AMA | December 2021
Wed, 15 Dec
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Mathematics is often thought of as the pinnacle of crisp precision: the square of the hypotenuse of ...
AMA | November 2021
Wed, 17 Nov
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Science and storytelling have a long and tumultuous relationship. Scientists sometimes want stories ...
171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology
Mon, 01 Nov
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Games are everywhere, but why exactly do we play them? It seems counterintuitive, to artificially in...
AMA | October 2021
Thu, 14 Oct 2021 16:39:26 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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 18:56:21 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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 14:12:52 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Any system in which politicians represent geographical districts with boundaries chosen by the polit...
AMA | June 2021
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 01:05:58 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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 01:16:01 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
“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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Mom, apple pie, and rationality — all things that are unquestionably good, right? But rationality,...
AMA | April 2021
Wed, 14 Apr
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
“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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
You might think that human beings, exhausted by competing for resources and rewards in the real worl...
AMA | March 2021
Wed, 10 Mar
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
In our postmodern world, studying the classics of ancient Greece and Rome can seem quaint at best, d...
AMA | February 2021
Wed, 17 Feb
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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 19:59:01 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Many characteristics go into making human beings special — brain size, opposable thumbs, etc. Sure...
AMA | December 2020
Wed, 09 Dec
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Time! It doesn’t stop, psychological effects of being under lockdown notwithstanding. How we exper...
AMA | November 2020
Fri, 20 Nov
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
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
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Human beings have a strange fascination with dangerous, predatory animals — bears, lions, wolves, ...