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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Ideas Rule the World, Not Kings Or Corporations
This is a Big Think video by Lawrence Summers, economist and former President of Harvard and Secretary of the Treasury. The first 20 minutes or so is an... Read more
Posted on 10 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Noël Carroll on Arthur Danto
Carroll is doing the 5 Books thing about visual aesthetics. His fifth book is Arthur Danto's After the end of Art. Danto is remembered for one big idea which... Read more
Posted on 08 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Brain is a Prediction Machine
Interoceptive predictions in the brain Lisa Feldman Barrett W. Kyle Simmons Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2015) doi:10.1038/nrn3950 Published online: 28 May... Read more
Posted on 08 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dennett's Astonishing Hypothesis: We're Symbionts! – Apes with Infected Brains
It's hard to know the proper attitude to take toward this idea. Daniel Dennett, after all, is a brilliant and much honored thinker. But I can't take the idea... Read more
Posted on 08 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Study in Pink and Silver: Why Not Call It an Installation? [#GVM004]
What, pray tell, is this? It’s two bottles on a shelf or something. Well, yeah, that’s obvious. But what kind of bottles... look like beer bottles, maybe but... Read more
Posted on 07 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Good Grief! War Boys in the Promised Land [#GVM004]
One could, of course, dismiss it because it’s comic strip imagery, and therefore Not Serious. One could also dismiss it as graffiti, and therefore Not Serious. Read more
Posted on 06 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
War Boys in Tomorrowland 2: The Graffiti Connection
Ad astra per aspera. In a previous post I argued that the War Boys of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road would be among the first to be recruited to the... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Sky
I've decided to follow last week's minimalist focus on surfaces with more minimalism: sky. Sky of course is ubiquitous in the external world and so I've got... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Evolution and Oral Tradition: ‘Information Transfer’ at the Micro Scale
It’s clear that one problem I have with Dennett’s memetics is this his conception face-to-face mechanisms of cultural evolution – like the transfer of... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Iain McGilchrist to Steven Pinker on the Humanities
I'm on a bipoetics psych list serve that also includes Ellen Dissanayake. She just informed the group of Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and his... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Where I’m at on Cultural Evolution, Some Quick Remarks
I don’t know. Some notes to myself. 1. Cultural Analogs to Genes and Phenotypes I’ve spent a fair amount of time off and on over the last two decades hacking... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Time's Arrow and the Universe
Physicist Leonard Susskind on time: why does time (appear to) have a direction? There's some very interesting remarks (in response to a question) at roughly... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Disney's Got Toys That Play Back
From the NYTimes: Disney’s goal: Use wireless systems, motion sensors and wearable technology to strike a balance between what children want to do (tap screens... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mad Max: Fury Road – An Empty Vessel Anyone Can Fill?
Matt McKenna at 3 Quarks Daily: Fury Road is so open to whatever interpretation one would like to attribute to it, websites that usually find themselves in utte... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
@3QD: On the Future of the Human Sciences
A couple of months ago Frank Wilczek published an essay in which he speculated about what physics would accomplish in the next 100 years. Most of it was beyond... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ayahuasca Variations
This working paper was originally published in Human Nature Review 3 (2003) 239-251: http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/shanon.html You can also find it at:... Read more
Posted on 29 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Inside Job: Green Villain @ Pep Boys #GVM004
A look at the space, part of it anyhow: Executive decisions: The Batmobile: ERA, PFE, writes CREEP: The doctor is in: Green Villain: Open to the Public June... Read more
Posted on 28 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Universe Across Eight Thresholds of Complexity
David Christian discusses Big History at Edge.org. Here's some of that discussion. Since he identifies eight (8) thresholds I've inserted numbers in brackets... Read more
Posted on 28 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Physicist Sean Carroll on Complexity – Skating on the Eye Between Science and...
At Edge.org: You can think about the universe as a cup of coffee: You're taking cream and you're mixing it into the coffee. When the cream and the coffee are... Read more
Posted on 28 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Could Heart of Darkness Have Been Published in 1813? – a Digression from...
Here I’m just thinking out loud. I want to play around a bit. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is well within the 1820-1919 time span covered by Underwood and... Read more
Posted on 27 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
