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 ( 7820 )
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Even Modest Musical Training Enhances Cognitive Function, Especially Executive...
Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard: Most of those enhanced abilities were limited to what they referred to as "music experts"—people who started training early in... Read more
Posted on 20 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
TALENT SEARCH: Tyler Cowen on the Value of Sole Proprietor Pop-up Philanthropic...
A week or so ago Tyler Cowen ran up a post on his philanthropic method, The philosophy and practicality of Emergent Ventures. He notes that traditional... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Am I Doing at Regulating My Action at Academia.edu?
On Oct. 31 I posted this chart in a post that was otherwise about Donald Trump and his tweeting activity: The chart depicts action on my page at Academica.edu,... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Tweets of the Day – Group Differences Vs. How People Think About Them
First there's this: What group differences look like vs. how people talk and think about them. pic.twitter.com/4ROSCN9f4Y — Stephen Vaisey (@vaiseys) November... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Innovation, Stagnation, and the Construction of Ideas and Conceptual Systems
Patrick Collison and Michael Nielsen recently published an article that’s been getting a lot of attention in this neck of the woods, “Science Is Getting Less... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
If We're to Survive and Thrive with a Population of 10B+ Then Wizards and...
As far as I can tell literary studies will remain committed to pre-computational intellectual formations for the foreseeable future and... In the early 1970s I... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Critical Point Dynamics in whole-Brain Neuroanl Activity
Ponce-Alvarez et al., Whole-Brain Neuronal Activity Displays Crackling Noise Dynamics, Neuron (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.10.045. Read more
Posted on 17 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What's up in Disney World? For the Ultimate "out of This World" Vacation...
Brooks Barnes, Disney Is Spending More on Theme Parks Than It Did on Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm Combined, NYTimes, Nov. 16, 2018. One of the most anticipated... Read more
Posted on 17 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Biological Vs. Cultural Evolution (language and Music)
Dan Everett recently posted this tweet: Another definitional issue that keeps bothering me for no particularly good reason - people who study diachronic... Read more
Posted on 16 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Some Varieties of Light
Posted on 16 November 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Ontology Notes: What's a "thing"?
Conceptual ontology has been an interest of mine since graduate school. Many ontologies will start with "thing" at the root of the ontology, which seems... Read more
Posted on 16 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
History of the American Revolution, Japanese Style from 1861 [Tweet of the Day]
A thread of images from a Japanese illustrated history of America from 1861. Here is George Washington (with bow and arrow) pictured alongside the Goddess of... Read more
Posted on 16 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Near the Remains of the Old Van Leer Chocolate Factory, 10 Years Ago
Posted on 15 November 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Jill Lepore on Disruption
Evan Goldstein interviews Jill Lepore about her latest book, These Truths (W.W. Norton), a history of America. Here's some remarks on disruption: Q. Read more
Posted on 15 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fear of Death as a Driving Force in Human (cultural) Life
Jonathan Jong, Faith and the Fear of Death, The New Atlantis. The line primus in orbe deos fecit timor — “fear first made gods in the world” — appears in at... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is There a Meaningful Technical Difference Between an Language and a Dialect...
John McWhorter says, "no", in an article in The Atlantic. Here's how he opens: What’s the difference between a language and a dialect? Read more
Posted on 14 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Temporal Processing in Huma Memory
Qiaoli Huang, Jianrong Jia, Qiming Han, Huan Luo, Fast-backward replay of sequentially memorized items in humans, eLife 2018;7:e35164, DOI:... Read more
Posted on 14 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Networks and Success in Art
S. P. Fraiberger et al., Quantifying reputation and success in art, Science 10.1126/science.aau7224 (2018). Abstrarct: In areas of human activity where... Read more
Posted on 12 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music Evolving
Eita Nakamura, Kunihiko Kaneko, Statistical Evolutionary Laws in Music Styles, arXiv:1809.05832v1 [physics.soc-ph]. If a cultural feature is transmitted over... Read more
Posted on 12 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Placebos Work [annals of Mind and Body]
Gary Greenberg, New York Times Magazine, What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?, November 7, 2018. And after a quarter-century of hard work, they have... Read more
Posted on 12 November 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
