AMA | October 2024
Mon, 07 Oct 2024
Welcome to the October 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...
291 | Venki Ramakrishnan on the Biology of Death and Aging
Mon, 30 Sep 2024
Aging and death happen to the best of us, but there are increasing efforts to do something about it....
290 | Hahrie Han on Making Multicultural Democracy Work
Mon, 23 Sep 2024
It's a wonder democracy works at all -- a collection of people with potentially different interests ...
289 | Cari Cesarotti on the Next Generation of Particle Experiments
Mon, 16 Sep 2024
As an experimental facility, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva has been extraordinarily su...
288 | Max Richter on the Meaning of Classical Music Today
Mon, 09 Sep 2024
It wasn't that long ago, historically speaking, that you might put on your tuxedo or floor-length ev...
AMA | September 2024
Mon, 02 Sep 2024
Welcome to the September 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...
287 | Jean-Paul Faguet on Institutions and the Legacy of History
Mon, 26 Aug 2024
One common feature of complex systems is sensitive dependence on initial conditions: a small change ...
286 | Blaise Agüera y Arcas on the Emergence of Replication and Computation
Mon, 19 Aug 2024
Understanding how life began on Earth involves questions of chemistry, geology, planetary science, p...
285 | Nate Silver on Prediction, Risk, and Rationality
Mon, 12 Aug 2024
Being rational necessarily involves engagement with probability. Given two possible courses of actio...
AMA | August 2024
Mon, 05 Aug 2024
Welcome to the August 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...
284 | Doris Tsao on How the Brain Turns Vision Into the World
Mon, 29 Jul 2024
The human brain does a pretty amazing job of taking in a huge amount of data from multiple sensory m...
283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power
Mon, 22 Jul 2024
Change is scary. But sometimes it can all work out for the best. There's no guarantee of that, howev...
282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity
Mon, 15 Jul 2024
The philosophy of mathematics would be so much easier if it weren't for infinity. The concept seems ...
Ask Me Anything | July 2024
Mon, 08 Jul 2024
Welcome to the July 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
281 | Samir Okasha on the Philosophy of Agency and Evolution
Mon, 01 Jul 2024
Just like with physics, in biology it is perfectly possible to do most respectable work without thin...
280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence
Mon, 24 Jun 2024
Which is more intelligent, ChatGPT or a 3-year old? Of course this depends on what we mean by "...
279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body
Mon, 17 Jun 2024
For those of us who are not dualists, the mind arises from our physical bodies -- mostly the brain, ...
278 | Kieran Healy on the Technology of Ranking People
Mon, 10 Jun 2024
We claim to love all of our children, friends, and students equally. But perhaps deep down you assig...
AMA | June 2024
Mon, 03 Jun 2024
Welcome to the June 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
277 | Cumrun Vafa on the Universe According to String Theory
Mon, 27 May 2024
String theory, the current leading candidate for a theory of quantum gravity as well as other partic...
276 | Gavin Schmidt on Measuring, Predicting, and Protecting Our Climate
Mon, 20 May 2024
The Earth's climate keeps changing, largely due to the effects of human activity, and we haven't bee...
275 | Solo: Quantum Fields, Particles, Forces, and Symmetries
Mon, 13 May 2024
Publication week! Say hello to Quanta and Fields, the second volume of the planned three-volume...
AMA | May 2024
Mon, 06 May 2024
Welcome to the May 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...
274 | Gizem Gumuskaya on Building Robots from Human Cells
Mon, 29 Apr 2024
Modern biology is advancing by leaps and bounds, not only in understanding how organisms work, but i...
273 | Stefanos Geroulanos on the Invention of Prehistory
Mon, 22 Apr 2024
Humanity itself might be the hardest thing for scientists to study fairly and accurately. Not only d...
272 | Leslie Valiant on Learning and Educability in Computers and People
Mon, 15 Apr 2024
Science is enabled by the fact that the natural world exhibits predictability and regularity, at lea...
AMA | April 2024
Mon, 08 Apr 2024
Welcome to the April 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
271 | Claudia de Rham on Modifying General Relativity
Mon, 01 Apr 2024
Einstein's theory of general relativity has been our best understanding of gravity for over a centur...
270 | Solo: The Coming Transition in How Humanity Lives
Mon, 25 Mar 2024
Technology is changing the world, in good and bad ways. Artificial intelligence, internet connectivi...
269 | Sahar Heydari Fard on Complexity, Justice, and Social Dynamics
Mon, 18 Mar 2024
When it comes to social change, two questions immediately present themselves: What kind of change do...
AMA | March 2024
Mon, 11 Mar 2024
Welcome to the March 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
268 | Matt Strassler on Relativity, Fields, and the Language of Reality
Mon, 04 Mar 2024
In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell argued that light was a wave of electric and magnetic fields. But ...
267 | Benjamin Breen on Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and Utopia
Mon, 26 Feb 2024
The twentieth century was something, wasn't it? Margaret Mead, as well as her onetime-husband&n...
266 | Christoph Adami on How Information Makes Sense of Biology
Mon, 19 Feb 2024
Evolution is sometimes described -- not precisely, but with some justification -- as being about the...
AMA | February 2024
Mon, 12 Feb 2024
Welcome to the February 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
265 | John Skrentny on How the Economy Mistreats STEM Workers
Mon, 05 Feb 2024
Universities and their students are constantly being encouraged to produce more graduates majoring i...
264 | Sabine Stanley on What's Inside Planets
Mon, 29 Jan 2024
The radius of the Earth is over 6,000 kilometers, but the deepest we've ever dug below the...
263 | Chris Quigg on Symmetry and the Birth of the Standard Model
Mon, 22 Jan 2024
Einstein's theory of general relativity is distinguished by its singular simplicity and beauty. The ...
262 | Eric Schwitzgebel on the Weirdness of the World
Mon, 15 Jan 2024
Scientists and philosophers sometimes advocate pretty outrageous-sounding ideas about the fundamenta...
261 | Sanjana Curtis on the Origins of the Elements
Mon, 08 Jan 2024
In mid-20th-century cosmology, there was a debate over the origin of the chemical elements. Some tho...
260 | Ricard Solé on the Space of Cognitions
Mon, 01 Jan 2024
Octopuses, artificial intelligence, and advanced alien civilizations: for many reasons, it's interes...
Holiday Message: Reflections on Immortality
Mon, 18 Dec 2023
The final Mindscape podcast of each year is devoted to a short, reflective Holiday Message. This yea...
259 | Adam Frank on What Aliens Might Be Like
Mon, 11 Dec 2023
It wasn't that long ago that topics like the nature of consciousness, or the foundations of quantum ...
AMA | December 2023
Mon, 04 Dec 2023
Welcome to the December 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
258 | Solo: AI Thinks Different
Mon, 27 Nov 2023
The Artificial Intelligence landscape is changing with remarkable speed these days, and the capabili...
257 | Derek Guy on the Theory and Practice of Dressing Well
Mon, 20 Nov 2023
Putting on clothes is one of the most universal human experiences. Inevitably, this involves choices...
256 | Kelly and Zach Weinersmith on Building Cities on the Moon and Mars
Mon, 13 Nov 2023
There is an undeniable romance in the idea of traveling to, and even living in, outer space. In rece...
AMA | November 2023
Mon, 06 Nov 2023
Welcome to the November 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
255 | Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone
Mon, 30 Oct 2023
A "Theory of Everything" is physicists' somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase for a hypothetical model of ...
254 | William Egginton on Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges
Mon, 23 Oct 2023
It can be tempting, when first introduced to a deep concept of physics like Heisenberg's uncertainty...
253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation
Mon, 16 Oct 2023
David Deutsch is one of the most creative scientific thinkers working today, who has as a goal to un...
AMA | October 2023
Mon, 09 Oct 2023
Welcome to the October 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...
252 | Hannah Ritchie on Keeping Hope for the Planet Alive
Mon, 02 Oct 2023
Our planet and its environment are in bad shape, in all sorts of ways. Those of us who want to impro...
251 | Rosemary Braun on Uncovering Patterns in Biological Complexity
Mon, 25 Sep 2023
Biological organisms are paradigmatic emergent systems. That atoms of which they are made mindlessly...
250 | Brendan Nyhan on Navigating the Information Ecosystem
Mon, 18 Sep 2023
The modern world inundates us with both information and misinformation. What are the forces that con...
249 | Peter Godfrey-Smith on Sentience and Octopus Minds
Mon, 11 Sep 2023
The study of cognition and sentience would be greatly abetted by the discovery of intelligent alien ...
AMA | September 2023
Mon, 04 Sep 2023
Welcome to the September 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...
248 | Yejin Choi on AI and Common Sense
Mon, 28 Aug 2023
Over the last year, AI large-language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have demonstrated a remar...
247 | Samuel Bowles on Economics, Cooperation, and Inequality
Mon, 21 Aug 2023
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/08/21/247-samuel-bowles...
246 | David Stuart on Time and Science in Maya Civilization
Mon, 14 Aug 2023
You might remember the somewhat bizarre worries that swept through certain circles back in 2012, bas...
AMA | August 2023
Mon, 07 Aug 2023
Welcome to the August 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...
245 | Solo: The Crisis in Physics
Mon, 31 Jul 2023
Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually poin...
244 | Katie Elliott on Metaphysics, Chance, and Explanation
Mon, 24 Jul 2023
Is metaphysics like physics, but cooler? Or is it a relic of an outdated, pre-empirical way of think...
243 | Joseph Silk on Science on the Moon
Mon, 17 Jul 2023
The Earth's atmosphere is good for some things, like providing something to breathe. But it does get...
242 | David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information
Mon, 10 Jul 2023
Complexity scientists have been able to make an impressive amount of progress despite the fact that ...
AMA | July 2023
Mon, 03 Jul 2023
Welcome to the July 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
241 | Tim Maudlin on Locality, Hidden Variables, and Quantum Foundations
Mon, 26 Jun 2023
Last year's Nobel Prize for experimental tests of Bell's Theorem was the first Nobel in the foundati...
240 | Andrew Pontzen on Simulations and the Universe
Mon, 19 Jun 2023
It's somewhat amazing that cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, can make any progress at...
239 | Brian Lowery on the Social Self
Mon, 12 Jun 2023
There is an image, especially in Western cultures, of the rugged, authentic, self-made individual ch...
AMA | June 2023
Mon, 05 Jun 2023
Welcome to the June 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
238 | Scott Shapiro on the Technology and Philosophy of Hacking
Mon, 29 May 2023
Modern computers are somewhat more secure against being hacked - either by an inanimate virus or a h...
237 | Brooke Harrington on Offshore Wealth as a Complex System
Mon, 22 May 2023
The modern world is large and interconnected, and there are a lot of systems that might be important...
236 | Thomas Hertog on Quantum Cosmology and Hawking's Final Theory
Mon, 15 May 2023
Is there a multiverse, and if so, how should we think of ourselves within it? In many modern cosmolo...
AMA | May 2023
Mon, 08 May 2023
Welcome to the May 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...
235 | Andy Clark on the Extended and Predictive Mind
Mon, 01 May 2023
What is the mind, and what does it try to do? An overly simplified materialist view might be that th...
234 | Tobias Warnecke on Cellular Structure and Evolution
Mon, 24 Apr 2023
Eukaryotic cells manage to pull off a number of remarkable feats. One is packing quite a long DNA mo...
233 | Hugo Mercier on Reasoning and Skepticism
Mon, 17 Apr 2023
Here at the Mindscape Podcast, we are firmly pro-reason. But what does that mean, fundamentally and ...
232 | Amy Finkelstein on Adverse Selection and Hidden Information
Mon, 10 Apr 2023
If you knew exactly when every person was going to die, or require medical care, you could make a ki...
Ask Me Anything | April 2023
Mon, 03 Apr 2023
Welcome to the April 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
231 | Sarah Bakewell on the History of Humanism
Mon, 27 Mar 2023
Human beings are small compared to the universe, but we're very important to ourselves. Humanism can...
230 | Raphaël Millière on How Artificial Intelligence Thinks
Mon, 20 Mar 2023
Welcome to another episode of Sean Carroll's Mindscape. Today, we're joined by Raphaël Millière, a...
229 | Nita Farahany on Ethics, Law, and Neurotechnology
Mon, 13 Mar 2023
Every time our brain does some thinking, there are associated physical processes. In particular, ele...
AMA | March 2023
Mon, 06 Mar 2023
Welcome to the March 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
228 | Skye Cleary on Existentialism and Authenticity
Mon, 27 Feb 2023
God is dead, as Nietzsche’s madman memorably reminded us. So what are we going to do about it? If ...
227 | Molly Crockett on the Psychology of Morality
Mon, 20 Feb 2023
Most of us strive to be good, moral people. When we are doing that striving, what is happening in ou...
226 | Johanna Hoffman on Speculative Futures of Cities
Mon, 13 Feb 2023
Cities are incredibly important to modern life, and their importance is only growing. As Geoffr...
AMA | February 2023
Mon, 06 Feb 2023
Welcome to the February 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
225 | Michael Tomasello on The Social Origins of Cognition and Agency
Mon, 30 Jan 2023
Human beings have developed wondrous capacities to take in information about the world, mull it over...
224 | Edward Tufte on Data, Design, and Truth
Mon, 23 Jan 2023
So you have some information — how are you going to share it with and present it to the rest of th...
223 | Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are
Mon, 16 Jan 2023
There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations conc...
222 | Andrew Strominger on Quantum Gravity and the Real World
Mon, 09 Jan 2023
Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports qu...
221 | Adam Bulley on How Mental Time Travel Makes Us Human
Mon, 02 Jan 2023
One of the most powerful of all human capacities is the ability to imagine ourselves in hypothetical...
Holiday Message 2022: Thinking Really Slowly
Mon, 19 Dec 2022
Welcome to that beloved Mindscape annual tradition, the Holiday Message. An opportunity for a quicke...
220 | Lara Buchak on Risk and Rationality
Mon, 12 Dec 2022
Life is rich with moments of uncertainty, where we’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen ne...
AMA | December 2022
Mon, 05 Dec 2022
Welcome to the December 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
219 | Dani Bassett and Perry Zurn on the Neuroscience and Philosophy of Curiosity
Mon, 28 Nov 2022
It’s easy enough to proclaim that we are curious creatures, but what does that really mean? What k...
218 | Raphael Bousso on Black Holes and the Holographic Universe
Mon, 21 Nov 2022
Stephen Hawking’s discoveries of black hole radiation, entropy, and the information-loss problem h...
217 | Margaret Levi on Moral Political Economy
Mon, 14 Nov 2022
Why do people voluntarily hand over authority to a government? Under what conditions should&nbs...
AMA | November 2022
Mon, 07 Nov 2022
Welcome to the November 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy
Mon, 31 Oct 2022
People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from cal...
215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld
Mon, 24 Oct 2022
The founders of statistical mechanics in the 19th century faced an uphill battle to convince their f...
214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe
Mon, 17 Oct 2022
It’s a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe...
AMA | October 2022
Mon, 10 Oct 2022
Welcome to the October 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...
213 | Timiebi Aganaba on Law and Governance in Space
Mon, 03 Oct 2022
With communication satellites, weather satellites, GPS, and much more, what happens in space is alre...
212 | Chiara Mingarelli on Searching for Black Holes with Pulsars
Mon, 26 Sep 2022
The detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling black holes by the LIGO and Virgo collaboratio...
211 | Solo: Secrets of Einstein's Equation
Mon, 19 Sep 2022
My little pandemic-lockdown contribution to the world was a series of videos called T...
210 | Randall Munroe on Imagining What If...?
Mon, 12 Sep 2022
What’s the fastest way to get a human being around a racetrack, if we ignore all the rules of raci...
209 | Brad DeLong on Why the 20th Century Fell Short of Utopia
Mon, 05 Sep 2022
People throughout history have imagined ideal societies of various sorts. As the twentieth century d...
AMA | September 2022
Mon, 29 Aug 2022
Welcome to the September 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...
208 | Rick Beato on the Theory of Popular Music
Mon, 22 Aug 2022
There is no human endeavor that does not have a theory of it — a set of ideas about what makes it ...
207 | William MacAskill on Maximizing Good in the Present and Future
Mon, 15 Aug 2022
It’s always a little humbling to think about what affects your words and actions might have on oth...
206 | Simon Conway Morris on Evolution, Convergence, and Theism
Mon, 08 Aug 2022
Evolution by natural selection is one of the rare scientific theories that resonates within the wide...
AMA | August 2022
Mon, 01 Aug 2022
Welcome to the August 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...
205 | John Quiggin on Interest Rates and the Information Economy
Mon, 25 Jul 2022
The idea of an “interest rate” might seem mundane and practical, in comparison to our usual topi...
204 | John Asher Johnson on Hunting for Exoplanets
Mon, 18 Jul 2022
Recent years have seen a revolution in the study of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than ...
203 | N.J. Enfield on Why Language is Good for Lawyers and Not Scientists
Mon, 11 Jul 2022
We describe the world using language — we can’t help it. And we all know that ordinary language ...
AMA | July 2022
Mon, 04 Jul 2022
Welcome to the July 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
202 | Andrew Papachristos on the Network Theory of Gun Violence
Mon, 27 Jun 2022
The United States is suffering from an epidemic of tragic gun violence. While a political debate rag...
201 | Ed Yong on How Animals Sense the World
Mon, 20 Jun 2022
All of us construct models of the world, and update them on the basis of evidence brought to us by o...
AMA | June 2022
Mon, 13 Jun 2022
Welcome to the June 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! We are inaugurating a slightly differ...
200 | Solo: The Philosophy of the Multiverse
Mon, 06 Jun 2022
The 200th episode of Mindscape! Thanks to everyone for sticking around for this long. To celebrate, ...
199 | Elizabeth Cohen on Time and Other Political Values
Mon, 30 May 2022
Time is everywhere, pervading each aspect of intellectual inquiry — from physics to philosophy to ...
198 | Nick Lane on Powering Biology
Mon, 23 May 2022
The origin of life here on Earth was an important and fascinating event, but it was also a long time...
197 | Catherine Brinkley on the Science of Cities
Mon, 16 May 2022
The concept of the city is a crucial one for human civilization: people living in proximity, bringin...
AMA | May 2022
Thu, 12 May 2022
Welcome to the May 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...
196 | Judea Pearl on Cause and Effect
Mon, 09 May 2022
To say that event A causes event B is to not only make a claim about our actual ...
195 | Richard Dawkins on Flight and Other Evolutionary Achievements
Mon, 02 May 2022
Evolution has equipped species with a variety of ways to travel through the air — flapping, glidin...
194 | Frans de Waal on Culture and Gender in Primates
Mon, 25 Apr 2022
Humans are related to all other species here on Earth, but some are closer relatives than others. Pr...
193 | Daniels on Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Mon, 18 Apr 2022
Every time we make an important decision, it’s hard not to wonder how things would have turned out...
AMA | April 2022
Thu, 14 Apr 2022
Welcome to the April 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
192 | Nicole Yunger Halpern on Quantum Steampunk Thermodynamics
Mon, 11 Apr 2022
Randomness and probability are central to modern physics. In statistical mechanics this is because w...
191 | Jane McGonigal on How to Imagine the Future
Mon, 04 Apr 2022
The future grows out of the present, but it manages to consistently surprise us. How can we get bett...
190 | Lea Goentoro on Regrowing Limbs
Mon, 28 Mar 2022
Biological organisms are pretty good at healing themselves, but their abilities fall short in crucia...
189 | Brian Klaas on Power and the Temptation of Corruption
Mon, 21 Mar 2022
All societies grant more power to some citizens, and there is always a temptation to use that power ...
AMA | March 2022
Thu, 17 Mar 2022
Welcome to the March 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
188 | Arik Kershenbaum on What Aliens Will Be Like
Mon, 14 Mar 2022
If extraterrestrial life is out there — not just microbial slime, but big, complex, macroscopic or...
187 | Andrew Leigh on the Politics of Looming Disasters
Mon, 07 Mar 2022
We’re pretty well-calibrated when it comes to dealing with common, everyday-level setbacks. But ou...
186 | Sherry Turkle on How Technology Affects Our Humanity
Mon, 28 Feb 2022
Advances in technology have gradually been extending the human self beyond its biological extent, as...
185 | Arvid Ågren on the Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution
Mon, 21 Feb 2022
One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain appa...
184 | Gary Marcus on Artificial Intelligence and Common Sense
Mon, 14 Feb 2022
Artificial intelligence is everywhere around us. Deep-learning algorithms are used to classify image...
AMA | February 2022
Thu, 10 Feb 2022
Welcome to the February 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
183 | Michael Dine on Supersymmetry, Anthropics, and the Future of Particle Physics
Mon, 07 Feb 2022
Modern particle physics is a victim of its own success. We have extremely good theories — so good ...
182 | Sally Haslanger on Social Construction and Critical Theory
Mon, 31 Jan 2022
Reality is just out there — but how we perceive reality and talk about it depends on choices we hu...
181 | Peter Dodds on Quantifying the Shape of Stories
Mon, 24 Jan 2022
A good story takes you on an emotional journey, with ups and downs along the way. Thanks to science,...
180 | Camilla Pang on Instructions for Being Human
Mon, 17 Jan 2022
Being a human is tricky. There are any number of unwritten rules and social cues that we have to lea...
179 | David Reich on Genetics and Ancient Humanity
Mon, 10 Jan 2022
Human beings like to divide themselves into groups, and then cooperate, socialize, and reproduce wit...
178 | Jody Azzouni on What Is and Isn't Real
Mon, 03 Jan 2022
Are numbers real? What does that even mean? You can’t kick a number. But you can talk about number...
Holiday Message 2021 | On Disciplines & Cocktails
Mon, 20 Dec 2021
As each December comes to a close, we wrap up another year of podcasts with the Mindscape Holiday Me...
AMA | December 2021
Wed, 15 Dec 2021
Welcome to the December 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
177 | Monika Schleier-Smith on Cold Atoms and Emergent Spacetime
Mon, 13 Dec 2021
When it comes to thinking about quantum mechanics, there are levels. One level is shut-up-and-calcul...
176 | Joshua Greene on Morality, Psychology, and Trolley Problems
Mon, 06 Dec 2021
We all know you can’t derive “ought” from “is.” But it’s equally clear that “is” —...
175 | William Ratcliff on Multicellularity, Physics, and Evolution
Mon, 29 Nov 2021
We’ve talked about the very origin of life, but certain transitions along its subsequent history w...
174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy
Mon, 22 Nov 2021
Mathematics is often thought of as the pinnacle of crisp precision: the square of the hypotenuse of ...
AMA | November 2021
Wed, 17 Nov 2021
Welcome to the November 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...
173 | Sylvia Earle on the Oceans, the Planet, and People
Mon, 15 Nov 2021
It’s a well-worn cliché that oceans cover seventy percent of the surface of Earth, but we tend to...
172 | David Goyer on Televising the Fall of the Galactic Empire
Mon, 08 Nov 2021
Science and storytelling have a long and tumultuous relationship. Scientists sometimes want stories ...
171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology
Mon, 01 Nov 2021
As the holidays approach, we are being reminded of the fragility of the global supply chain. But at ...
170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies
Mon, 25 Oct 2021
There is so much we don’t know about our universe. But our curiosity about the unknown shouldn’t...
169 | C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency
Mon, 18 Oct 2021
Games are everywhere, but why exactly do we play them? It seems counterintuitive, to artificially in...
AMA | October 2021
Thu, 14 Oct 2021
Welcome to the October 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...
168 | Anil Seth on Emergence, Information, and Consciousness
Mon, 11 Oct 2021
Those of us who think that that the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completel...
167 | Chiara Marletto on Constructor Theory, Physics, and Possibility
Mon, 04 Oct 2021
Traditional physics works within the “Laplacian paradigm”: you give me the state of the universe...
166 | Betül Kaçar on Paleogenomics and Ancient Life
Mon, 27 Sep 2021
In the question to understand the biology of life, we are (so far) limited to what happened here on ...
165 | Kathryn Paige Harden on Genetics, Luck, and Fairness
Mon, 20 Sep 2021
It's pretty clear that our genes affect, though they don't completely determine, who we grow up to b...
AMA | September 2021
Thu, 16 Sep 2021
Welcome to the September 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...
164 | Herbert Gintis on Game Theory, Evolution, and Social Rationality
Mon, 13 Sep 2021
How human beings behave is, for fairly evident reasons, a topic of intense interest to human beings....
163 | Nigel Goldenfeld on Phase Transitions, Criticality, and Biology
Mon, 06 Sep 2021
Physics is extremely good at describing simple systems with relatively few moving parts. Sadly, the ...
162 | Leidy Klotz on Our Resistance to Subtractive Change
Mon, 30 Aug 2021
There is no general theory of problem-solving, or even a reliable set of principles that will usuall...
161 | W. Brian Arthur on Complexity Economics
Mon, 23 Aug 2021
Economies in the modern world are incredibly complex systems. But when we sit down to think about th...
160 | Edward Slingerland on Confucianism, Daoism, and Wu Wei
Mon, 16 Aug 2021
Plato and Aristotle founded much of what we think of as Western philosophy during the fourth and fif...
AMA | August 2021
Thu, 12 Aug 2021
Welcome to the August 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...
159 | Mari Ruti on Lack, Love, and Psychoanalysis
Mon, 09 Aug 2021
Neuroscience has given us great insights into how our brains work. But there is still room for purel...
158 | David Wallace on the Arrow of Time
Mon, 02 Aug 2021
The arrow of time — all the ways in which the past differs from the future — is a fascinating su...
157 | Elizabeth Strychalski on Synthetic Cells and the Rules of Biology
Mon, 26 Jul 2021
Natural selection has done a pretty good job at creating a wide variety of living species, but we hu...
156 | Catherine D’Ignazio on Data, Objectivity, and Bias
Mon, 19 Jul 2021
How can data be biased? Isn’t it supposed to be an objective reflection of the real world? We all ...
155 | Stephen Wolfram on Computation, Hypergraphs, and Fundamental Physics
Mon, 12 Jul 2021
It’s not easy, figuring out the fundamental laws of physics. It’s even harder when your chosen m...
AMA | July 2021
Fri, 09 Jul 2021
Welcome to the July 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
154 | Reza Aslan on Religion, Metaphor, and Meaning
Mon, 05 Jul 2021
Religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people around the world, but what religiou...
153 | John Preskill on Quantum Computers and What They’re Good For
Mon, 28 Jun 2021
Depending on who you listen to, quantum computers are either the biggest technological change coming...
152 | Charis Kubrin on Criminology, Incarceration, and Hip-Hop
Mon, 21 Jun 2021
It’s all well and good to talk abstractly about morality and justice, but at some point you have t...
151 | Jordan Ellenberg on the Mathematics of Political Boundaries
Mon, 14 Jun 2021
Any system in which politicians represent geographical districts with boundaries chosen by the polit...
AMA | June 2021
Thu, 10 Jun 2021
Welcome to the June 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...
150 | Simon DeDeo on How Explanations Work and Why They Sometimes Fail
Mon, 07 Jun 2021
You observe a phenomenon, and come up with an explanation for it. That’s true for scientists, but ...
149 | Lee Smolin on Time, Philosophy, and the Nature of Reality
Mon, 31 May 2021
The challenge to a theoretical physicist pushing beyond our best current theories is that there are ...
148 | Henry Farrell on Democracy as a Problem-Solving Mechanism
Mon, 24 May 2021
Democracy posits the radical idea that political power and legitimacy should ultimately be found in ...
147 | Rachel Laudan on Cuisine, Culture, and Empire
Mon, 17 May 2021
For as much as people talk about food, a good case can be made that we don’t give it the attention...
AMA | May 2021
Thu, 13 May 2021
Welcome to the May 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...
146 | Emily Riehl on Topology, Categories, and the Future of Mathematics
Mon, 10 May 2021
“A way that math can make the world a better place is by making it a more interesting place to be ...
145 | Niall Ferguson on Histories, Networks, and Catastrophes
Mon, 03 May 2021
The world has gone through a tough time with the COVID-19 pandemic. Every catastrophic event is uniq...
144 | Solo: Are We Moving Beyond the Standard Model?
Mon, 26 Apr 2021
I’ve been a professional physicist since the 1980’s, and not once over the course of my career h...
143 | Julia Galef on Openness, Bias, and Rationality
Mon, 19 Apr 2021
Mom, apple pie, and rationality — all things that are unquestionably good, right? But rationality,...
AMA | April 2021
Wed, 14 Apr 2021
Welcome to the April 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...
142 | Charlie Jane Anders on Stories and How to Write Them
Mon, 12 Apr 2021
Telling a story seems like the most natural, human thing in the world. We all do it, all the time. A...
141 | Zeynep Tufekci on Information and Attention in a Networked World
Mon, 05 Apr 2021
In a world flooded with information, everybody necessarily makes choices about what we pay attention...
140 | Dean Buonomano on Time, Reality, and the Brain
Mon, 29 Mar 2021
“Time” and “the brain” are two of those things that are somewhat mysterious, but it would be...
139 | Elizabeth Anderson on Equality, Work, and Ideology
Mon, 22 Mar 2021
Imagine two people with exactly the same innate abilities, but one is born into a wealthy family and...
138 | Daryl Morey on Analytics, Psychology, and Basketball
Mon, 15 Mar 2021
You might think that human beings, exhausted by competing for resources and rewards in the real worl...
AMA | March 2021
Wed, 10 Mar 2021
Welcome to the March 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These are funded by Patreon sup...
137 | Justin Clarke-Doane on Mathematics, Morality, Objectivity, and Reality
Mon, 08 Mar 2021
On a spectrum of philosophical topics, one might be tempted to put mathematics and morality on oppos...
136 | Roderick Graham on Cyberspace, Race, and Cultural Conservatism
Mon, 01 Mar 2021
The internet has made it so much easier for people to talk to each other, in a literal sense. But it...
135 | Shadi Bartsch on Plato, Vergil, Confucius, and Modernity
Mon, 22 Feb 2021
In our postmodern world, studying the classics of ancient Greece and Rome can seem quaint at best, d...
AMA | February 2021
Wed, 17 Feb 2021
Welcome to the February 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These are funded by Patreon ...
134 | Robert Sapolsky on Why We Behave the Way We Do
Mon, 15 Feb 2021
A common argument against free will is that human behavior is not freely chosen, but rather determin...
133 | Ziya Tong on Realities We Don't See
Mon, 08 Feb 2021
It’s a truism that what we see about the world is a small fraction of all that exists. At the simp...
Bonus | AIP Oral History Interview
Thu, 04 Feb 2021
Here is a special bonus punishment treat for Mindscape listeners: an interview of me, by D...
132 | Michael Levin on Growth, Form, Information, and the Self
Mon, 01 Feb 2021
As a semi-outsider, it’s fun for me to watch as a new era dawns in biology: one that adds ideas fr...
131 | Avi Loeb on Taking Aliens Seriously
Mon, 25 Jan 2021
The possible existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations — not just alien...
130 | Frank Wilczek on the Present and Future of Fundamental Physics
Mon, 18 Jan 2021
What is the world made of? How does it behave? These questions, aimed at the most basic level of rea...
129 | Solo: Democracy in America
Mon, 11 Jan 2021
The first full week of 2021 has been action-packed for those of us in the United States of America, ...
128 | Joseph Henrich on the Weirdness of the West
Mon, 04 Jan 2021
We all know stereotypes about people from different countries; but we also recognize that there real...
Holiday Message 2020 | The Screwy Universe
Mon, 21 Dec 2020
Welcome to the third annual Mindscape Holiday Message! Just a chance for me to be a little more chat...
127 | Erich Jarvis on Language, Birds, and People
Mon, 14 Dec 2020
Many characteristics go into making human beings special — brain size, opposable thumbs, etc. Sure...
AMA | December 2020
Wed, 09 Dec 2020
Getting into the swing of things here with monthly Ask Me Anything episodes. If you missed the expla...
126 | David Stasavage on the Origin and History of Democracy
Mon, 07 Dec 2020
Those of us living in democracies tend to take the idea for granted. We forget what an audacious, ra...
125 | David Haig on the Evolution of Meaning from Darwin to Derrida
Mon, 30 Nov 2020
Aristotle conceived of the world in terms of teleological “final causes”; Darwin, or so the stor...
124 | Solo: How Time Travel Could and Should Work
Mon, 23 Nov 2020
Time! It doesn’t stop, psychological effects of being under lockdown notwithstanding. How we exper...
AMA | November 2020
Fri, 20 Nov 2020
As you have likely heard me mention before, I have an account on Patreon, where people can sign...
123 | Lisa Feldman Barrett on Emotions, Actions, and the Brain
Mon, 16 Nov 2020
Emotions are at the same time utterly central to who we are — where would we be without them? — ...
122 | David Eagleman on Tapping Into the Livewired Brain
Mon, 09 Nov 2020
Imagine you were locked in a sealed room, with no way to access the outside world but a few screens ...
121 | Cornel West on What Democracy Is and Should Be
Mon, 02 Nov 2020
This episode is published on November 2, 2020, the day before an historic election in the United Sta...
120 | Jeremy England on Biology, Thermodynamics, and the Bible
Mon, 26 Oct 2020
Erwin Schrödinger’s famous book What Is Life? highlighted the connections between physi...
119 | Musa al-Gharbi on the Value of Intellectual Diversity
Mon, 19 Oct 2020
In the service of seeking truth, there would seem to be value in intellectual diversity, both in kee...
118 | Adam Riess on the Expansion of the Universe and a Crisis in Cosmology
Mon, 12 Oct 2020
Astronomers rocked the cosmological world with the 1998 discovery that the universe is accelerating....
117 | Sean B. Carroll on Randomness and the Course of Evolution
Mon, 05 Oct 2020
Evolution is a messy business, involving as it does selection pressures, mutations, genetic drift, a...
116 | Teresa Bejan on Free Speech, Civility, and Toleration
Mon, 28 Sep 2020
How can, and should, we talk to each other, especially to people with whom we disagree? “Free spee...
115 | Netta Engelhardt on Black Hole Information, Wormholes, and Quantum Gravity
Mon, 21 Sep 2020
Stephen Hawking made a number of memorable contributions to physics, but perhaps his greatest w...
114 | Angela Chen on Asexuality in a Sex-Preoccupied World
Mon, 14 Sep 2020
Sexuality is, and always has been, a topic that is endlessly fascinating but also contentious. You m...
113 | Cailin O'Connor on Game Theory, Evolution, and the Origins of Unfairness
Mon, 07 Sep 2020
You can’t always get what you want, as a wise person once said. But we do try, even when someone e...
112 | Fyodor Urnov on Gene Editing, CRISPR, and Human Engineering
Mon, 31 Aug 2020
Not too long ago nobody carried a mobile phone; now almost everybody does. That’s the kind of rate...
111 | Nick Bostrom on Anthropic Selection and Living in a Simulation
Mon, 24 Aug 2020
Human civilization is only a few thousand years old (depending on how we count). So if civilization ...
110 | Neil Johnson on Complexity, Conflict, and Infodemiology
Mon, 17 Aug 2020
Physicists have traditionally simplified systems as much as possible, in order to shed light on fund...
109 | Jason Torchinsky on Our Self-Driving Future
Mon, 10 Aug 2020
It’s easy to foresee that technological progress will change how we live; it’s much harder to an...
108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit
Mon, 03 Aug 2020
We are living, in case you haven’t noticed, in a world full of bullshit. It’s hard to say whethe...
107 | Russ Shafer-Landau on the Reality of Morality
Mon, 27 Jul 2020
Despite occasional and important disagreements, most people are in rough agreement about what it mea...
106 | Stuart Bartlett on What "Life" Means
Mon, 20 Jul 2020
Someday, most likely, we will encounter life that is not as we know it. We might find it elsewhere i...
105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell
Mon, 13 Jul 2020
We gather empirical evidence about the nature of the world through our senses, and use that evidence...
104 | David Rosen and Scott Miles on the Neuroscience of Music and Creativity
Mon, 06 Jul 2020
Creativity is one of those things that we all admire but struggle to define or make concrete. Music ...
103 | J. Kenji López-Alt on Cooking As and With Science
Mon, 29 Jun 2020
Cooking is art, but it’s also very much science — mostly chemistry, but with important contribut...
102 | Maria Konnikova on Poker, Psychology, and Reason
Mon, 22 Jun 2020
The best chess and Go players in the world aren’t human beings any more; they’re artificially-in...
101 | David Baltimore on the Mysteries of Viruses
Mon, 15 Jun 2020
I recently saw an estimate that if you took all the novel coronaviruses in the world (the actual vir...
100 | Solo | Life and Its Meaning
Mon, 08 Jun 2020
A podcast only hits the century mark once! And for Mindscape, this is it. There have been holiday me...
99 | Scott Aaronson on Complexity, Computation, and Quantum Gravity
Mon, 01 Jun 2020
There are some problems for which it’s very hard to find the answer, but very easy to check the an...
98 | Olga Khazan on Living and Flourishing While Being Weird
Mon, 25 May 2020
Each of us is different, in some way or another, from every other person. But some are more differen...
97 | John Danaher on Our Coming Automated Utopia
Mon, 18 May 2020
Humans build machines, in part, to relieve themselves from the burden of work on difficult, repetiti...
96 | Lina Necib on What and Where the Dark Matter Is
Mon, 11 May 2020
The past few centuries of scientific progress have displaced humanity from the center of it all: the...
95 | Liam Kofi Bright on Knowledge, Truth, and Science
Mon, 04 May 2020
Everybody talks about the truth, but nobody does anything about it. And to be honest, how we talk ab...
94 | Stuart Russell on Making Artificial Intelligence Compatible with Humans
Mon, 27 Apr 2020
Artificial intelligence has made great strides of late, in areas as diverse as playing Go and recogn...
93 | Rae Wynn-Grant on Bears, Humans, and Other Predators
Mon, 20 Apr 2020
Human beings have a strange fascination with dangerous, predatory animals — bears, lions, wolves, ...
92 | Kevin Hand on Life Elsewhere in the Solar System
Mon, 13 Apr 2020
It’s hard doing science when you only have one data point, especially when that data point is subj...
91 | Scott Barry Kaufman on the Psychology of Transcendence
Mon, 06 Apr 2020
If one of the ambitious goals of philosophy is to determine the meaning of life, one of the ambitiou...
90 | David Kaiser on Science, Money, and Power
Mon, 30 Mar 2020
Science costs money. And for a brief, glorious period between the start of the Manhattan Project in ...
89 | Lera Boroditsky on Language, Thought, Space, and Time
Mon, 23 Mar 2020
What direction does time point in? None, really, although some people might subconsciously put the p...
Tara Smith on Coronavirus, Pandemics, and What We Can Do
Wed, 18 Mar 2020
This is a special episode of Mindscape, thrown together quickly. Many thanks to Tara Smith for joini...
88 | Neil Shubin on Evolution, Genes, and Dramatic Transitions
Mon, 16 Mar 2020
“What good is half a wing?” That’s the rhetorical question often asked by people who have trou...
87 | Karl Friston on Brains, Predictions, and Free Energy
Mon, 09 Mar 2020
If you tell me that one of the world’s leading neuroscientists has developed a theory of how the b...
86 | Martin Rees on Threats to Humanity, Prospects for Posthumanity, and Life in the Universe
Mon, 02 Mar 2020
Anyone who has read histories of the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the&...
85 | L.A. Paul on Transformative Experiences and Your Future Selves
Mon, 24 Feb 2020
It’s hard to make decisions that will change your life. It’s even harder to make a decision if y...
84 | Suresh Naidu on Capitalism, Monopsony, and Inequality
Mon, 17 Feb 2020
Nations generally want their economies to be rich, robust, and growing. But it’s also important to...
83 | Kwame Anthony Appiah on Identity, Stories, and Cosmopolitanism
Mon, 10 Feb 2020
The Greek statesman Demosthenes is credited with saying “I am a citizen of the world,” and the i...
82 | Robin Carhart-Harris on Psychedelics and the Brain
Mon, 03 Feb 2020
The Convention on Psychotropic Substances was a 1971 United Nations treaty that placed str...
81 | Ezra Klein on Politics, Polarization, and Identity
Mon, 27 Jan 2020
People have always disagreed about politics, passionately and sometimes even violently. But in certa...
80 | Jenann Ismael on Connecting Physics to the World of Experience
Mon, 20 Jan 2020
Physics is simple; people are complicated. But even people are ultimately physical systems, made of ...
79 | Sara Imari Walker on Information and the Origin of Life
Mon, 13 Jan 2020
We are all alive, but “life” is something we struggle to understand. How do we distinguish a “...
78 | Daniel Dennett on Minds, Patterns, and the Scientific Image
Mon, 06 Jan 2020
Wilfrid Sellars described the task of philosophy as explaining how things, in the broadest sense of ...
Holiday Message 2019: On Publishing Books
Sun, 22 Dec 2019
Welcome to the second annual Mindscape Holiday Message! No substantive content or deep ideas, just m...
77 | Azra Raza on The Way We Should Fight Cancer
Mon, 16 Dec 2019
In the United States, more than one in five deaths is caused by cancer. The medical community h...
76 | Ned Hall on Possible Worlds and the Laws of Nature
Mon, 09 Dec 2019
It’s too easy to take laws of nature for granted. Sure, gravity is pulling us toward Earth today; ...
75 | Max Tegmark on Reality, Simulation, and the Multiverse
Mon, 02 Dec 2019
We've talked a lot recently about the Many Worlds of quantum mechanics. That’s one kind of multive...
74 | Stephen Greenblatt on Stories, History, and Cultural Poetics
Mon, 25 Nov 2019
An infinite number of things happen; we bring structure and meaning to the world by making art and t...
73 | Grimes (c) on Music, Creativity, and Digital Personae
Mon, 18 Nov 2019
Changing technologies have always affected how we produce and enjoy art, and music might be the most...
72 | César Hidalgo on Information in Societies, Economies, and the Universe
Mon, 11 Nov 2019
Maxwell's Demon is a famous thought experiment in which a mischievous imp uses knowledge of the velo...
71 | Philip Goff on Consciousness Everywhere
Mon, 04 Nov 2019
The human brain contains roughly 85 billion neurons, wired together in an extraordinarily complex ne...
70 | Katie Mack on How the Universe Will End
Mon, 28 Oct 2019
Cosmologists are always talking excitedly about the Big Bang and all the cool stuff that happened in...
69 | Cory Doctorow on Technology, Monopoly, and the Future of the Internet
Mon, 21 Oct 2019
Like so many technological innovations, the internet is something that burst on the scene and pervad...
68 | Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Common Sense
Mon, 14 Oct 2019
Artificial intelligence is better than humans at playing chess or go, but still has trouble holding ...
67 | Kate Jeffery on Entropy, Complexity, and Evolution
Mon, 07 Oct 2019
Our observable universe started out in a highly non-generic state, one of very low entropy, and diso...
66 | Will Wilkinson on Partisan Polarization and the Urban/Rural Divide
Mon, 30 Sep 2019
The idea of “red states” and “blue states” burst on the scene during the 2000 U.S. President...
65 | Michael Mann on Why Our Climate Is Changing and How We Know
Mon, 23 Sep 2019
We had our fun last week, exploring how progress in renewable energy and electric vehicles may help ...
64 | Ramez Naam on Renewable Energy and an Optimistic Future
Mon, 16 Sep 2019
The Earth is heating up, and it’s our fault. But human beings are not always complete idiots (occa...
63 | Solo -- Finding Gravity Within Quantum Mechanics
Mon, 09 Sep 2019
I suspect most loyal Mindscape listeners have been exposed to the fact that I’ve written...
62 | Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Societies and People
Mon, 02 Sep 2019
Physicists study systems that are sufficiently simple that it’s possible to find deep unifying pri...
61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them
Mon, 26 Aug 2019
All of us have been wrong about things from time to time. But sometimes it was a simple, forgivable ...
60 | Lynne Kelly on Memory Palaces, Ancient and Modern
Mon, 19 Aug 2019
Memory takes different forms. Memories can be encoded in the strength of neural connections in our b...
59 | Adam Becker on the Curious History of Quantum Mechanics
Mon, 12 Aug 2019
There are many mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics. To me, the biggest mysteries are why physici...
58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to Explore Humanity
Mon, 05 Aug 2019
Fiction shines a light on the human condition by putting people into imaginary situations and envisi...
57 | Astra Taylor on the Promise and Challenge of Democracy
Mon, 29 Jul 2019
“Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone” — or so suggests the title of ...
56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life
Mon, 22 Jul 2019
Scientists can’t quite agree on how to define “life,” but that hasn’t stopped them from stud...
55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds
Mon, 15 Jul 2019
As you may have heard, I have a new book coming out in September, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum W...
54 | Indre Viskontas on Music and the Brain
Mon, 08 Jul 2019
It doesn’t mean much to say music affects your brain — everything that happens to you affects yo...
53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality
Mon, 01 Jul 2019
What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we...
52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games
Mon, 24 Jun 2019
Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers...
51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information
Mon, 17 Jun 2019
Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark ene...
50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain
Mon, 10 Jun 2019
It’s fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have...
49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good
Mon, 03 Jun 2019
It’s easy to be cynical about humanity’s present state and future prospects. But we have made it...
48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation
Mon, 27 May 2019
If you’re bad, we are taught, you go to Hell. Who in the world came up with that idea? Some will a...
47 | Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in General
Mon, 20 May 2019
Most people in the modern world — and the vast majority of Mindscape listeners, I would imagine —...
46 | Kate Darling on Our Connections with Robots
Mon, 13 May 2019
Most of us have no trouble telling the difference between a robot and a living, feeling organism. Ne...
45 | Leonard Susskind on Quantum Information, Quantum Gravity, and Holography
Mon, 06 May 2019
For decades now physicists have been struggling to reconcile two great ideas from a century ago: gen...
44 | Antonio Damasio on Feelings, Thoughts, and the Evolution of Humanity
Mon, 29 Apr 2019
When we talk about the mind, we are constantly talking about consciousness and cognition. Antonio...
43 | Matthew Luczy on the Pleasures of Wine
Mon, 22 Apr 2019
Some people never drink wine; for others, it’s an indispensable part of an enjoyable meal. Whateve...
42 | Natalya Bailey on Navigating Earth Orbit and Beyond
Mon, 15 Apr 2019
The space age officially began in 1957 with the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite. But recent years ...
41 | Steven Strogatz on Synchronization, Networks, and the Emergence of Complex Behavior
Mon, 08 Apr 2019
One of the most important insights in the history of science is the fact that complex behavior can a...
40 | Adrienne Mayor on Gods and Robots in Ancient Mythology
Mon, 01 Apr 2019
The modern world is full of technology, and also with anxiety about technology. We worry about robot...
39 | Malcolm MacIver on Sensing, Consciousness, and Imagination
Mon, 25 Mar 2019
Consciousness has many aspects, from experience to wakefulness to self-awareness. One aspect is imag...
38 | Alan Lightman on Transcendence, Science, and a Naturalist’s Sense of Meaning
Mon, 18 Mar 2019
Let’s say, for sake of argument, that you don’t believe in God or the supernatural. Is there sti...
37 | Edward Watts on the End of the Roman Republic and Lessons for Democracy
Mon, 11 Mar 2019
When many of us think “Ancient Rome,” we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was...
36 | David Albert on Quantum Measurement and the Problems with Many-Worlds
Mon, 04 Mar 2019
Quantum mechanics is our best theory of how reality works at a fundamental level, yet physicists sti...
35 | Jessica Yellin on The Changing Ways We Get Our News
Mon, 25 Feb 2019
Everything we think about the world outside our immediate senses is shaped by information brought to...
34 | Paul Bloom on Empathy, Rationality, Morality, and Cruelty
Mon, 18 Feb 2019
Within every person’s mind there is on ongoing battle between reason and emotion. It’s not alway...
33 | James Ladyman on Reality, Metaphysics, and Complexity
Mon, 11 Feb 2019
Reality is a tricky thing. Is love real? What about the number 5? This is clearly a job for a philos...
32 | Naomi Oreskes on Climate Change and the Distortion of Scientific Facts
Mon, 04 Feb 2019
Our climate is in the midst of dramatic changes, driven largely by human activity, with potentially ...
31 | Brian Greene on the Multiverse, Inflation, and the String Theory Landscape
Mon, 28 Jan 2019
String theory was originally proposed as a relatively modest attempt to explain some features of str...
30 | Derek Leben on Ethics for Robots and Artificial Intelligences
Mon, 21 Jan 2019
It’s hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we’re begin...
29 | Raychelle Burks on the Chemistry of Murder
Mon, 14 Jan 2019
Sometimes science is asking esoteric questions about the fundamental nature of reality. Other times,...
28 | Roger Penrose on Spacetime, Consciousness, and the Universe
Mon, 07 Jan 2019
Sir Roger Penrose has had a remarkable life. He has contributed an enormous amount to our understand...
Holiday Message 2018
Mon, 24 Dec 2018
There won't be any regular episodes of Mindscape this week or next, as we take a holiday break. Regu...
27 | Janna Levin on Black Holes, Chaos, and the Narrative of Science
Mon, 17 Dec 2018
It's a big universe out there, full of an astonishing variety of questions and puzzles. Today's gues...
26 | Ge Wang on Artful Design, Computers, and Music
Mon, 10 Dec 2018
Everywhere around us are things that serve functions. We live in houses, sit on chairs, drive in car...
25 | David Chalmers on Consciousness, the Hard Problem, and Living in a Simulation
Mon, 03 Dec 2018
The "Easy Problems" of consciousness have to do with how the brain takes in information, thinks abou...
24 | Kip Thorne on Gravitational Waves, Time Travel, and Interstellar
Mon, 26 Nov 2018
I remember vividly hosting a colloquium speaker, about fifteen years ago, who talked about the LIGO ...
23 | Lisa Aziz-Zadeh on Embodied Cognition, Mirror Neurons, and Empathy
Mon, 19 Nov 2018
Brains are important things; they're where thinking happens. Or are they? The theory of "embodied co...
22 | Joe Walston on Conservation, Urbanization, and the Way We Live on Earth
Mon, 12 Nov 2018
There's no question that human activity is causing enormous changes on our planet's environment, fro...
21 | Alex Rosenberg on Naturalism, History, and Theory of Mind
Mon, 05 Nov 2018
We humans love to tell ourselves stories about why things happened the way they did; if the stories ...
20 | Scott Derrickson on Cinema, Blockbusters, Horror, and Mystery
Mon, 29 Oct 2018
Special Halloween edition? Scott Derrickson is a film-lover first and a director second, but he's be...
19 | Tyler Cowen on Maximizing Growth and Thinking for the Future
Mon, 22 Oct 2018
Economics, like other sciences (social and otherwise), is about what the world does; but it's natura...
18 | Clifford Johnson on What's So Great About Superstring Theory
Mon, 15 Oct 2018
String theory is a speculative and highly technical proposal for uniting the known forces of nature,...
17 | Annalee Newitz on Science, Fiction, Economics, and Neurosis
Mon, 08 Oct 2018
The job of science fiction isn't to predict the future; it's to tell interesting stories in an imagi...
16 | Coleen Murphy on Aging, Biology, and the Future
Mon, 01 Oct 2018
Aging -- everybody does it, very few people actually do something about it. Coleen Murphy is an exce...
15 | David Poeppel on Thought, Language, and How to Understand the Brain
Sat, 08 Sep 2018
Language comes naturally to us, but is also deeply mysterious. On the one hand, it manifests as a co...
14 | Alta Charo on Bioethics and the Law
Sat, 08 Sep 2018
To paraphrase Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, scientists tend to focus on whether they can do somethin...
13 | Neha Narula on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of the Internet
Sat, 08 Sep 2018
For something of such obvious importance, money is kind of mysterious. It can, as Homer Simpson once...
12 | Wynton Marsalis on Jazz, Time, and America
Tue, 04 Sep 2018
Jazz occupies a special place in the American cultural landscape. It's played in elegant concert hal...
11 | Mike Brown on Killing Pluto and Replacing It with Planet 9
Mon, 27 Aug 2018
Few events in recent astronomical history have had the worldwide emotional resonance as the 2006 ann...
10 | Megan Rosenbloom on the Death Positive Movement
Mon, 20 Aug 2018
We're all going to die. But while we are alive, it's up to us how we understand and deal with that f...
9 | Solo -- Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?
Mon, 13 Aug 2018
It's fun to be in the exciting, chaotic, youthful days of the podcast, when anything goes and experi...
8 | Carl Zimmer on Heredity, DNA, and Editing Genes
Mon, 06 Aug 2018
Our understanding of heredity and genetics is improving at blinding speed. It was only in the year 2...
7 | Yascha Mounk on Threats to Liberal Democracy
Mon, 30 Jul 2018
Both words in the phrase "liberal democracy" carry meaning, and both concepts are under attack aro...
6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities
Mon, 23 Jul 2018
Poker, like life, is a game of incomplete information. To do well in such a game, we have to think i...
5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life
Mon, 16 Jul 2018
If you scale up an animal to twice its height, keeping everything else proportionate, its volume and...
4 | Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community
Thu, 12 Jul 2018
According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simpl...
3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice
Wed, 11 Jul 2018
The human mind loves nothing more than to build mental boxes -- categories -- and put things into th...
2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality
Tue, 10 Jul 2018
Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the two great triumphs of twentieth-century theoretical...
1 | Carol Tavris on Mistakes, Justification, and Cognitive Dissonance
Wed, 04 Jul 2018
For the first full episode of Mindscape, it's an honor to welcome social psychologist Carol Tavris. ...
Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast!
Sun, 01 Jul 2018
I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called...