Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

I talk with computer scientist Leslie Valiant about learning and educability in computers and people.

Ask Me Anything episode for April 2024.

I talk with physicist Claudia de Rham about cosmologically interesting ways to modify Einstein's theory of general relativity.

I think through some of the ways that technology is changing the world, exploring the possibility of an upcoming singularity marking the shift to a new equilibrium of human existence.

I talk with Sahar Heydari Fard about viewing social change through the lens of complex-systems theory.

Ask Me Anything episode for March 2024.

I talk with physicist Matt Strassler about fundamental physics and the ways that we often talk about it.

I talk with historian Benjamin Breen about Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and their involvement with psychedelics.

I talk with physicist/biologist Chris Adami about how to use information theory to understand biology.

Monthly Ask Me Anything episode.

I talk with sociologist John Skrentny about how the post-graduation careers of STEM majors aren't generally what they were led to expect.

I talk with planetary scientist Sabine Stanley about how we know what's inside planets in the Solar System and elsewhere.

I talk with physicist Chris Quigg about how the Standard Model of particle physics came to be.

I talk with philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel about how and why the universe seems irreducibly weird to us.

I talk with nuclear astrophysicist Sanjana Curtis about the origin of the chemical elements.

Talking about liquid brains and other novel architectures.

A holiday reflection on the physics and humanity of living forever.

I talk with astrophysicist Adam Frank about what extraterrestrial life might be like.

Ask Me Anything episode for December 2023.

Solo episode on the differences between how large language models think and how we do.

I talk with menswear writer Derek Guy about clothes and how we choose to wear them.

I discuss the prospects for human settlements in space with Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.

Ask Me Anything episode for November 2023.

I talk with psychologist Michael Muthukrishna about tentative steps toward developing a theory of all human societies.

I talk with William Egginton about how Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges considered the intrinsic limitations on how we can apprehend reality.

I talk with David Deutsch about how to explain everything.

Ask Me Anything episode for October 2023.

I talk with Hannah Ritchie about working to save the environment without minimizing the threats to it.

I talk with biologist Rosemary Braun about how to think about the collective behavior that defines biological organisms.

I talk with political scientist Brendan Nyhan about information, misinformation, and how to deal with them both.

I talk with philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith about what we can learn about minds by thinking about cephalopods.

Ask Me Anything episode for September 2023.

I talk with computer scientist Yejin Choi about how AI models can be simultaneously very smart and kind of stupid.

I talk with economist Samuel Bowles about human nature and the origin of inequality.

I talk with Mayanist David Stuart about Maya civilization, how they kept time, and what they thought about science.

Ask Me Anything episode for August 2023.

I talk about why there's not really a crisis in physics, although there definitely are ways the field could improve.

I talk with philosopher Katie Elliott about the metaphysics of laws, chances, and time travel.

I talk with astrophysicist Joseph Silk about the prospects and justifications for building telescopes on the Moon.

I talk with David Krakauer about the current state of research in complex systems.

Ask Me Anything episode for July 2023.

I talk to philosopher Tim Maudlin about the foundations of quantum mechanics, especially Bohmian (hidden variable) approaches.

I talk with cosmologist Andrew Pontzen about the state of modern cosmology and how we use simulations to understand the universe.

I talk with psychologist Brian Lowery about the social construction of our notion of self.

Ask Me Anything episode for June 2023.

I talk with Scott Shapiro about why computer hacking can never be completely stopped, and how humans are generally the weakest link.

I talk with sociologist Brook Harrington about how offshore wealth management works, and how it's useful to think of it as a complex system.

I talk with Thomas Hertog, physicist and collaborator with Stephen Hawking, about progress in quantum cosmology.

Ask Me Anything episode for May 2023.

I talk with cognitive philosopher Andy Clark about the extended mind and how it functions as a prediction machine.

I talk with cellular biologist Tobias Warnecke about cells and their evolution, especially the role of histones in different kinds of cells.

I talk with cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier about reason: how it developed, how it is used, and how we can be better at it.

I talk with economist Amy Finkelstein about how asymmetric information affects markets for insurance and other goods.

Ask Me Anything episode for April 2023.

I talk with Sarah Bakewell about the history of humanism, from the Renaissance to today.

I talk with philosopher and cognitive scientist Raphaël Millière about the capacities and limitations of modern AI systems.

I talk with law professor and bioethicist Nita Farahany about the challenges of mind-reading neurotechnologies.

Ask Me Anything episode for March 2023.

I talk with philosopher and author Skye Cleary about Simone de Beauvoir and how to shape an authentic life.

I talk with psychologist Molly Crockett about the origin and nature of our moral thoughts and intuitions.

I talk with urbanist Johanna Hoffman about using speculative-fiction techniques to think about cities of the future.

Monthly Ask Me Anything episode for February 2023.

I talk with psychologist Michael Tomasello about how humans developed cognition and agency to better be social.

I talk with Edward Tufte about data visualization and how it interacts with larger questions of design and truth.

I talk with psychologist Tania Lombrozo about the nature of explanations and how we seek them.

I talk with physicist Andrew Strominger about the state of quantum gravity and how to connect it to the real world.

I talk with psychologist Adam Bulley about the origin and importance of our ability to imagine ourselves at different times.

Traditional end-of-year holiday message.

I talk with philosopher Lara Buchak about how to incorporate considerations of risk into rational decision-making.

Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape for December 2022.

I talk with neuroscientist Dani Bassett and philosopher Perry Zurn about how curiosity works and what forms it takes.

I talk with physicist Raphael Bousso about black holes, holography, and what we know about quantum spacetime.

I talk with political scientist Margaret Levi about trust in government and how we can make our political systems more responsive to moral concerns.

Ask Me Anything episode for November 2022.

I talk with John Allen Paulos about what math everybody should know, and how to make it more widely known.

I talk with philosopher Barry Loewer about how statistical mechanics underlies cause and effect, the flow of time, and more.

I talk with theoretical physicist Antonio Padilla about ultra-large numbers and how they compare to the universe.

Ask Me Anything episode for October 2022.

Space needs lawyers! I talk with Timiebi Aganaba, an expert on space law and governance.

I talk with physicist Chiara Mingarelli about how we can use pulsar timing to detect gravitational waves and black holes.

Solo podcast explaining Einstein's Equation of general relativity, to celebrate publication of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe.

I talk with Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, about the art and science of answering wild hypothetical questions.

I talk with economist Brad DeLong about his new economic history of the long 20th century.

Ask Me Anything episode for September 2022.

I talk with musician/producer/educator Rick Beato about music theory and how it affects our appreciation of popular songs.

I talk with philosopher William MacAskill about utilitarianism and longtermism.

Simon Conway Morris argues that there are some myths in the popular understanding of evolution.

Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape for August 2022.

I talk with economist John Quiggin about how the information economy has affected the use of interest rates to influence economic activity.

I talk with astronomer John Johnson about how we can detect planets outside the solar system.

I talk with linguistic anthropologist N.J. Enfield on how language was originally developed for social, rather than descriptive, purposes.

Ask Me Anything episode for July 2022.

I talk with sociologist Andrew Papachristos about using applied network theory to understand patterns of gun violence.

I talk with science writer Ed Yong about the world of animals with very different senses from our own.

Ask Me Anything episode for June 2022.

A solo discussion of issues at the intersection of cosmology and philosophy, especially on making predictions in a multiverse.

I talk with political scientist Elizabeth Cohen on the role of time in government and politics.

I talk with biochemist Nick Lane about the Krebs cycle, which helps distribute energy through our cells, and its connection to the origin of life.

I talk with Catherine Brinkley about the structure and growth of cities, and how humans life in them.