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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The Dali Lama Says
I’m Tibetan, I’m Buddhist and I’m the Dalai Lama, but if I emphasize these differences it sets me apart and raises barriers with other people. Read more
Posted on 21 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Joe Rogan's Interview "secrets"
Alex Berman Published on Jun 16, 2017 In this video we’re going to delve into Joe Rogan's interview style and how his singular way of posing a question has... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Against Two the Tambuka Way
Western music is based on so-called duple rhythms, patterns of two or multiples of two. There are triple rhythms as well, the waltz for example, but they... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Intelligence Requires Causal Reasoning, Which is More Than Fancy Curve Fitting
Kevin Hartnett interviews AI pioneer Judea Pearl on occasion of his new book, The Book of Why (Quanta, May 15, 2017): To Build Truly Intelligent Machines,... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Success in Contemporary Pop Songs
Myra Interiano, Kamyar Kazemi, Lijia Wang, Jienian Yang, Zhaoxia Yu, Natalia L. Komarova, Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Man Godfrey
This is another classic American film that I’m just now getting around to watching. My Man Godfrey came out in 1936, during the Great Depression. It’s a... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
6000 Years of World History
Groundbreaking Map from 1858 Colorfully Visualizes 6,000 Years of World History https://t.co/2413l25X8m pic.twitter.com/38QFCNOiYk — Open Culture... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nouns Slow Down Speech
across structurally and culturally diverse languages Frank Seifart, Jan Strunk, Swintha Danielsen, Iren Hartmann, Brigitte Pakendorf, Søren Wichmann,... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Do Elite Chess Players Have in Common with LeBron James?
BBC: Eyebrows and speculation rose after James gave a scarily precise account of what had happened in the fourth quarter of a game between his team, the... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Read Old Philosophy?
Katja Grace states something that's puzzled her: We read old physicists if we want to do original research on the history of physics. Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Psychedelics and the Default Mode Network (DMN)
Michale Pollen, The New York times Magazine: If the ego can be said to have an address, it would probably be in something called the default mode network, a... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
London, 1866, as Seen by a Japanese Artist
What Happens When a Japanese Woodblock Artist Depicts Life in London in 1866, Despite Never Having Set Foot There https://t.co/c50Hkl5MiY pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 12 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Universals in Human Music
Patrick E. Savage, Steven Brown, Emi Sakai, and Thomas E. Currie, Statistical universals reveal the structures and functions of human music, PNAS, July 21, 2015... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Flowers, 11th Street in Hoboken, NJ
Posted on 11 May 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Google Duplex: Naturalistic Conversational AI
Google's AI Blog has an interesting post about its new Google Duplex technology: Today we announce Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Very Strange
A couple of weeks ago I posted about a Japanese TV program based on a premise that I found a bit strange, a young woman supporting her father marries a rich... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Happened to Economics?
Eric Posner and Glen Weyl, "How Economists Became So Timid", The Chronicle of Higher Education. Then: Self-styled American and European radicals, for example,... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Deconstruction?
I’ve been a fan of this guy for a while - he makes extraordinary Rube Goldberg machines with a level of wit that elevates them beyond any I’ve seen... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Science Spinning Its Wheels?
Back in 1996 John Horgan published The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (see my review), in which he argued... Read more
Posted on 05 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beyond"AI" – Toward a New Engineering Discipline
Mark Liberman at Language Log posted a link to an excellent article by Michal Jordan, "Artificial Intelligence — The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet"... Read more
Posted on 02 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
