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 ( 7356 )
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Maybe It Wasn't an Asteroid Impact That Killed off the Dinosaurs
Bianca Bosker, The Nastiest Feud in Science, The Atlantic, September 2018: But [Prof. Gerta] Keller doesn’t buy any of it. “It’s like a fairy tale: ‘Big rock... Read more
Posted on 07 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Feynman on Physics (and More Generally, Intellectual Exploration): Maybe It's No...
From an interview in Omni Magazine back in 1979: OMNI To someone looking at high-energy physics from the outside, its goal seems to be to find the ultimate... Read more
Posted on 06 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Freedom and Equality
Nathan Heller, The Philosopher Redefining Equality, The New Yorker, Jan 7, 2019: At fifty-nine, Anderson is the chair of the University of Michigan’s... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Personality, Understanding, and Anxiety as the Driver of Cultural Evolution
This is another excerpt from David Hays, The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks (1995). This is from Chapter 5, “Politics, Cognition, and... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blockchain and Trust
Arnold Kling responds to Andreesen and Horowitz on a variety of issues. Here's his comments on blockchain and trust: Andreessen and Horowitz are bullish on... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Leaves
Posted on 04 January 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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What is the Mind (and What Can We Know of It)?
In a recent working paper, Toward a Theory of the Corpus [1], I suggested that we think of the mind has a high-dimensional space of word meanings. Read more
Posted on 04 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR 4: What About the Indians?
Let’s pick up where we left off, with Trump. Consider this tableau: There’s Trump on the side of that column at the right. Look at the face of that column. Read more
Posted on 03 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rise of Condensed Matter Physics [Is Particle Physics Over?]
Condensed matter physics, what's that? Well, think about it. As far as I know, which isn't very far, matter exists in various forms, solid, liguid, gas, and... Read more
Posted on 03 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Veggie Virtuosity
Just skip over the preliminaries about making the instruments. The performance starts at 1:39: I was hoping to go to Juilliard on a tuber-and-cucurbit... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rebecca Kukla: A Philosopher Talks About the Value of Boxing
Tyler Cowen has had a recent conversation with Rebecca Kukla, a philosopher at Georgetown. She's also a serious boxer. He asked her about it: COWEN: From a... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR 3: How Does Trump Show up at the Park?
I’ve been blogging about how politics, broadly construed, shows up in the graffiti and street art at FDR skate park in south Philadelphia. Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Would a New Year Be Without Flowers?
Posted on 01 January 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Transformation: FDR Then (2014) and Now
If you line up the left-most pillars in both images things should fall into place. The creature in the lower photo appears to be modeled after Wylie Coyote;... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Round 2: Andreesen Horowitz & Talent, Further Thoughts (for 2019 Going Forward)
I’ve continued to think about the Andreesen Horowitz Cowen conversation: I decided that, in making my earlier remarks, perhaps I’d been distracted by the... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump as King Cyrus, Or, The Bible's Got a Place for All of Us
And here's Trump's place: Cyrus, in case you’ve forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lest You Think Longwood Gardesn is All Pretty Flowers...
Posted on 31 December 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Toward a Theory of the Corpus [#DH]
I've just posted a new working paper. Title above, abstract, table of contents, introduction and section introductions are below. Download from: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 31 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Andreessen & Horowitz Discuss Culture, Tech, and Talent with Tyler Cowen:...
Andreesen Horowitz, as you may know, is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. Tyler Cowen is an economist at George Mason University and a prolific... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Maya Deren Describes What Spirit Possession is Like
This is an out-take from Chapter Eight, "The Protohuman Rhythm Band", of Beethoven's Anvil. Shortly after the end of World War II a young Russian emigrant... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
