foley (lead-b) Kei Akagi (keyb) Richard... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Geoffrey Hinton Says Deep Learning Will Do Everything. I’m Not Sure What He...
This is updated from a previous version to include a passage by Sydney Lamb. * * * * * Late last year Geoffrey Hinton had an interview with Karen Hao [1] in... Read more
Posted on 31 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Story About Computers & Graphics in Words & Images [1984 to 2021 || Freedom...
Back in 1984 Apple released the Macintosh computer. My friend Rich sent me a letter he'd written on one, not his, someone else's. It had some prose and one... Read more
Posted on 30 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
13th Century Japanese Pictorial Scrolls
The exhibition was planned since 2020, but due to covid, it has been closed and delayed for a long time. The exhibition will finally open on 1 June to 20 June... Read more
Posted on 30 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kafka Manuscripts and Drawings Online
Franz Kafka’s never-before-seen manuscripts and drawings go online. https://t.co/JyNYfWmCJZ pic.twitter.com/wPc2txhrET— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) May 29, Read more
Posted on 29 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Individualism is Compatible With, Even Facilitates? Altruism
Abigail Marsh, Everyone Thinks Americans Are Selfish. They’re Wrong. NYTimes, May 26, 2021. The United States is notable for its individualism. Read more
Posted on 29 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cobblestone Streets, Overhead Wires, and a Sticker [Hoboken]
Posted on 28 May 2021
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Analyze This! Your Smart Phone Thinks You’re Dumb. [The Mitchells Vs. The...
This replaces the version I published on May 26.* * * * * I watched The Mitchells vs. the Machines the other night. Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t watch... Read more
Posted on 28 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
