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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Update on Color Terms: Nature Or Nuture?
Thinking about this again so I'm bumping this to the top. It's from December 2012. Color vision, from genetics through neuropsychology to color terms, is one... Read more
Posted on 21 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Isochrony in Human Rhythm
Andrea Ravignani and Guy Madison, The Paradox of Isochrony in the Evolution of Human Rhythm, Front. Psychol., 06 November 2017 |... Read more
Posted on 20 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation 1.3: On the Structure of Ideas [thinking out Loud] and into Philosophy
My initial impulses on the stagnation issue were different from the direction I ended up taking in my first post in response to the recent paper by Bloom, Jones... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Knowledge: Lore, Practice, Engineering, Systemics
This is another segment from David Hays (1995) The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks, New York, Metagram Press. It is section 2.3.1 from... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First the New Criticism, Several Decades Later (two Intellectual Generations?),...
Eleanor Courtemanche, The Peculiar Success of Cultural Studies 2.0, Stanford Arcade, 9.19. 2016. We’re seeing a moment—like the spread of the New Criticism in... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kahneman on AI, Machine Learning and Common Sense, and Sunk Costs
From a conversation with Tyler Cowen: COWEN: Do you side with the analysts, such as Martin Ford, who see really a very large number of jobs being potentially... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is That It, Do Humanists (really) Want to Speak with the Dead?
Steven Klein, The New Science Wars, The Chronicle Review, 12.16.16: Because it dwells on these historically specific phenomena, humanistic inquiry is equipped t... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation 1.2: Energy Efficiency and the Cost of Deepening Our Understanding...
Yesterday (12.17.18) Alex Tabarrock had a post about the energy efficiency of the ever cheaper logic engines in our many digital devices. Read more
Posted on 18 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Humans Aren't the Only Animals with Energy-hungry Brains
Robin Smith-Duke, Human Brains Aren't 'Hungrier' Than Other Animals', Futurity, 11.6.17: Relative to resting metabolic rate—the total amount of calories an... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation 1.1: In What Way is the Drug Business Like the Movie Business?
A couple days ago I uploaded a long post about a decline in productivity stretching back into the previous century. It was based on a recent paper by Bloom,... Read more
Posted on 17 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Milestones in the Utilization of Energy from Prehistory to Present
This is another post using material from David Hays, The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks. New York, Metagram Press, 1995. Read more
Posted on 17 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Netflix Has Been Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Theaters
Brooks Barnes, Netflix’s Movie Blitz Takes Aim at Hollywood’s Heart, NYTimes: Netflix’s newfound attention to theaters is an olive branch to Oscar voters. Read more
Posted on 17 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Great Wave
The Evolution of The Great Wave off Kanazawa: See Four Versions That Hokusai Painted Over Nearly 40 Years https://t.co/YwUjZvOn8K pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 17 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Universal Decay of Collective Memory and Attention
Cristian Candia, C. Jara-Figueroa, Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert, Albert-László Barabási César A. Hidalgo, The universal decay of collective memory and... Read more
Posted on 16 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visionary Women
An Illustrated Celebration of the Rebels, Visionaries, and Fiercely Courageous World-Changers Who Won Women Political Power https://t. Read more
Posted on 16 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation 1: The Phenomenon and a Simple-minded Model with Some Remarks on...
I don’t remember just when I read about stagnation (in the production of new ideas), but it would have been on the Marginal Revolution blog and it would have... Read more
Posted on 15 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Space Travel: What We Have Here is a Failure of Imagination
Just around the corner from John Quiggin has posted “No planet but this one” at Crooked Timber (link below). His first two paragraphs: The Voyager 2 spacecraft... Read more
Posted on 14 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Jersey City Night Vision
Continued, in a way, from last week. I seem to be in a mood for night vision visions of the night. Read more
Posted on 14 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computation in Language Process
New working paper. Title above, abstract, table of contents, and introduction below. Download here: Academic.edu:... Read more
Posted on 13 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
That's What I Want, Unbounded Complexity with Open-ended Evolution
Corominas-Murtra B, Seoane LF, Solé R. 2018 Zipf’s Law, unbounded complexity and open-ended evolution. J. R. Soc. Interface 15: 20180395.... Read more
Posted on 13 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
