MachineMachine /stream

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RICH AND SEEMINGLY BOUNDLESS as the creative arts seem to be, each is filtered through the narrow biological channels of human cognition. Our sensory world, what we can learn unaided…

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The New Aesthetic is now subject to discussion and critique on a number of forums, blogs, twitter threads, and so forth (for a list, see bibliography on Berry 2012a, but…

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To me it tastes like a desire to locate man’s place in a world that he perceives primarily with the aid of machines. The art of the Greeks has been…

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This is my take on the singularity: we're not going to see a hard take-off, or a slow take-off, or any kind of AI-mediated exponential outburst. What we're going to…

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What's the difference between a Hollywood special-effects blockbuster like "Terminator 2" and a hard-core porn film? Very little, claims novelist, essayist and footnote fetishist David Foster Wallace. 1990s moviegoers who…

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Back in 1981, R.M. Hare, in his book Moral Thinking, featured a distinction that today I still find useful. Hare admitted that the distinction was not original with him, but…

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While mainstream literary figures sometimes praise their fellow writers, rarely do they present themselves publicly as hardcore pop culture fans. Since the publication of his novels Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress…

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We can’t stop talking about Jonathan Lethem’s essay in this month’s Harper’s. If you haven’t read it, you really should. Nothing that follows in this post will be nearly as…

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There's a reason why we find it easier to "get" modern art than avant-garde music, and it's not just about our natural conservatism and love of Mozart... Arts & books…