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 ( 7635 )
-
GPT-2 Sure Demos Impressively [be Skeptical]
Mark Liberman at Language Log reports on John Seabrook, "The Next Word: Where will predictive text take us?", The New Yorker 10/14/2019, which is about the... Read more
Posted on 08 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Windows on the World, a Quick Thought About Critical Illusion [#counting #DH]
Michael Gavin has an interesting article in Critical Analytics, Is there a text in my data? (Part 1): On Counting Words (09.17.19). Read more
Posted on 08 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Retail Banking Like It Used to Be
By buddy Cobb has an interesting post about banking the old-fashioned way, before the internet and all that: I’ll talk about retail banking in 1980 when I was... Read more
Posted on 08 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Direction of Literary History: How Should We Interpret That 3300 Node...
That's the name of a draft I've put on Academia.edu for comment. Here's the link:... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
They Do It All...
Posted on 06 October 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Reading the Human Swarm 2: The Importance of Scale in Social Structure
I’ve now gone back to the beginning of The Human Swarm and have been reading chapters in order, from the Introduction up to chapter 5, “Ants and Humans, Apples... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fountain in the Dark with Snow [then Blue Silk]
I took this on December 9, 2017 at 7:33 PM with my Panasonic DMZ-AS7. This is how the photo looked out of the camera: As you can see, there's not much there to... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
I Did It Again, Another Day Without Blogging (almost) [regulating the Mind]
Metadata: I had to hunt around a bit to find the file where I’d written the previous post in this series. Found it in “New Savanna Notes 17.docx” and moved it t... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Back to Basics, Graffiti from the Nameless Place
Posted on 05 October 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
A Quick Thought on What Happened That Academic Literary Criticism Lost Its Way
Four years ago I quoted Blakey Vermeule as saying: Theory has taken hold in humanities departments because it is (or was) a branch of theology, not science. Read more
Posted on 04 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Yellow Pagodas
Posted on 04 October 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Limits to Economic Growth?
Christopher F. Jones, The Delusion and Danger of Infinite Economic Growth, The New Republic, October 1, 2019. The fairytale of infinite growth—which so many... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Redeveloping Economics on a New Mathematical Foundationi (?)
Mark Buchanan, How ergodicity reimagines economics for the benefit of us all, berfrois, Sept. 28, 2019: Everyone faces uncertainties all the time, in choosing t... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Quickie: The Linguistic Sign & Language as a Collection of Interlinked Systems
I’m thinking of language as a phenomenon of cultural evolution. But let’s start with Latour. He distinguishes between intermediaries and mediators as forms of... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reading the Human Swarm 1: Hunter-Gatherers and the Plant Trap
I’ve been reading Mark Moffett’s new book: Mark W. Moffett. The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall. Basic Books 2019. It is at heart a work... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sometimes It's Fun to Track a Small Boat as It Zips Along the Hudson River
Now it passes the Frying Pan. I don't know what kind of boat that is, but it's been there in that same spot as long as I've been photographing the western... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Zombie Ideas Alive and Well in Psychology
Lisa Feldman Barrett, Zombie Ideas, Observer,Ooctober 2019, (APS, Association for Psychological Science): According to the economist Paul Krugman (2013), a... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
More on Speech as Computation [what Disfluencies Tell Us]
I continue to think about language as the basic computational operation of the mind/brain. The idea is that this business of stringing words together into... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beliefs About Local Impact of Climate Change Affect Beliefs About the...
Astrid Dannenberg Sonja Zitzelsberger, Climate experts’ views on geoengineering depend on their beliefs about climate change impacts, Nature Climate Change... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cuban Music of Several Styles [a Network, Not a Tree]
Shannon Sims (text), Discovering Cuba, an Island of Music, NYTimes, Sept 29, 2019: Just an hour’s flight from the United States, Cuba is drenched in music. Read more
Posted on 30 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
