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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Control Theory, Prompt Engineering, and GPT [stories]
As a student of the work of William Powers I have long standing interest in control theory. It’s central to my conception of how the mind works. Read more
Posted on 24 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From mid-April [tulips]
Posted on 24 June 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Are Book Clubs on the Rise?
This is what got me started: Blair Sobol, No Holds Barred: Booked and Hooked on Families, New York Social Diary, June 21, 2024. The other side of the book... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neil deGrasse Tyson Has an Interesting Thought Experiment About Probability &...
Over the years I've watched a good number of YouTube clips in which Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about this that and the other. I've developed a great deal of... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Greatest Night in Pop [Media Notes 132]
The Greatest Night in Pop (2024) is a documentary about making “We Are the World” in 1985. Harry Belafonte initiated the project in December of 1984 and it was... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evaluating the World Model Implicit in a Generative Model
Keyon Vafa, Justin Y. Chen, Jon Kleinberg, Sendhil Mullainathan, Ashesh Rambachan, Evaluating the World Model Implicit in a Generative Model, arXiv:2406.03689v1. Read more
Posted on 23 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What LLMs Can and Can't Do
He also builds his own ideas, which feature minor original inventions. Like this "jeep" which has a spare tire on the back -- not something he saw in any... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Another Diebenkorn Photo, My First
Almost two weeks ago I posted a photo that I’d entitled “Diebenkorn on the table-top.” It was shot looking through two screen-covered windows taken from a camer... Read more
Posted on 22 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Scaling the Size of LLMs Yields Sharply Diminishing Persuasive Returns
We find that: ➡️ current frontier models (GPT-4, Claude-3) are barely more persuasive than models smaller in size by an order of magnitude or more... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Improvisation and Ives || Fascinating Discussion! [American Music]
From the YouTube page: The second installment of the Society's popular series of panels about Charles Ives, All the Way Around and Back! Read more
Posted on 21 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Chicago, Summer 2004
I bought my first camera, a Canon Powershot A75, to take photos of Chicago's Millennium Park, which had opened in the summer of 2004. But I also took photos of... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Oppenheimer [Media Notes 131]
I didn’t see Oppenheimer when it was in theaters, but I’ve just watched it on Amazon. Was it a tad long, at 180 minutes? Possibly. Read more
Posted on 21 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Negation Via "not" in the Brain and Behavior
Two related articles about negation, courtesy of Victor Mair at Language Log: Coopmans CW, Mai A, Martin AE (2024) “Not” in the brain and behavior. PLoS Biol... Read more
Posted on 20 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Flowers and the Street [alliums, Lilacs, Irises]
Posted on 20 June 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How an Infant Investigates a Banana [left and Right]
The infant’s mother has cut a banana in half, and then sliced one of the halves lengthwise. She then places the two slices flat-side down on the tray in front o... Read more
Posted on 20 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Language is Primarily for Communication, Not Thinking
Fedorenko, E., Piantadosi, S.T. Gibson, E.A.F. Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought. Nature 630, 575–586 (2024).... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wiser Than Me [Media Notes 130]
A bit over a week ago I posted the conversation Julia Louis-Dryfus had with Carol Burnett (91). Now I’m posting her conversation with Jane Fonda (86): On the... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Spang!
Posted on 19 June 2024
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Lives of Literary Characters [digital Humanities #DH]
Come contribute one of the final annotations to our Citizen Science project on "The Lives of Literary Characters." Over 80,000 annotations to date on character... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Social Bonding in the Brain
Here's a news article summarizing the article: Brain’s Social Bonding Mechanism Unveiled. The original research: Jun Kunimatsu, Hidetoshi Amita, and Okihide... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
