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

279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body

278 | Kieran Healy on the Technology of Ranking People

Listen Now: Wow in the World's Summer of Wow!

AMA | June 2024

277 | Cumrun Vafa on the Universe According to String Theory

276 | Gavin Schmidt on Measuring, Predicting, and Protecting Our Climate

This podcast episode explores the evidence of climate change and the advancements in climate modeling. It discusses the concept of attractors and their significance in understanding climate change. The episode also dives into temperature changes in Earth's history, the use of core samples to analyze past climate, the r...

275 | Solo: Quantum Fields, Particles, Forces, and Symmetries

AMA | May 2024

274 | Gizem Gumuskaya on Building Robots from Human Cells

273 | Stefanos Geroulanos on the Invention of Prehistory

This podcast episode explores the complex interplay between biases, storytelling, and the understanding of prehistory. It delves into the historical evolution of concepts such as the age of the Earth, origins of humanity, and human uniqueness. The episode also discusses how these ideas have been used to justify violenc...

272 | Leslie Valiant on Learning and Educability in Computers and People

This podcast episode explores the concept of educability and its significance in human cognition and machine learning. Turing Award-winning computer scientist Leslie Valiant proposes a new theory of human uniqueness based on educability, arguing that the ability to learn from experience, reason, and take instructions s...

AMA | April 2024

271 | Claudia de Rham on Modifying General Relativity

270 | Solo: The Coming Transition in How Humanity Lives

This podcast episode explores the concept of the technological singularity, phase transitions in physics, the future of biology, human consciousness, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. The speakers discuss the potential benefits and risks of these technological advancements and emphasize the nee...

269 | Sahar Heydari Fard on Complexity, Justice, and Social Dynamics

This podcast episode explores the role of complexity in understanding society. It discusses the concept of complexity in social systems, the stability and emergence of patterns, social change, equilibrium states, and the collective action problem. The episode also explores the role of game theory, communication, accoun...

AMA | March 2024

268 | Matt Strassler on Relativity, Fields, and the Language of Reality

267 | Benjamin Breen on Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and Utopia

266 | Christoph Adami on How Information Makes Sense of Biology

This podcast episode explores the groundbreaking work of Claude Shannon on information theory and its applications in various fields. The episode covers the relationship between information and entropy, the subjective and contextual nature of information, the relevance of information theory in biology, the connection b...

AMA | February 2024