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 ( 7828 )
-
Game Theory
Posted on 08 August 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
What About Chess? What Does It Tell Us About History? [path Dependence]
The late John McCarthy is said to have remarked once that if geneticists treated drosophila like AI researchers have treated chess, we’d have a lot of very... Read more
Posted on 08 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Night Shift
Posted on 07 August 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
The Matrix of Abstract Thought
The following paragraphs are from section 4.3 “The child is father to the man” in “The Evolution of Cognition” [1]: In general we assume that the growth of... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Scaffolding Imitation in Capoeira [Coordinator]
Downey, G. (2008). Scaffolding Imitation in Capoeira: Physical Education and Enculturation in an Afro-Brazilian Art. American Anthropologist, 110(2), 204–213.... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
New Perspectives on Spontaneous Brain Activity: Dynamic Networks and Energy...
Arturo Tozzi1, Marzieh Zare, and April A. Benasich, New Perspectives on Spontaneous Brain Activity: Dynamic Networks and Energy Matter, Front. Hum. Neurosci., 2... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Weight-Agnostic Neural Networks
Weight Agnostic Neural Networks 🦎 Inspired by precocial species in biology, we set out to search for neural net architectures that can already (sort... Read more
Posted on 06 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
China in Africa
Adam Swerer, "The Most Dangerous American Idea", The Atlantic, Aug. 5, 2019. The article's lede: "No belief in the history of the United States has been more... Read more
Posted on 06 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Godzilla Movies [Media Notes 8]
I’ve just watched two American Godzilla films: Godzilla (1998, #23 in the franchise), and Godzilla (2014, #30). In terms of special effects and general... Read more
Posted on 05 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sign Language Emerging on the Fly in Hong Kong Protests
Language development - in this case sign language - happens in real time, as the need arises. To ensure needed supplies reach them quickly, Hong Kong’s... Read more
Posted on 05 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Design of Design [How Abstract is That?]
Turing and von Neumann both completely understood that the interesting place in computation is how computation becomes physical, how it becomes embodied and... Read more
Posted on 05 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Boston Legal: Shatner, Mode, Continuity [Media Notes 7]
Shatner I always thought that William Shatner was a bit wooden and clunky in Star Trek, but I really like him in Boston Legal, where he plays Denny Crane, one o... Read more
Posted on 04 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evolutionary Dynamics of Complex Multiple Games
Happy to announce that my work on multiple game(s) dynamics with @GokhaleCS is now available online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal (and has... Read more
Posted on 04 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Urban Pastoral, Three Views
Posted on 03 August 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Transcendent Cognition, the Rise and Fall of Civilizations [#Progress_Studies]
The recent call for progress studies: Why did the Industrial Revolution start when it did? Why did Silicon Valley happen in California rather than Japan or... Read more
Posted on 03 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Miracle of Movies – Early 68 Mm Film
From Aeon: ‘It’s not so much being seduced by a story. It’s the thrill of seeing in itself.’ During the first film screenings in the 1890s, viewers marvelled... Read more
Posted on 02 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: More Flowers [#intensity]
Posted on 02 August 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
A Note About Kamasi Washington
I heard Kamasi Washington last night at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. He rocked the place. He had an eight piece bank with jazz instrumentation: tenor sax... Read more
Posted on 02 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hold Your Horses, Quantum "supremacy" Isn't All That
Bursting the quantum computer bubble. From, who else? @skdh https://t.co/2dK1NAIGLc — John Horgan (@Horganism) August 2, 2019 Sabine Hossenfelder, Quantum... Read more
Posted on 02 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Representational Nature of the Earliest Human Engravings
Neuroimaging supports the representational nature of the earliest human engravings https://t.co/oeVHi9PFP2 pic.twitter.com/wLPman3sOy — A. Read more
Posted on 01 August 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
