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
-
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 )
-
Skepticism About Obama's Brain Project
"When you look at the cerebellum it's a godawful mess" says Randy Gallistel, and its circuitry is very regular. Some remarks at blogginheads.tv:BTW, the whole... Read more
Posted on 07 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Citizen Science, That Means YOU
Science isn't just for scientists. It's for all of us. Here's a study of 11,000 citizen scientists involved with a single project:Galaxy Zoo: Motivations of... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Indiana Philosophy "Ontology" Project
Here's the link. It takes you to the front door.I've put "ontology" in scare quotes because the term is used as it is in computer science, which is not quite it... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frog Up Ponyo Sita: Complacency Vs. Vision
An old post in which I talk about Disney (The Princess and the Frog), Pixar (Up), Hayao Miyazaki (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea), and Nina Paley (Sits Sings... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Bryant Knows About Mary, Sorta: More on Color and Consciousness
The Bryant I have in mind is, of course, Levi Bryant, who has come in for severe criticism on this blog. And Mary, of course, is the fictional Mary invented by... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Hyperactivity for Real?
The opening paragraphs of an article in The New York Times:Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Slavery and Capitalism in 19th Century America
Walter Johnson, in The New York Times:Every year, British merchant banks advanced millions of pounds to American planters in anticipation of the sale of the... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Syhchronizing Chimps?
I my thinking about music I have emphasized the simple fact that it involves close synchronization with others. As such synchrony seems neurally simple–fireflie... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Musician's Journal: The Magic of the Bell
This experience has had a profound effect on how I think about music. I used a reworked version to open the second chapter of Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Many Genes Are Completely New Inventions and Not Just Modified Copies of Old...
Summary (from Phys.Org):It is easier to copy something than to develop something new - a principle that was long believed to also apply to the evolution of... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
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