Bbenzon
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 ( 6954 )
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Dennet’s WRONG: the Mind is NOT Software for the Brain
And he more or less knows it; but he wants to have his cake and eat it too. It’s a little late in the game to be learning new tricks. Read more
Posted on 08 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ted Cloak and Cultural Evolution
Before there was Dawkins, there was Ted Cloak. His 1968 study (PDF) of the cultural evolution of the spoked wooden wheel and documentation of the manufacture... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Green Villain Karma: Urban Buddhism in Jersey City #GVM004
The painting continues on the Pep Boys site, as you can see in these flicks, taken 5 May 2015. Notice the incomplete Goomba head (upper left): And the front... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Scarcity and Anxiety
Harvard Magazine report's Sendhil Mullainathan's work on the psychology of scarcity. Conventional wisdom has it that people are poor because they've made bad... Read more
Posted on 06 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
JC Pep Boys Graffiti Jam 2015: Lingering Commentary #GVM004
I’ve got another post at 3 Quarks Daily: OK to Destroy: Jersey City’s Graffiti Jam of April 2015. The building will be coming down not too long from now.... Read more
Posted on 04 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Satchmo's Jazz Diplomacy – “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?”
Writing about Louis Armstrong in the NYTimes, Joe Nocera observes: Starting in the mid-1950s, the State Department began sending jazz musicians like Dizzy... Read more
Posted on 02 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Real-time Machine Translation of Voice Messages
From the NYTimes: On Monday, Harry Shum, the Microsoft executive vice president who oversees the research operation, was bursting with pride while... Read more
Posted on 01 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"OK to Destroy" #GVM004
Been thinking about what to call the Green Villain First Annual Jersey City Invitational Graffiti Jam besides the GVFAJCIGJ. "OK to Destroy" seems metaphysicall... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Letterman Thinks About the Mind
As we all know, David Letterman is retiring from the "Late Show" after, well, not forever, but a long time. He gave a long interview to the good folks at The Ne... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Graffiti: From Art Crimes to Family Day #GVM004
Back in the day, when graffiti was just getting started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was a criminal act. A minor crime, to be sure, but still... Read more
Posted on 29 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Knowledge the Opiate of Intellectuals?
EurekAlert! from 2006: Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. Read more
Posted on 28 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
SP One, What’s He Thinking? #GVM004
Look at this flick, taken at 1:17 PM, Saturday 25 April 2015, at the Pep Boys Memorial Graffiti Jam in Jersey City: SP One’s working on a piece, standing in... Read more
Posted on 28 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Direction of Cultural Evolution: Lessons from the 19th Century...
I've got another working paper available (title above): Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 27 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ian Morris on Why Societies Collapse
Stanford's Ian Morris, a classicist by training, is one of 32 fellows in the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows in the humanities and social sciences. Read more
Posted on 26 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Energy and the Origin of Life
The Financial Times reviews Nick Lane, The Vital Question: The key moment for the evolution of life on Earth, Lane says, came at some point between 2bn and 1.5b... Read more
Posted on 26 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Basics of Graffiti Culture #GVM004
These photos were taken on Saturday, 25 April, 2015, at the Green Villain Pep Boys Invitational Greffiti Jam and Building Farewall. Read more
Posted on 26 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Pep Boys, Newport, Jersey City: #GVM004
The Pep Boys in Newport in Jersey City has closed and the building's been sold. Next month it will be demolished to make way for new construction. Read more
Posted on 24 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neural Recognizers: Some Notes Based on a TV Tube Metaphor
Introduction: Raw Notes A fair number of my mosts here at New Savanna and edited from my personal intellectual notes. In this post the notes are unedited. Read more
Posted on 23 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Communicating with Yourself, Some Data Points in the Contemporary Intellectual...
But first, not so contemporary: E. M. (“only connect”) Forster is known for various things, including the assertion, “How do I know what I think until I see wha... Read more
Posted on 22 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photos and Forsythia
When I was young I looked to the blossoming of forsythia as a sign of Spring. I still do. But this isn’t a post about forsythias or Spring. Read more
Posted on 22 April 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY