Loading...

PODCAST

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

Ever wanted to know how music affects your brain, what quantum mechanics really is, or how black holes work? Do you wonder why you get emotional each time you see a certain movie, or how on earth video games are designed? Then you"ve come to the right place. Each week, Sean Carroll will host conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the world. From neuroscientists and engineers to authors and television producers, Sean and his guests talk about the biggest ideas in science,

science physics

All Episodes

01:26:42

354 | Christian List on Free Will and Levels of Reality

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/05/18

Did I have any freedom in choosing this particular podcast guest? At the level of particles, fields, and the fundamental laws of physics; no. At the level of human agents navigating the world, yes. Today's guest, Christian List, is a philosopher and political scientist who has arguably done the most to articulate the "compatibilist" perspective on free will, according to which the freedom of rational agents is entirely compatible with underlying mechanistic laws. The reconciliation depends on

en

01:11:44

353 | Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/05/11

Economic markets are efficient ways of deciding fair prices, at least in ideal circumstances of perfect competition, information, and choice. But there is more to life than fair prices. Two people might decide on a fair price to carry out a contract killing, but society generally frowns on the idea. Many examples of morally contestable markets feature less consensus than that one: sex work, drugs, selling organs, adopting children. In his new book Moral Economics, economist Alvin Roth

en

01:14:10

352 | Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/04/27

The connectome is the wiring diagram of a brain, a big matrix that tells us what neurons talk to what other neurons. Understanding it is an important step to understanding how brains work, but a long way from the final answer. A big next step is understanding how neuronal circuits connect to and guide bodily behavior. Very recent work on mapping the fruit-fly connectome has brought us closer to that goal. I talk with neuroscientist Bing Brunton about the connectome, how we can study it to

en

01:25:33

349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/03/30

There is something special about gravity. After decades of effort, there is still no convergence on the right way to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity with the framework of quantum mechanics. But a number of intriguing ideas have arisen along the way, including black hole radiation, the wave function of the universe, the AdS/CFT correspondence, and the role of quantum information theory. Theoretical physicist Daniel Harlow has made significant contributions to our understanding

en

03:53:23

AMA | March 2026

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/03/02

Welcome to the March 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy! Get twenty percent off your first purchase

en

01:34:44

345 | Adam Elga on Being Rational in a Very Large...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/02/23

Behaving rationally involves facing up to conditions of uncertainty; we never navigate the world with perfect confidence. Sometimes we are uncertain about the way the world is, but we can also be uncertain about our place within the world. This kind of situation arises in cosmology (where the relevant world can extend very far in space or time), and also in quantum mechanics (where new worlds might be created at any measurement), but also when we are simply unsure about the future history of

en

01:19:14

343 | Tom Griffiths on The Laws of Thought

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/02/09

For all that human beings spend a lot of their time thinking, it's far from obvious what that process actually entails. Part of it amounts to classical logical reasoning. But an even bigger part involves reasoning with probability and uncertainty. And some of it is governed by unavoidable limitations on time and accuracy. Psychologist and computer scientist Tom Griffiths suggests that we have thought about it enough to feel that we have come to understand some general principles, which he

en

03:10:20

AMA | Feb 2026

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/02/02

Welcome to the February 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy! Blog post with AMA questions and transcript:

en

01:18:16

340 | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/01/12

I talk with philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein about what it means for us to matter to ourselves and others.

en

01:11:01

339 | Ned Block on Whether Consciousness Requires...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2026/01/05

I talk with philosopher Ned Block about whether machines can ever truly be conscious.

en

01:26:21

338 | Ryan Patterson on the Physics of Neutrinos

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/12/08

I talk with physicist Ryan Patterson about how we detect neutrinos and what we have learned from them.

en

01:17:37

337 | Kevin Zollman on Game Theory, Signals, and Meaning

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/12/01

I talk with philosopher Kevin Zollman about how game theory helps us understand the human and biological worlds.

en

01:14:11

336 | Anil Ananthaswamy on the Mathematics of Neural...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/11/24

Machine learning using neural networks has led to a remarkable leap forward in artificial intelligence, and the technological and social ramifications have been discussed at great length. To understand the origin and nature of this progress, it is useful to dig at least a little bit into the mathematical and algorithmic structures underlying these techniques. Anil Ananthaswamy takes up this challenge in his book Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI. In this conversation we give a

en

01:17:38

335 | Andrew Jaffe on Models, Probability, and the...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/11/10

I talk with cosmologist Andrew Jaffe about how models and probability help us make sense of the cosmos.

en

01:12:01

330 | Petter Törnberg on the Dynamics of...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/09/29

I talk with computational social scientist Petter Törnberg about the dynamics of online information.

en

01:07:20

328 | Mary Roach on Replacing Parts of Our Bodies

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/09/15

I talk with author Mary Roach about the science of replacing human body parts.

en

03:30:04

AMA | September 2025

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/09/08

Ask Me Anything episode for September 2025

en

01:10:15

327 | Cass Sunstein on Liberalism

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/09/01

I talk with legal scholar Cass Sunstein about liberalism, broadly construed, and modern challenges to it.

en

01:12:12

326 | Natalie Batalha on What We Know and Will Learn...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/08/25

I talk with planetary scientist Natalie Batalha about exoplanets, their atmospheres and other properties, and future prospects.

en

01:26:40

325 | Alvy Ray Smith on Pixar, Pixels, and the Great...

Sean Carroll"s Mindscape: Science, Society,... ·

2025/08/18

I talk with Alvy Ray Smith about the birth of Pixar and the pixelization of human knowledge.

en

429 results

Similar Podcasts

The Deep Dive Lab: Unraveling Materials Science

Son Hoang

New Books in Political Science

New Books Network

Station 151

Pale Matter | Realm

Beyond the Divide

Koala Moon

StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson