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 ( 6820 )
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Will Blockbuster's Go Bust This Summer?
The movie business is notoriously fickle. As screenwriter William Goldman has said "nobody knows anything" about the economics of making films. Read more
Posted on 17 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What is Philosophy?
I've just discovered (via Dan Dennett) to the work of Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher of science with a particular interest in biology. Read more
Posted on 17 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Beam Me Up, Scotty"
According to the Wikipedia, that exact phrase never appeared in the original Star Trek, though a similar one did: "Scotty, beam us up. Read more
Posted on 16 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Star Trek
Matt Yglesias, who has watched every episode and movie in the Star Trek franchise, has written an appreciative essay about the whole lot of them. He regards... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neurohumanities, into the Gap?
The Nation has an article on "neurohumanities" which is more or less about neuro-, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology in this humanities. Read more
Posted on 14 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Animation, Acting, Drawing
In live action films, the actors get to interact with one another directly. When Capt. Willard talks with Col. Kurtz in Apocalpse Now, you have actors Martin... Read more
Posted on 13 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Culture Evolving: Egyptian Mahraganat Music Flowers in the Arab Spring
In just a few years, these and other young musicians have created a new genre of youth-driven, socially conscious music and forced it on the Egyptian soundscape. Read more
Posted on 12 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Leaves of Grass
Posted on 11 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trees and Waves in the Evolution of Culture
The 19th century thinkers who saw evolutionary processes the biological world also saw them in culture. While evolutionary thinking about culture persisted... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Romantic Love, Conversation, Biology, and Culture
Note: This post grew out of reflection on older earlier post on bundling.This was also cross-posted at The Valve, now closed for renovation. Read more
Posted on 10 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Bit of the Textured Aerosol
Posted on 08 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
More on Dennett on Memes
Still thinking about Dan Dennett's conception of memetics. He's got an article in the Encyclopedia of Evolution (Oxford 2005), "New Replicators, The" that's... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nautilus: A New Science Glossy
The New York Times gives notice of a new glossy science magazine, Nautilus: Science Connected, and reflects on the boom and bust of science journalism in the... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Words That Have Survived 15,000 Years Across Europe and Asia
From the Washington Post:The traditional view is that words can’t survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years. Evolution, linguistic “weathering” and the adoptio... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Art of Science
Scientific and technical work has been producing aesthetically pleasing images for 100s of years. The New York Times has noticed some recent cases in a brief... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Evolution on the Xanadu Tip: Words and Contexts
I've been reading around in Dan Dennett's papers and found this one, The Cultural Evolution of Words and Other Thinking Tools (Cold Spring Harbor Symp Quant... Read more
Posted on 06 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japanesse Girl Group Tracks Stocks with Their Skirts
Kanon Mori, Yuki Sakura, Hinako Kuroki and Jun Amaki have been following the Nikkei 225 stock average obsessively since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office... Read more
Posted on 05 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Connections: Topography in the Brain
A profile of two neuroscientists, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser: "In 2005, they and their colleagues reported the discovery of cells in rats’ brains that... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dennetisms
The New York Times has an article on Dan Dennett, "perhaps America’s most widely read (and debated) living philosopher." I've read some of his stuff, but haven'... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Talking Chimps and UFOs: A Thought Experiment
This is an out-take from Beethoven’s Anvil, my book on music. It’s about a thought experiment that first occurred to me while in graduate school in the... Read more
Posted on 29 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY