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Piero Scaruffi

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Piero Scaruffi
Scaruffi in 2016
Born (1955-04-26) April 26, 1955 (age 69)
Trivero, Biella, Italy
Nationality
Alma materUniversity of Turin
Years active1983–present
Known for
Websitewww.scaruffi.com

Piero Scaruffi (born 26 April 1955) is an Italian-American freelance software consultant, university lecturer[1], and writer who maintains a website on which his reviews of music, film, and art are published.[1] He has created his own publishing society called Omnipublishing[2] that exclusively releases his books about music and science.[3][4][5]

Since 1983, Scaruffi has resided in Silicon Valley, California.

Scaruffi's website, which covers a wide range of topics, was the subject of a 2006 article by Dan Morrell in The New York Times.[1]

Biography

Early life and education

Scaruffi was born on 26 April 1955 in Trivero, a comune in the Province of Biella of Italy. He graduated from the University of Turin in 1982 with a degree in Mathematics.[1]

Career

For a number of years he worked for Olivetti on artificial intelligence.[6] He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University and Stanford University (conducting research on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science), lectured on "The Nature of Mind" and "History of Knowledge" (most recently at U.C. Berkeley), and published on artificial intelligence and cognitive science, including Thinking About Thought (2003) and The Nature of Consciousness (2006).

His work aims to bridge artificial intelligence, mathematics, science and art. As a software consultant, he worked on Internet applications, Artificial Intelligence and Object-Oriented design in Silicon Valley. He is an Italian naturalized American. He also writes about music. He has self-published books on Omniware, a publishing company of which he is also the president and founder.[2] Omniware has so far exclusively released books by Scaruffi.[3][4][5] He published books about the history of rock music, jazz, avant garde music and modern popular music. One of them, A History of Rock Music, 1951–2000, self-published on iUniverse in 2003, spans 50 years of the genre;[7] Scaruffi estimated that it had sold 1,500 copies by 2006.[1] His writings on music are hosted online on his own website, scaruffi.com, and include a history of jazz and a history of modern classical music. The website, especially its music section, was the subject of an article in The New York Times by Dan Morrell on October 15, 2006.[1] Morrell noted the "staggering" volume of Scaruffi's work, given that the site is "a one-man operation".[1] From 2000 to 2003 he was a member of the Governing Board of Directors of the journal Leonardo.[8] The most widely known entry on Scaruffi's website is his career-spanning essay on the Beatles, effectively a polemic against the critical and popular consensus regarding the band's influence on modern music. The piece's opening paragraph has become a popular copypasta on image boards like 4chan.[9]

Scaruffi chaired, among others, the Big Bang conference of June 2008 at UC-Berkeley.[10] He has compiled an extensive "Annotated Bibliography of Mind-Related" Topics", as well. He has been running the Leonardo Art Science Evenings (LASERS) at the University of San Francisco and Stanford University since 2008.[6] He also runs the interdisciplinary quarterly events SMMMASH at Stanford University. Scaruffi is involved in organising and moderating events for Stanford Continuing Studies.[11]

Worldview

Scaruffi's atheism is apparent from his belief that "Religion is the ultimate evil, because it is founded on a lie (God exists)".[12]

Bibliography

Books on music

  • Le origini gli anni d'oro: 1954-1966. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1989. ISBN 978-8-88-585938-8. (Volume 1 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • Underground & progressive: 1967-1973. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1989. ISBN 978-8-88-585939-5. (Volume 2 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • Dal glam al punk: 1974-1980. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1990. ISBN 978-8-88-585997-5. (Volume 3 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • Anni '80 e oltre: 1981-1990. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1990. ISBN 978-8-88-585995-1. (Volume 4 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • Guida all'avanguardia e alla New Age. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1991. ISBN 978-8-88-585967-8.
  • Il nuovo rock americano degli anni '90. Milan: Arcana Editrice. 1994. ISBN 978-8-87-966055-6. (Volume 5 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • Nuovi poeti rock americano. Padua: Arcana Editrice. 1994. ISBN 978-8-87-966030-3.
  • Enciclopedia della musica New Age: elettronica, ambientale, pan-etnica. Padua: Arcana Editrice. 1996. ISBN 978-8-87-966073-0.
  • Europa, Canada, Oceania e Giappone: gli anni '90. Padua: Arcana Editrice. 1997. ISBN 978-8-87-966076-1. (Volume 6 of Arcana's Storia del Rock series)
  • A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000. New York: iUniverse. 2003. ISBN 0-595-29565-7.
  • A History of Popular Music before Rock Music. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2007. ISBN 978-0-97-655312-0.
  • A History of Jazz Music: 1900-2000. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2007. ISBN 978-0-97-655313-7.
  • A History of Rock and Dance Music. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2009. ISBN 978-0-97-655315-1. (Volume 1: 1951-1989)
  • A History of Rock and Dance Music. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2009. ISBN 978-0-97-655316-8. (Volume 2: 1990-2008)

Books on cognitive science and artificial intelligence

  • L'Intelligenza artificiale: una guida per il programmatore. Padua: Franco Muzzio. 1987. ISBN 978-8-87-021422-2. (Volume 9 of Muzzio's Intelligenza Artificiale e Robotica series)
  • La mente artificiale: realtà e prospettive della "macchina pensante". Milan: Angeli. 1991. ISBN 978-8-82-046805-7. (Volume 10 of Angeli's Prometheus series)
  • La fabbrica del pensiero: nuove frontiere dell'intelligenza artificiale. Turn: La Stampa. 1996. ISBN 978-8-87-783080-7.
  • Thinking about Thought: A Primer on the New Science of Mind. New York: Writers Club Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-59-526420-9.
  • The Nature of Consciousness: The Structure of Life and the Meaning of Matter. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2006. ISBN 978-0-97-655311-3.
  • Intelligence Is Not Artificial. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2013. ISBN 978-0-97-655319-9.
  • Thinking about Thought. Seattle: Createspace. 2015. ISBN 978-1503361065.
  • Intelligence Is Not Artificial - Expanded edition. Seattle: Createspace. 2018. ISBN 978-1984101457.
  • Humankind 2.0. Beijing: Citic. 2017. ISBN 978-7-5086-7176-5.

Other books

  • Il terzo secolo: almanacco della società americana alla fine del millenio. Milan: Feltrinelli. 1996. ISBN 978-8-80-781367-2. (Volume 1367 of Feltrinelli's Universale economico series)
  • Synthesis: Essays, Photographs, Poems. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2009. ISBN 978-0-97-655317-5.
  • A History of Silicon Valley: The Largest Creation of Wealth in the History of the Planet. Palo Alto: Omniware. 2011. ISBN 978-0-97-655318-2. (co-authored with Arun Rao)
  • A Brief History of Knowledge: From 3000 BC to the 21st Century. CreateSpace. 2014. ISBN 978-1-50-052665-8.
  • A History of Silicon Valley: Third Edition. Seattle: Createspace. 2016. ISBN 978-1508758730.
  • 100 Years of Silicon Valley. Beijing: PT. 2017. ISBN 978-7-115-42996-4.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Morrell, Dan (15 October 2006). "The Greatest Web Site of All Time". New York Times. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  2. ^ a b Omniware Archived 2014-02-01 at the Wayback Machine. Scaruffi.com. retrieved 18-1-2014
  3. ^ a b "Onmiware books on Book-info". Book-info.com. Retrieved 20-1-14
  4. ^ a b "Onmiware books on Tower.com" Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine. Tower.com. Retrieved 20-1-14
  5. ^ a b "Onmiware books on Openlibrary". Openlibrary. Retrieved 20-1-14
  6. ^ a b Stuart, By S. C.; June 19, 2018 1:30PM EST; June 19, 2018. "Why Everything Elon Musk Fears About AI Is Wrong". PCMAG. Retrieved 2019-01-18. {{cite web}}: |first3= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Jablon, Robert (19 January 2012). "Johnny Otis of 'Willie and the Hand Jive' dies". Boston.com. Boston Globe Electronic Publishing Inc. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  8. ^ page of Leonardo Journal announcing new Governing Board Members (December 2000) [1]
  9. ^ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piero-scaruffi-beatles-commentary
  10. ^ Leonardo/ISAST: Leonardo Day at Berkeley Big Bang 2008
  11. ^ Watkins, Marshall (20 January 2012). "Bay Area thinkers ponder 'life'". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  12. ^ https://www.scaruffi.com/phi/scaruffi.html
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