What computer scientists and neuroscientists are after is a universal theory of intelligence—a set of principles that holds true both in tissue and in silicon. What they have instead is a muddle of details. Eleven years and $1.3 billion after Henry Markram proposed his simulated brain, it has contributed no fundamental insights to the study of intelligence. – Wired
Tag: 05.19.20
How Leadership Is Failing Universities
How does a university with a $6-billion endowment and $10 billion in assets suddenly find itself in a solvency crisis? How is one of the country’s top research universities reduced, just a month after moving classes online, to freezing its employees’ retirement accounts? – Chronicle of Higher Education
Rothko Chapel In Houston Finally Has A Post-Renovation Opening Date
The Menil Collection’s octagonal landmark, which houses 14 of Mark Rothko’s black paintings, was closed in early 2019 for work that included reinforcing the walls, installing a digital lighting system and replacing the skylight to protect the canvases from sun exposure. The Chapel’s reopening, originally planned for June, has been postponed to September because of the COVID epidemic; there will be a “soft opening” in July. – Archinect
Why Our Brains Have Difficulty Sorting Fact From Fiction
Philosophers have long concerned themselves with what they call “the paradox of fiction”—why would we find imagined stories emotionally arousing at all? The answer is that most of our mind does not even realize that fiction is fiction, so we react to it almost as though it were real. – Nautilus
Italian Museums And Historic Sites Begin To Reopen
Among the venues receiving the public this week are the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, and the Duomo in Florence — each with its own limits on visitor traffic, based on the building’s size and layout. Among the best bits of news is that the major Raphael exhibition at Rome’s Quirinale, which shut down only three days after opening in March, will resume from June 2 to August 30. – Artnet
New Stimulus Bill Helps Non-Profits (But It’ll Never Pass)
It includes $100 billion for rental assistance, another round of $1,200 direct payments to taxpayers, and sets aside 25 percent of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for nonprofit organizations. However, the bill, known as the HEROES Act, has little chance of passing in the Republican-led senate and President Trump has promised to veto it. – Artnet
25 Theatre Makers On What Theatre Will Look Like Post-Pandemic
Charles McNulty: “While no virus can defeat this art form, the theater will have to change to meet the challenges of a transformed world. While we’re mourning the loss of playgoing among the myriad other losses exacted by this pandemic, I’ve asked artists to imagine the future. How might we rethink basic structures (economic, architectural, aesthetic) in this period of forced reprieve? How might fresh vision transform crisis into opportunity?” – Los Angeles Times
Phil Kennicott: A Painting That Hugely Influenced Me. I’ve Never Known The Artist
“I came to love this image, this mysterious, nameless village by a famous but nameless artist, long before I knew anything about art or criticism. I often wonder whether I would even pause for a second look if I were to discover it today, after having spent decades looking at and reading about paintings of this period.” – Washington Post
Motion Picture Academy Considers Postponing 2021 Oscars
When new temporary rule changes for Oscar eligibility were announced in April because of COVID-19, Academy president David Rubin told Variety it was too soon to know how the 2021 Oscar telecast could change in the wake of the pandemic. – Variety
Hobby Lobby, Christie’s, And The U.S. Government Are All Fighting Over The ‘Gilgamesh Dream Tablet’
The 3,600-year-old, 6×5-inch clay fragment contains the section from the Epic of Gilgamesh in which the hero recounts his dreams to his mother. The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security seized it from the Museum of the Bible last fall after determining that it had been illegally trafficked from Iraq; Hobby Lobby, which purchased the tablet for the Museum from Christie’s in 2014, is suing the auction house for fraud; Christie’s says that a unidentified dealer admitted to authorities after the fact that the tablet’s provenance documents were forged and may launch a suit of its own. – The New York Times