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

Mon, 30 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

A "Theory of Everything" is physicists' somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase for a hypothetical model of ...

Mon, 23 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It can be tempting, when first introduced to a deep concept of physics like Heisenberg's uncertainty...

Mon, 16 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

David Deutsch is one of the most creative scientific thinkers working today, who has as a goal to un...

Mon, 09 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the October 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...

Mon, 02 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Our planet and its environment are in bad shape, in all sorts of ways. Those of us who want to impro...

Mon, 25 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Biological organisms are paradigmatic emergent systems. That atoms of which they are made mindlessly...

Mon, 18 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The modern world inundates us with both information and misinformation. What are the forces that con...

Mon, 11 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The study of cognition and sentience would be greatly abetted by the discovery of intelligent alien ...

Mon, 04 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the September 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...

Mon, 28 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Over the last year, AI large-language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have demonstrated a remar...

Mon, 21 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/08/21/247-samuel-bowles...

Mon, 14 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

You might remember the somewhat bizarre worries that swept through certain circles back in 2012, bas...

Mon, 07 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the August 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...

Mon, 31 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually poin...

Mon, 24 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Is metaphysics like physics, but cooler? Or is it a relic of an outdated, pre-empirical way of think...

Mon, 17 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The Earth's atmosphere is good for some things, like providing something to breathe. But it does get...

Mon, 10 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Complexity scientists have been able to make an impressive amount of progress despite the fact that ...

Mon, 03 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the July 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...

Mon, 26 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Last year's Nobel Prize for experimental tests of Bell's Theorem was the first Nobel in the foundati...

Mon, 19 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It's somewhat amazing that cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, can make any progress at...

Mon, 12 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

There is an image, especially in Western cultures, of the rugged, authentic, self-made individual ch...

Mon, 05 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the June 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...

Mon, 29 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Modern computers are somewhat more secure against being hacked - either by an inanimate virus or a h...

Mon, 22 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The modern world is large and interconnected, and there are a lot of systems that might be important...

Mon, 15 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Is there a multiverse, and if so, how should we think of ourselves within it? In many modern cosmolo...

Mon, 08 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the May 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...

Mon, 01 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

What is the mind, and what does it try to do? An overly simplified materialist view might be that th...

Mon, 24 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Eukaryotic cells manage to pull off a number of remarkable feats. One is packing quite a long DNA mo...

Mon, 17 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Here at the Mindscape Podcast, we are firmly pro-reason. But what does that mean, fundamentally and ...

Mon, 10 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

If you knew exactly when every person was going to die, or require medical care, you could make a ki...

Mon, 03 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the April 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...

Mon, 27 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Human beings are small compared to the universe, but we're very important to ourselves. Humanism can...

Mon, 20 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to another episode of Sean Carroll's Mindscape. Today, we're joined by Raphaël Millière, a...

Mon, 13 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Every time our brain does some thinking, there are associated physical processes. In particular, ele...

Mon, 06 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the March 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...

Mon, 27 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

God is dead, as Nietzsche’s madman memorably reminded us. So what are we going to do about it? If ...

Mon, 20 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Most of us strive to be good, moral people. When we are doing that striving, what is happening in ou...

Mon, 13 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Cities are incredibly important to modern life, and their importance is only growing. As Geoffr...

Mon, 06 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the February 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...

Mon, 30 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Human beings have developed wondrous capacities to take in information about the world, mull it over...

Mon, 23 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

So you have some information — how are you going to share it with and present it to the rest of th...

Mon, 16 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations conc...

Mon, 09 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports qu...

Mon, 02 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

One of the most powerful of all human capacities is the ability to imagine ourselves in hypothetical...

Mon, 19 Dec

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to that beloved Mindscape annual tradition, the Holiday Message. An opportunity for a quicke...

Mon, 12 Dec

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Life is rich with moments of uncertainty, where we’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen ne...

Mon, 05 Dec

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the December 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...

Mon, 28 Nov

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It’s easy enough to proclaim that we are curious creatures, but what does that really mean? What k...

Mon, 21 Nov

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Stephen Hawking’s discoveries of black hole radiation, entropy, and the information-loss problem h...

Mon, 14 Nov

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Why do people voluntarily hand over authority to a government? Under what conditions should&nbs...

Mon, 07 Nov

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the November 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...

Mon, 31 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from cal...

Mon, 24 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The founders of statistical mechanics in the 19th century faced an uphill battle to convince their f...

Mon, 17 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It’s a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe...

Mon, 10 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the October 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funde...

Mon, 03 Oct

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

With communication satellites, weather satellites, GPS, and much more, what happens in space is alre...

Mon, 26 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling black holes by the LIGO and Virgo collaboratio...

Mon, 19 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

My little pandemic-lockdown contribution to the world was a series of videos called T...

Mon, 12 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

What’s the fastest way to get a human being around a racetrack, if we ignore all the rules of raci...

Mon, 05 Sep

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

People throughout history have imagined ideal societies of various sorts. As the twentieth century d...

Mon, 29 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the September 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fun...

Mon, 22 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

There is no human endeavor that does not have a theory of it — a set of ideas about what makes it ...

Mon, 15 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

It’s always a little humbling to think about what affects your words and actions might have on oth...

Mon, 08 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Evolution by natural selection is one of the rare scientific theories that resonates within the wide...

Mon, 01 Aug

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the August 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded...

Mon, 25 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The idea of an “interest rate” might seem mundane and practical, in comparison to our usual topi...

Mon, 18 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Recent years have seen a revolution in the study of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than ...

Mon, 11 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

We describe the world using language — we can’t help it. And we all know that ordinary language ...

Mon, 04 Jul

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the July 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded b...

Mon, 27 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The United States is suffering from an epidemic of tragic gun violence. While a political debate rag...

Mon, 20 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

All of us construct models of the world, and update them on the basis of evidence brought to us by o...

Mon, 13 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the June 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! We are inaugurating a slightly differ...

Mon, 06 Jun

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The 200th episode of Mindscape! Thanks to everyone for sticking around for this long. To celebrate, ...

Mon, 30 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Time is everywhere, pervading each aspect of intellectual inquiry — from physics to philosophy to ...

Mon, 23 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The origin of life here on Earth was an important and fascinating event, but it was also a long time...

Mon, 16 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The concept of the city is a crucial one for human civilization: people living in proximity, bringin...

Thu, 12 May 2022 14:39:23 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the May 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by...

Mon, 09 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

To say that event A causes event B is to not only make a claim about our actual ...

Mon, 02 May

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Evolution has equipped species with a variety of ways to travel through the air — flapping, glidin...

Mon, 25 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Humans are related to all other species here on Earth, but some are closer relatives than others. Pr...

Mon, 18 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Every time we make an important decision, it’s hard not to wonder how things would have turned out...

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 17:15:52 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the April 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...

Mon, 11 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Randomness and probability are central to modern physics. In statistical mechanics this is because w...

Mon, 04 Apr

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

The future grows out of the present, but it manages to consistently surprise us. How can we get bett...

Mon, 28 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Biological organisms are pretty good at healing themselves, but their abilities fall short in crucia...

Mon, 21 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

All societies grant more power to some citizens, and there is always a temptation to use that power ...

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 15:08:33 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the March 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded ...

Mon, 14 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

If extraterrestrial life is out there — not just microbial slime, but big, complex, macroscopic or...

Mon, 07 Mar

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

We’re pretty well-calibrated when it comes to dealing with common, everyday-level setbacks. But ou...

Mon, 28 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Advances in technology have gradually been extending the human self beyond its biological extent, as...

Mon, 21 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain appa...

Mon, 14 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Artificial intelligence is everywhere around us. Deep-learning algorithms are used to classify image...

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 18:08:37 -0000

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Welcome to the February 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are fund...

Mon, 07 Feb

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Modern particle physics is a victim of its own success. We have extremely good theories — so good ...

Mon, 31 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Reality is just out there — but how we perceive reality and talk about it depends on choices we hu...

Mon, 24 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

A good story takes you on an emotional journey, with ups and downs along the way. Thanks to science,...

Mon, 17 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Being a human is tricky. There are any number of unwritten rules and social cues that we have to lea...

Mon, 10 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Human beings like to divide themselves into groups, and then cooperate, socialize, and reproduce wit...

Mon, 03 Jan

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

Are numbers real? What does that even mean? You can’t kick a number. But you can talk about number...

Mon, 20 Dec

Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset

As each December comes to a close, we wrap up another year of podcasts with the Mindscape Holiday Me...