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
-
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 )
-
Carving at the Joints: Plato, Zhuangzi, Guo Xiang
First, a prompt I gave Claude 5.4. Then Claude’s reply. * * * * * There’s a cliché about carving Nature at its joints. There’s one version from Plato’s Phaedrus. Read more
Posted on 01 March 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Elysian Park, Hoboken
Posted on 28 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Computation, Chess, and Language in Artificial Intelligence
New working paper. Title above, links, abstract, contents and introduction below: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 28 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Ways to Use AI: Homo Economicus Vs. Homo Ludens
The academy has a problem, and it's been getting worse for over a century.[1] We organize knowledge into disciplines—history, psychology, neuroscience,... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: An Urban Canyon in Hoboken, NJ
Posted on 27 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Down by the River [Hoboken, Hudson River]
Posted on 26 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Dancing is Fun, and Good for You, Too.
Danielle Friedman, Yes, Even You Can Dance, NYTimes. For many people, dance feels more like play than exercise, which helps to explain its enduring appeal as a... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Paradox of Contemporary AI: Intellectual Success and Institutional Failure
We’re faced with a paradox: On the one hand the last 15 years of work in machine learning has to be seen as a profound INTELLECTUAL SUCCESS. Read more
Posted on 25 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Tablescapes
Posted on 25 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
“Wuthering Heights” as Initiation
Ross Douthat, Whatever Happened to Grown-Up Movies for Kids? NYTimes, Feb. 24, 2026. What Douthat has in mind is “telling grown-up stories in a fashion suited t... Read more
Posted on 25 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Snow World
Posted on 25 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Three Principles of Intelligence (That Aren't Principles of Computation)
Note: Claude 4.5 drafted this article after a long series of dialogs over several days. This is a continuation of the thinking in my current article in 3... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Window Shots on Snow Day
Posted on 24 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
An Economic Analysis of Epstein's Role as an Intermediator [Glenn Loury]
Loury has written an article about this: Jeffrey Epstein as Middleman: An Economic Analysis, February 10, 2026. From the opening: Economic theory has always bee... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Street Where I Live
Posted on 24 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
The Transformer Has Put Us on the Shore of a New World
I note, however, that it is not at all obvious to me that the transformer architecture will remain. We probably need something that does what it does; but... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
When AI Does Math and Code: The Limits of Pattern Matching
Here's how Claude summarizes a discussion we had last evening. * * * * * Recently, chatbots have been performing impressively on mathematics benchmarks and... Read more
Posted on 23 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This Too is Breakfast
Posted on 23 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Chess, Language, and AI @3QD
I’ve got a new article at 3 Quarks Daily: Chess and Language as Paradigmatic Cases for Artificial Intelligence Chess has been a central concern of AI from the... Read more
Posted on 23 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Return to Waffles
Posted on 22 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
