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 ( 6430 )
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Individual Differences in Human Brains
We're wired differently. Surprise! Surprise!Although most of our brains are wired pretty similarly in areas that deal with sensory stimuli like sound and vision... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Tug of Intuition, Or, Intuition as Reason Smasher
I keep thinking about the role of intuition in our thought processes. Here's a passage from a recent NYTimes piece discussing two thought experiments about... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sakaki Rides a Dolphin
This is one of the more popular posts at New Savanna, and it's about one of my favorite anime series. Enjoy.I want to describe what happens in a brief scene... Read more
Posted on 22 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Liquid Tone: Lena Horne on Music
Over the years I’ve been collecting anecdotes about the inner workings of music, especially about feelings and about moments of transcendence. Read more
Posted on 21 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Girard Girard
During freshman orientation at Johns Hopkins I went to a lecture on cultural relativism given by Rene Girard. Both the topic and the lecturer were new to me. Read more
Posted on 20 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beer Before Bread?
Why did humans domesticate grains?Current theory has it that grain was first domesticated for food. But since the 1950s, many scholars have found... Read more
Posted on 16 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A White Blackman
I published this over a decade and a half ago on a long-gone personal website and then on a now-dormant site called Gravity. I’ve been looking for a time and a... Read more
Posted on 15 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Consciousness, Two Thought Experiments (Minus the Thought)
Gary Gutting has recently outlined two thought experiments contemporary philosophers like to consider in thinking about consciousness. Read more
Posted on 15 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Pope and the Dali Lama
Have they ever met, the Pope and the Dali Lama?I’m sure that many individual Roman Catholics and many individual Tibetan Buddhists have met. Perhaps some are... Read more
Posted on 13 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"The Weight"--A Classic Already?
From the Huffington Post, all together now:In 1968, "The Weight" was a rock song, but since then, Aretha Franklin and Duane Allman have shown us that it's an R ... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Your Heart is on Your Facebook Sleeve
PNAS has just published “Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior,” by Michal Kosinski, David Stillwell, and Thore... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Louis Armstrong and the Snake-Charmin’ Hoochie-Coochie Meme
Another "old time good one", as Pops used to say. This is about a little tune I learned as a kid, but which might well be hundreds of year old, if not even... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Animation Styles: Europe, America, Japan
Michael Sporn has an interesting post comparing animation styles.The US tradition came directly from the wonderful work done mostly after hours at Disney’s... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Man-machine Symbiosis?
I get by with a little help from my friends, humans that is:...while programming experts still write the step-by-step instructions of computer code, additional... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Horse Meat? Isn't Culture Peculiar?
What's so scandalous about horse meat?And at a time of immense strains brought on by the euro crisis and Continentwide austerity — when new, anti-European... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Seeing Things: Anthropomorphism and Animation
From the The Thoughtful Animal blog at Scientific American:Under certain conditions, even 2D shapes can be interpreted as animate social agents rather than... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hubley on Animation
Michael Sporn has reprinted a 1946 article about animation written by John Hubley and Zachary Schwartz. Both had had distinguished careers in animation by that... Read more
Posted on 07 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
History is a Tricky Business
Figuring out what happened–mere who, what, where, and when, forget about why–can be a tricky business. The Sand Creek Massacre is a case in point. We know... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Busy Bee Brain
With brains in the news these days (for example, all the hoopla about the Brain Activity Map project) I've decided to republish this old post suggesting that th... Read more
Posted on 05 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Homunculus Talk About the Brain Doesn't Work
Colin McGinn takes on Ray Kurzweil:Contemporary brain science is thus rife with unwarranted homunculus talk, presented as if it were sober established science.... Read more
Posted on 05 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY