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 ( 7808 )
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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 -
War Boys in Tomorrowland, Or: Mad Max Meets Disney
Back in the 1950s Walt Disney brought Tomorrowland to life, most concretely as one of four divisions of Disneyland, but also as one of the formats for his... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why I Like This Photo of an Iris
I can imagine that, on first seeing it, some might be puzzled about just what this photograph depicts. Of course, I’m not puzzled, because I was there when I... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Underwood and Sellers 2015: Beyond Whig History to Evolutionary Thinking
Evolutionary processes allow populations to survive and thrive in a world of contingencies In the middle of their most interesting and challenging paper, How... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Oh Woe is Us! Those Horrible Horrible AIs Are out to Get Us
These days some Very Smart, Very Rich, and Very Intellectual people are worried that the computers will do us in the first chance they get. Nonsense! We would d... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Advanced AI, Friend Or Foe? Answers from David Ferrucci and from Benzon and Hays
David Ferrucci: “To me, there’s a very deep philosophical question that I think will rattle us more than the economic and social change that might occur,”... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Art of Rotoscope: Taylor Swift Remade
49 University of Newcastle Australia animation students were each given 52 frames of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off music video, and together they produced 2767... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Life of a Hired Intellectual Gun
One anecdote from among several: Xerox was developing a new operating system for its ill-fated line of computers. Their testing group was falling behind. Read more
Posted on 23 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Underwood and Sellers 2015: Cosmic Background Radiation, an Aesthetic Realm,...
I’ve read and been thinking about Underwood and Sellers 2015, How Quickly Do Literary Standards Change?, both the blog post and the working paper. Read more
Posted on 22 May 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
