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 ( 7628 )
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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 -
Why the Outrage Over Michelle Wolf's Performance and the W.H.C.A. Dinner?
After all, she was hired to provide satire, and that's what she provided. James Poniewozik in the NYTimes: Was Ms. Wolf’s set vicious? Absolutely. Read more
Posted on 01 May 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evolution and Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics of Evolutionary Games Christoph Adami, Arend Hintze (Michigan State University) (Submitted on 9 Jun 2017) How cooperation can evolve between... Read more
Posted on 26 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Family Life: I Don’t Understand Japanese Culture
I was looking through the video offerings on Amazon Prime and say that they had a number of Japanese programs. So I picked one, Happy Marriage!?, a live TV... Read more
Posted on 24 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Katherine Switzer, Marathoner, Then and Now
Kathrine Switzer (1947- ) USA athlete, campaigner. First woman to run the Boston Marathon, 1967. Attacked during the race by an official trying to stop her,... Read more
Posted on 22 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Machine-learning Can Predict the Evolution of Chaotic Systems
Natalie Wolchover, Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos, Quanta Magazine: The findings come from veteran chaos theorist Edward Ott and four... Read more
Posted on 19 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (at Howard’s Party)
I'd originally posted this on April 3, 2011. Last night, April 14, 2018, I attended Howard's jam, again. And we played “Knocking on Heaven's Door", just like... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh!
Netflix is currently streaming a 6-part documentary about how central Oregon was "invaded" by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers, intent upon... Read more
Posted on 14 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Common Sense in Artificial Intelligence
Sometime back in the 1970s, I believe it was, David Marr observed something of a paradox (I believed he used that word) in the development of artificial... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
