Podcasts by Sean Carrolls Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
Further podcasts by Sean Carroll | Wondery
Podcast on the topic Physik
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63 | Solo -- Finding Gravity Within Quantum Mechanics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A solo episode explaining the idea that we shouldn't be trying to quantize gravity, we should be trying to find gravity within quantum mechanics.
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62 | Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Societies and People from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with psychologist Michele Gelfand about the differences between tight and loose societies, and how to live within them.
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61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Quassim Cassam about intellectual vices -- personal attributes that needlessly prevent us from being correct.
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60 | Lynne Kelly on Memory Palaces, Ancient and Modern from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with memory expert Lynne Kelly about the use of memory palaces, both today and in prehistoric societies.
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59 | Adam Becker on the Curious History of Quantum Mechanics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Adam Becker about how and why physicists in the 20th century abandoned the idea of trying to understand quantum mechanics.
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58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Seth MacFarlane about his episodic science fiction show, The Orville, and its use of allegory to explore real-world situations.
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57 | Astra Taylor on the Promise and Challenge of Democracy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A conversation with filmmaker, author, and activist Astra Taylor, on what democracy is and why it matters.
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56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A conversation with synthetic biologist Kate Adamala on constructing artificial cells, and what that tells us about life on Earth and elsewhere.
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55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I am interviewed by Rob Reid about quantum mechanics and the Many-Worlds formulation.
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54 | Indre Viskontas on Music and the Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It doesn’t mean much to say music affects your brain — everything that happens to you affects your brain. But music affects your brain in certain specific ways, from changing our mood to helping us...
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53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we might appeal to the instructions we get from God, but a modern naturalist has to look elsewhere....
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52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers and our phones, watch other people compete in games, and occasionally break out the cards or the...
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51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, whether there was a period of inflation, the evolution of structure, and so on. But there ar...
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50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have an inner voice that keeps offering opinions about how we should behave ourselves: our conscience. ...
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49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s easy to be cynical about humanity’s present state and future prospects. But we have made it this far, and in some ways we’re doing better than we used to be. Today’s guest, Nicholas Christakis...
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48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you’re bad, we are taught, you go to Hell. Who in the world came up with that idea? Some will answer God, but for the purpose of today’s podcast discussion we’ll put that possibility aside and l...
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47 | Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in General from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Most people in the modern world — and the vast majority of Mindscape listeners, I would imagine — agree that humans are part of the animal kingdom, and that all living animals evolved from a common...
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46 | Kate Darling on Our Connections with Robots from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Most of us have no trouble telling the difference between a robot and a living, feeling organism. Nevertheless, our brains often treat robots as if they were alive. We give them names, imagine that...
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45 | Leonard Susskind on Quantum Information, Quantum Gravity, and Holography from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For decades now physicists have been struggling to reconcile two great ideas from a century ago: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We don’t yet know the final answer, but the journey has ta...
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44 | Antonio Damasio on Feelings, Thoughts, and the Evolution of Humanity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we talk about the mind, we are constantly talking about consciousness and cognition. Antonio Damasio wants us to talk about our feelings. But it’s not in an effort to be more touchy-feely; D...
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43 | Matthew Luczy on the Pleasures of Wine from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Some people never drink wine; for others, it’s an indispensable part of an enjoyable meal. Whatever your personal feelings might be, wine seems to exhibit a degree of complexity and nuance that can...
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42 | Natalya Bailey on Navigating Earth Orbit and Beyond from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The space age officially began in 1957 with the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite. But recent years have seen the beginning of a boom in the number of objects orbiting Earth, as satellite tracking ...
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41 | Steven Strogatz on Synchronization, Networks, and the Emergence of Complex Behavior from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the most important insights in the history of science is the fact that complex behavior can arise from the undirected movements of small, simple systems. Despite the fact that we know this, ...
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40 | Adrienne Mayor on Gods and Robots in Ancient Mythology from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The modern world is full of technology, and also with anxiety about technology. We worry about robot uprisings and artificial intelligence taking over, and we contemplate what it would mean for a c...
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39 | Malcolm MacIver on Sensing, Consciousness, and Imagination from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Consciousness has many aspects, from experience to wakefulness to self-awareness. One aspect is imagination: our minds can conjure up multiple hypothetical futures to help us decide which choices w...
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38 | Alan Lightman on Transcendence, Science, and a Naturalist’s Sense of Meaning from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Let’s say, for sake of argument, that you don’t believe in God or the supernatural. Is there still a place for talking about transcendence, the sacred, and meaning in life? Some of the above, but n...
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37 | Edward Watts on the End of the Roman Republic and Lessons for Democracy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When many of us think “Ancient Rome,” we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was preceded by the Roman Republic, which flourished for a full five centuries. Why, after such a long a...
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36 | David Albert on Quantum Measurement and the Problems with Many-Worlds from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Quantum mechanics is our best theory of how reality works at a fundamental level, yet physicists still can’t agree on what the theory actually says. At the heart of the puzzle is the “measurement p...
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35 | Jessica Yellin on The Changing Ways We Get Our News from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everything we think about the world outside our immediate senses is shaped by information brought to us by other sources. In the case of what’s currently happening to the human race, we call that i...
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34 | Paul Bloom on Empathy, Rationality, Morality, and Cruelty from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Within every person’s mind there is on ongoing battle between reason and emotion. It’s not always a battle, of course; very often the two can work together. But at other times, our emotions push us...
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33 | James Ladyman on Reality, Metaphysics, and Complexity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Reality is a tricky thing. Is love real? What about the number 5? This is clearly a job for a philosopher, and James Ladyman is one of the world’s acknowledged experts. He and his collaborators hav...
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32 | Naomi Oreskes on Climate Change and the Distortion of Scientific Facts from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Our climate is in the midst of dramatic changes, driven largely by human activity, with potentially enormous consequences for humanity and other species. That’s why science tells us, anyway. But th...
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31 | Brian Greene on the Multiverse, Inflation, and the String Theory Landscape from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
String theory was originally proposed as a relatively modest attempt to explain some features of strongly-interacting particles, but before too long developed into an ambitious attempt to unite all...
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30 | Derek Leben on Ethics for Robots and Artificial Intelligences from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we’re beginning to see the first glimmers of some kind of artificial intelligence: computer programs have become...
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29 | Raychelle Burks on the Chemistry of Murder from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sometimes science is asking esoteric questions about the fundamental nature of reality. Other times, it just wants to solve a murder. Today’s guest, Raychelle Burks, is an analytical chemist at St....
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28 | Roger Penrose on Spacetime, Consciousness, and the Universe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sir Roger Penrose has had a remarkable life. He has contributed an enormous amount to our understanding of general relativity, perhaps more than anyone since Einstein himself -- Penrose diagrams, s...
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Holiday Message 2018 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There won't be any regular episodes of Mindscape this week or next, as we take a holiday break. Regular service will resume on Monday January 7, 2019. In the meantime, here is a special Holiday Mes...
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27 | Janna Levin on Black Holes, Chaos, and the Narrative of Science from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It's a big universe out there, full of an astonishing variety of questions and puzzles. Today's guest, Janna Levin, is a physicist who has delved into some of the trippiest aspects of cosmology and...
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26 | Ge Wang on Artful Design, Computers, and Music from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everywhere around us are things that serve functions. We live in houses, sit on chairs, drive in cars. But these things don't only serve functions, they also come in particular forms, which may be ...
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25 | David Chalmers on Consciousness, the Hard Problem, and Living in a Simulation from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The "Easy Problems" of consciousness have to do with how the brain takes in information, thinks about it, and turns it into action. The "Hard Problem," on the other hand, is the task of explaining ...
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24 | Kip Thorne on Gravitational Waves, Time Travel, and Interstellar from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I remember vividly hosting a colloquium speaker, about fifteen years ago, who talked about the LIGO gravitational-wave observatory, which had just started taking data. Comparing where they were to ...
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23 | Lisa Aziz-Zadeh on Embodied Cognition, Mirror Neurons, and Empathy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brains are important things; they're where thinking happens. Or are they? The theory of "embodied cognition" posits that it's better to think of thinking as something that takes place in the body a...
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22 | Joe Walston on Conservation, Urbanization, and the Way We Live on Earth from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There's no question that human activity is causing enormous changes on our planet's environment, from deforestation to mass extinction to climate change. But perhaps there is a tiny cause for optim...
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21 | Alex Rosenberg on Naturalism, History, and Theory of Mind from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We humans love to tell ourselves stories about why things happened the way they did; if the stories are sufficiently serious, we label this activity "history." Part of getting history right is simp...
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130 | Frank Wilczek on the Present and Future of Fundamental Physics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek about what fundamental physics is, and where it's likely to go in the future.
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20 | Scott Derrickson on Cinema, Blockbusters, Horror, and Mystery from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Special Halloween edition? Scott Derrickson is a film-lover first and a director second, but he's been quite successful at the latter -- you may know him as the director and co-writer of Marvel's D...
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129 | Solo: Democracy in America from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I reflect on what recent events imply for the bigger questions of democracy and society.
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19 | Tyler Cowen on Maximizing Growth and Thinking for the Future from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Economics, like other sciences (social and otherwise), is about what the world does; but it's natural for economists to occasionally wander out into the question of what we should do as we live in ...
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128 | Joseph Henrich on the Weirdness of the West from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk to anthropologist Joseph Henrich about the origin of WEIRD societies -- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.
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18 | Clifford Johnson on What's So Great About Superstring Theory from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
String theory is a speculative and highly technical proposal for uniting the known forces of nature, including gravity, under a single quantum-mechanical framework. This doesn't seem like a recipe ...
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17 | Annalee Newitz on Science, Fiction, Economics, and Neurosis from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The job of science fiction isn't to predict the future; it's to tell interesting stories in an imaginative setting, exploring the implications of different ways the world could be different from ou...
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16 | Coleen Murphy on Aging, Biology, and the Future from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Aging -- everybody does it, very few people actually do something about it. Coleen Murphy is an exception. In her laboratory at Princeton, she and her team study aging in the famous C. Elegans roun...
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15 | David Poeppel on Thought, Language, and How to Understand the Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Language comes naturally to us, but is also deeply mysterious. On the one hand, it manifests as a collection of sounds or marks on paper. On the other hand, it also conveys meaning – words and sent...
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14 | Alta Charo on Bioethics and the Law from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
To paraphrase Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, scientists tend to focus on whether they can do something, not whether they should. Questions of what we should do tend to wander away from the pristine ...
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13 | Neha Narula on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of the Internet from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For something of such obvious importance, money is kind of mysterious. It can, as Homer Simpson once memorably noted, be exchanged for goods and services. But who decides exactly how many goods/ser...
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12 | Wynton Marsalis on Jazz, Time, and America from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jazz occupies a special place in the American cultural landscape. It's played in elegant concert halls and run-down bars, and can feature esoteric harmonic experimentation or good old-fashioned foo...
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11 | Mike Brown on Killing Pluto and Replacing It with Planet 9 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Few events in recent astronomical history have had the worldwide emotional resonance as the 2006 announcement that Pluto was no longer considered a planet, at least as far as the International Astr...
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10 | Megan Rosenbloom on the Death Positive Movement from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We're all going to die. But while we are alive, it's up to us how we understand and deal with that fact. In the United States especially, there is a tendency to not face up to the reality of death,...
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9 | Solo -- Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It's fun to be in the exciting, chaotic, youthful days of the podcast, when anything goes and experimentation is the order of the day. So today's show is something different: a solo effort, featuri...
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8 | Carl Zimmer on Heredity, DNA, and Editing Genes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Our understanding of heredity and genetics is improving at blinding speed. It was only in the year 2000 that scientists obtained the first rough map of the human genome: 3 billion base pairs of DNA...
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7 | Yascha Mounk on Threats to Liberal Democracy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Both words in the phrase "liberal democracy" carry meaning, and both concepts are under attack around the world. "Democracy" means that they people rule, while "liberal" (in this sense) means that...
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6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Poker, like life, is a game of incomplete information. To do well in such a game, we have to think in terms of probabilities, unpredictable strategies, and Bayesian inference. These are ideas that ...
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5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you scale up an animal to twice its height, keeping everything else proportionate, its volume and weight become eight times as much. Such a scaling relation was used by J.B.S. Haldane in his fam...
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4 | Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simply proclaim God's existence: they have provided communities, promoted the arts, handed down moral ...
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3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The human mind loves nothing more than to build mental boxes -- categories -- and put things into them, then refuse to accept it when something doesn't fit. Nowhere is this more clear than in the i...
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2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the two great triumphs of twentieth-century theoretical physics. Unfortunately, they don't play well together -- despite years of effort, we currently l...
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Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast! from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called Mindscape, and will mostly consist of me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. (Occas...
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118 | Adam Riess on the Expansion of the Universe and a Crisis in Cosmology from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with astronomer Adam Riess about a puzzling discrepancy between measurements of the early universe and our local surroundings.
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127 | Holiday Message 2020 | The Screwy Universe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bonus episode in which I talk about the possibility that photons might rotate as they travel through the universe, and what that means for dark energy.
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127 | Erich Jarvis on Language, Birds, and People from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with neurobiologist Erich Jarvis about the rare ability in species to learn how to make new sounds.
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126 | AMA | December 2020 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
December 2020 Ask Me Anything episode.
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126 | David Stasavage on the Origin and History of Democracy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with political scientist David Stasavage about where democracy came from, with implications for where it's going.
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125 | David Haig on the Evolution of Meaning from Darwin to Derrida from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with evolutionary biologist David Haig about how purposes and meanings can arise in the natural world.
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124 | Solo: How Time Travel Could and Should Work from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A solo episode on the physics and fiction of time travel.
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123 | Lisa Feldman Barrett on Emotions, Actions, and the Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett about the origin and use of emotions in the brain.
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122 | David Eagleman on Tapping Into the Livewired Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with neuroscientist David Eagleman about our pliable brains, and how to communicate with them in unusual ways.
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121 | Cornel West on What Democracy Is and Should Be from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk to philosopher and activist Cornel West about the nature and current status of democracy.
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Wondery Presents: Dr. Death Season 2 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If someone you love is diagnosed with cancer you want them to get the best treatment from the best doctors. In 2013, patients in Michigan thought Farid Fata was that doctor. Between his prestigious...
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120 | Jeremy England on Biology, Thermodynamics, and the Bible from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with biophysicist Jeremy England about the statistical mechanics of life, and what the Hebrew Bible has to say about it.
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119 | Musa al-Gharbi on the Value of Intellectual Diversity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with sociologist Musa al-Gharbi about the importance of intellectual diversity in academia and elsewhere.
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116 | Teresa Bejan on Free Speech, Civility, and Toleration from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with political theorist Teresa Bejan about the history of free speech and what it teaches us about contemporary concerns.
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115 | Netta Engelhardt on Black Hole Information, Wormholes, and Quantum Gravity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with physicist Netta Engelhardt about recent progress in understanding how information is preserved when black holes evaporate.
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114 | Angela Chen on Asexuality in a Sex-Preoccupied World from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with author Angela Chen about asexuality and what it teaches us about humanity.
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113 | Cailin O'Connor on Game Theory, Evolution, and the Origins of Unfairness from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Cailin O'Connor about using game theory to analyze biological evolution as well as the origins of discrimination in human behavior.
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112 | Fyodor Urnov on Gene Editing, CRISPR, and Human Engineering from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with biologist Fyodor Urnov about the present and future prospects for gene editing in humans.
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111 | Nick Bostrom on Anthropic Selection and Living in a Simulation from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Nick Bostrom about how to judge scenarios of very large universes, including the possibility that we live in a computer simulation.
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110 | Neil Johnson on Complexity, Conflict, and Infodemiology from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with physicist Neil Johnson about complex systems, information networks, and radicalization.
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109 | Jason Torchinsky on Our Self-Driving Future from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with writer, artist, and car enthusiast Jason Torchinsky about what life will be like with self-driving cars.
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108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with biologist Carl Bergstrom about the essence of bullshit: what it is, why it's so prevalent, and how to combat it.
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107 | Russ Shafer-Landau on the Reality of Morality from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Russ Shafer-Landau, who defends realism about moral truths.
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106 | Stuart Bartlett on What "Life" Means from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with astrobiologist Stuart Bartlett about how to best define life.
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105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher/neuroscientist Ann-Sophie Barwich about how our sense of smell affects how we perceive the world.
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104 | David Rosen and Scott Miles on the Neuroscience of Music and Creativity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with neuroscientist/musicians David Rosen and Scott Miles about how creativity works in the brain.
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103 | J. Kenji López-Alt on Cooking As and With Science from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with chef and writer Kenji López-Alt about the science of cooking.
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102 | Maria Konnikova on Poker, Psychology, and Reason from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with writer and poker player Maria Konnikova about how poker illuminates the challenges of thinking rationally.
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101 | David Baltimore on the Mysteries of Viruses from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with virologist and Nobel Laureate David Baltimore about what viruses are and how they work.
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100 | Solo | Life and Its Meaning from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I muse about what life is and what meaning it can have.
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99 | Scott Aaronson on Complexity, Computation, and Quantum Gravity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Scott Aaronson about computational complexity, quantum computers, and what they might have to do with the nature of spacetime.
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98 | Olga Khazan on Living and Flourishing While Being Weird from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with writer Olga Khazan about her exploration of what it means to be weird.
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97 | John Danaher on Our Coming Automated Utopia from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with lawyer/philosopher John Danaher on why work is becoming outmoded, and why that's a good thing.
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96 | Lina Necib on What and Where the Dark Matter Is from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with physicist Lina Necib about the nature and distribution of dark matter in the universe.
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95 | Liam Kofi Bright on Knowledge, Truth, and Science from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Liam Kofi Bright about the nature of truth, how science gets there, and how it could do so more effectively.
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94 | Stuart Russell on Making Artificial Intelligence Compatible with Humans from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Artificial Intelligence expert Stuart Russell on how we can best ensure that AI has motivations that are compatible with our own.
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93 | Rae Wynn-Grant on Bears, Humans, and Other Predators from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant about the lives of apex predators, and how they can live with humans.
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92 | Kevin Hand on Life Elsewhere in the Solar System from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with astrobiologist and planetary scientist Kevin Hand about the search for life elsewhere in our Solar System.
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91 | Scott Barry Kaufman on the Psychology of Transcendence from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I speak with psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman about his theory of transcendence, an updating of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
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90 | David Kaiser on Science, Money, and Power from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with physicist and historian David Kaiser about the confluence of physics, politics, and funding in the twentieth century.
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89 | Lera Boroditsky on Language, Thought, Space, and Time from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with cognitive scientist and psychologist Lera Boroditsky about how language shapes our thought, including how we conceive of space and time.
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Tara Smith on Coronavirus, Pandemics, and What We Can Do from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with epidemiologist Tara Smith about the current coronavirus pandemic.
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88 | Neil Shubin on Evolution, Genes, and Dramatic Transitions from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with paleontologist Neil Shubin about how evolution achieves dramatic transitions, from walking on land to flying through the air.
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87 | Karl Friston on Brains, Predictions, and Free Energy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I speak with neuroscientist Karl Friston about the "free energy principle," an information-based unified theory of how the brain works.
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86 | Martin Rees on Threats to Humanity, Prospects for Posthumanity, and Life in the Universe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with astrophysicist Lord Martin Rees about extreme risks to humanity and the Earth, and also about prospects for life elsewhere in the universe.
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85 | L.A. Paul on Transformative Experiences and Your Future Selves from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher L.A. Paul about how to rationally judge how you will feel when you make a choice that changes your life in a profound way.
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84 | Suresh Naidu on Capitalism, Monopsony, and Inequality from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with economist Suresh Naidu about capitalism, labor markets, the minimum wage, inequality, and basically all of economics.
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83 | Kwame Anthony Appiah on Identity, Stories, and Cosmopolitanism from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah about identity and cosmopolitanism.
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82 | Robin Carhart-Harris on Psychedelics and the Brain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris about how psychedelics act on the brain, and how we might use them for therapy and self-growth.
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81 | Ezra Klein on Politics, Polarization, and Identity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with Ezra Klein about the forces and choices that have polarized our political identities and discourse.
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80 | Jenann Ismael on Connecting Physics to the World of Experience from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Jenann Ismael about how to think of free will, consciousness, and value in a world governed by the laws of physics.
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79 | Sara Imari Walker on Information and the Origin of Life from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker about what life is, and how information makes it go.
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78 | Daniel Dennett on Minds, Patterns, and the Scientific Image from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Daniel Dennett about the emergence of people and patterns in the natural world.
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Holiday Message 2019: On Publishing Books from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I ramble a bit and talk about the process of writing and publishing a popular book.
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77 | Azra Raza on The Way We Should Fight Cancer from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with oncologist and researcher Azra Raza on why we should devote more effort to finding and curing cancer in its earliest stages.
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76 | Ned Hall on Possible Worlds and the Laws of Nature from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Ned Hall about possible worlds, cause and effect, and whether or not the laws of nature have an independent reality.
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75 | Max Tegmark on Reality, Simulation, and the Multiverse from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with physicist Max Tegmark about the multiverse, mathematics, and artificial intelligence.
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74 | Stephen Greenblatt on Stories, History, and Cultural Poetics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt about what stories tell us about history, and vice-versa.
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73 | Grimes (c) on Music, Creativity, and Digital Personae from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with musician/producer Grimes about creativity, intelligence, and identity in the digital age.
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72 | César Hidalgo on Information in Societies, Economies, and the Universe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk to physicist-turned-economist-turned-data-visualizer César Hidalgo about how information drives complex systems, from living organisms to entire economies.
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71 | Philip Goff on Consciousness Everywhere from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with philosopher Philip Goff about panpsychism, the idea that consciousness or mentality are ubiquitous in the universe.
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70 | Katie Mack on How the Universe Will End from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with cosmologist Katie Mack about the various ways the world might end, from gentle fade-out to dramatic kaboom.
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69 | Cory Doctorow on Technology, Monopoly, and the Future of the Internet from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Like so many technological innovations, the internet is something that burst on the scene and pervaded human life well before we had time to sit down and think through how something like that shoul...
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68 | Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Common Sense from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with computer scientist Melanie Mitchell about artificial intelligence, deep learning, and why computers struggle with common sense.
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67 | Kate Jeffery on Entropy, Complexity, and Evolution from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with neuroscientist Kate Jeffery about the rise and fall of complexity in biology and cosmology.
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66 | Will Wilkinson on Partisan Polarization and the Urban/Rural Divide from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with policy analyst Will Wilkinson about the increasing sorting of liberal voters into urban areas and conservatives into suburban/rural areas.
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65 | Michael Mann on Why Our Climate Is Changing and How We Know from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with climate scientist Michael Mann on how we study the Earth's temperature over time, and how it's changing now.
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64 | Ramez Naam on Renewable Energy and an Optimistic Future from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I talk with technologist and author Ramez Naam about how renewable energy could help us save the environment.
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Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast! from 2018-07-01T17:48
I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called Mindscape, and will mostly consist of me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. (Occas...
Listen
Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast! from 2018-07-01T17:48
I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called Mindscape, and will mostly consist of me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. (Occas...
Listen