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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August 2, July in Review: Poetry, GPT-3 and a Couple Other Things
It’s been an exciting, and exhausting two weeks. I’ve been wanting to ramble on for a week now, but kept putting it off because my series on GPT-3 kept calling. Read more
Posted on 03 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Like a Miyazaki Movie (Mononoke)
静寂と緑#写真好きな人と繋がりたい... Read more
Posted on 02 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
And Now the Machines Recognize Emotion Categories Embedded in the Visual System
A neural network could recognize which #emotions, out of 20 different categories, a human would feel in response to an image, challenging the prevailing view... Read more
Posted on 01 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Louis Milic Saw Back in 1966 [digital Humanities]
Willard McCarty just reminded me of an article Louis Milic published in the first issue of Computers and the Humanities: Milic, L. (1966). The next step.... Read more
Posted on 01 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
3. Interlude: GPT-3 as a Model of the Mind
Here are the key paragraphs from the previous post: Let us notice, first of all, that language exists as strings of signifiers in the external world. Read more
Posted on 31 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Nature of Academic Literary Criticism as an Intellectual Discipline: Text...
Since the late 1950s and early 1960s the discipline has made interpretation its central focus. The discipline’s job is to determine or at least comment on and... Read more
Posted on 31 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Some Flowers [hot Zone]
Posted on 31 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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GPT-3 Does Philosophy
The prompt contained the essays themselves, plus a blurb explaining that GPT-3 had to respond to them. Full disclosure: I produced a few outputs and... Read more
Posted on 31 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Collective Decision Making Among Spider Monkeys
"Instead of assuming the strategies that govern #monkey decision making, as [in] traditional #gametheory, researchers amassed a list of possible... Read more
Posted on 30 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Language Learning in Children
Super excited to talk tomorrow (July 30th, 3pm pacific) at Abralin ao Vivo about joint with Yuan Yang. I'll be presenting a long-running project on language... Read more
Posted on 30 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
2. The Brain, the Mind, and GPT-3, Part 1: Dimensions and Conceptual Spaces
The purpose of this post is to sketch a conceptual framework in which we can understand the success of language models such as GPT-3 despite the fact that they... Read more
Posted on 29 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Danger, Will Robinson [Covid-19, Social Distancing on the Hudson]
Posted on 29 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Japanese Fishermen's Coats
Behold 19th-Century Japanese Firemen’s Coats, Richly Decorated with Mythical Heroes Symbols https://t.co/wktZvvoxnd pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 29 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mars Or Bust!
We're going back to Mars tomorrow with our @NASAPersevere rover! Watch @JimBridenstine give a LIVE #CountdownToMars update from @NASAKennedy's countdown clock... Read more
Posted on 29 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Cheers for the Democratic Republic of the Congo [formerly Known Among...
Tyler Cowen has a conversation with Nathan Nunn, a development economist at Harvard. Among other things, the conversation touches on the Democratic Republic of... Read more
Posted on 29 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Columbus Park, Hoboken, NJ
Posted on 28 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Einstein and Thought Experiments [+ Maxwell's Demon]
Sabine Hossenfelder, Einstein’s Greatest Legacy: Thought Experiments, Backreaction, July 25, 2020: Einstein’s greatest legacy is not General Relativity, it’s no... Read more
Posted on 28 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
1. No Meaning, No How: GPT-3 as Rubicon and Waterloo, a Personal View
I say that not merely because I am a person and, as such, I have a point of view on GPT-3, and related matters. I say because the discussion is informal, withou... Read more
Posted on 27 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Woods, Lake, Shore
Posted on 27 July 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI, and Computers More Generally, Violate Basic Conceptual Categories
Iris Berent, Op-Ed: The real reason we’re afraid of robots, LA Times, July 26, 2020: If you saw a ball start rolling all by itself, you’d be astonished. Read more
Posted on 27 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
