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 ( 6410 )
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The Importantce of Real-time Processing of Language
Erin S.Isbilen, Morten H. Christiansen, Nick Chater, It's about time: Adding processing to neuroemergentism, Journal of Neurolinguistics, Volume 49, February... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Outside in the Cold
That's from a graffiti battle that raged hot and heavy in Jersey City back in 2006 between Somer and a bunch of others. I tell a bit of that tale in this post,... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Meet the Pioneers [TALENT SEARCH] & a Home Run on Neural Nets Over Neural Nets
From the Pioneer blog (H/t Tyler Cowen): We’re excited to announce the winners of the first Pioneer Tournament. In the short 3 months since its launch, Pioneer... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Short Note on Cognitive Ranks
This is from section 2.1., “The Four Ages” of Chapter 2, “Ranks, Revolutions, and Paidias,” of David Hays, The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive... Read more
Posted on 30 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: A Color Study, RGB Plus Amplifications and Inversions of Same
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Read more
Posted on 30 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Georgia Tech Imagining Brick-and-mortar 'storefront' Portals to Online Education
Lindsay McKenzie for Inside Higher Ed: Georgia Institute of Technology is considering creating brick-and-mortar "storefronts" for prospective and current... Read more
Posted on 29 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Happens When Whites Become a Minority in the USA?
According to the NYTimes, the US Census Bureau projects that will happen in 2044 (but maybe it's 2042 or 2050). In a nation preoccupied by race, the moment... Read more
Posted on 29 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kim Stanley Robinson on Why We're Earth-bound
Aslı Kemiksiz and Casper Bruun Jensen interview Kim Stanley Robinson. KSR: It has not been a program on my part, but just a matter of taking it one story a... Read more
Posted on 29 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cognitive Evolution Over the Longue Durée: Ranks, Cities, and Rankshift
Over the span of roughly 20 years David Hays and I worked on a theory of cultural ranks, the underlying matrix of cognitive systems that have evolved over the... Read more
Posted on 28 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
David Bowie in Nippon
David Bowie Memorialized in Traditional Japanese Woodblock Prints https://t.co/xzmVeyVPu0 pic.twitter.com/cAdNXyzms6 — Open Culture (@openculture) November 28, Read more
Posted on 28 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Virahanka-Fibonacci Numbers
Let’s stop teaching the bogus rabbit story that Fibonacci told. These numbers originally came from poetry and music! pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 28 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Physicist Kip Thorne on the Importance of Collaboration in Science
Sean Carroll interviews Kip Thorne, who got the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics, along with Rainer Weiss and Barry Barish for the detection of gravitational waves. Read more
Posted on 27 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Web of Knowledge: A Model of Cognition from My 1978 Dissertation
I’ve now uploaded Chapter 4 of my dissertation, “The Web of Knowledge” to Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/37862208/The_Web_of_Knowledge. I did my... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Receptive Multilingualism, How Fascinating!
Victor Mair, at Language Log: In the latest The Atlantic, Michael Erard describes a fascinating linguistic phenomenon: "The Small Island Where 500 People Speak... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here's to Your Personal Moonshot
Are you working on your moonshot? pic.twitter.com/PuiPvUZnK3 — Adrian Neibauer, EdD (@MrNeibauer) November 20, 2018 This image embodies rather nicely the... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Disaster That is Palm Oil, Or: Look Before You Freakin' Leap!
Abrahm Lustgarten, Palm Oil Was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead It Unleashed a Catastrophe. NYTimes Magazine, November 20, 2018. Read more
Posted on 26 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hiromi Plays Beethoven – but What Would HE Think About It?
As far as I can tell literary studies will remain committed to pre-computational intellectual formations for the foreseeable future and... In the early 1970s I... Read more
Posted on 25 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Emergence of Rank 4 Thought in Evolutionary Biology, with Some Reflections o...
A week ago I ran up a post, Innovation, stagnation, and the construction of ideas and conceptual systems, where I argued that conceptual exhaustion is one reaso... Read more
Posted on 25 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Site of the Remains of Jersey City's Van Leer Chocalate Factory, December...
Posted on 25 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MOONSHOT: Does Project Apollo Bring Us to Redefine Humanity? [TALENT SEARCH]
A couple days ago I ran up a post, What’s a (metaphorical) moonshot? [TALENT SEARCH], where I looked at a couple of articles where Mercatus Center fellows talke... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY