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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

01:50:26

63 | Solo -- Finding Gravity Within Quantum Mechanics

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

2019/09/09

A solo episode explaining the idea that we shouldn't be trying to quantize gravity, we should be trying to find gravity within quantum mechanics.

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01:12:16

62 | Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Societies and...

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

2019/09/02

I talk with psychologist Michele Gelfand about the differences between tight and loose societies, and how to live within them.

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01:10:12

61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to...

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

2019/08/26

I talk with philosopher Quassim Cassam about intellectual vices -- personal attributes that needlessly prevent us from being correct.

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01:15:38

60 | Lynne Kelly on Memory Palaces, Ancient and Modern

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

2019/08/19

I talk with memory expert Lynne Kelly about the use of memory palaces, both today and in prehistoric societies.

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01:40:09

59 | Adam Becker on the Curious History of Quantum...

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

2019/08/12

I talk with Adam Becker about how and why physicists in the 20th century abandoned the idea of trying to understand quantum mechanics.

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01:12:14

58 | Seth MacFarlane on Using Science Fiction to...

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

2019/08/05

I talk with Seth MacFarlane about his episodic science fiction show, The Orville, and its use of allegory to explore real-world situations.

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01:23:53

57 | Astra Taylor on the Promise and Challenge of...

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

2019/07/29

A conversation with filmmaker, author, and activist Astra Taylor, on what democracy is and why it matters.

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01:12:02

56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life

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

2019/07/22

A conversation with synthetic biologist Kate Adamala on constructing artificial cells, and what that tells us about life on Earth and elsewhere.

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01:26:16

55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum...

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

2019/07/15

I am interviewed by Rob Reid about quantum mechanics and the Many-Worlds formulation.

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01:15:11

54 | Indre Viskontas on Music and the Brain

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

2019/07/08

It doesn’t mean much to say music affects your brain — everything that happens to you affects your brain. But music affects your brain in certain specific ways, from changing our mood to helping us learn. As both a neuroscientist and an opera singer, Indre Viskontas is the ideal person to talk about the relationship between music and the brain. Her new book, How Music Can Make You Better, digs into why we love music, how it can unite and divide us, and how music has a special impact on the very

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02:05:18

53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

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

2019/07/01

What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we might appeal to the instructions we get from God, but a modern naturalist has to look elsewhere. Today I do a rare solo podcast, where I talk both about my personal views on morality, a variety of “constructivism” according to which human beings construct their ethical stances starting from basic impulses, logical reasoning, and communicating with others. In light of this view, I consider two

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01:04:39

52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games

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

2019/06/24

Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers and our phones, watch other people compete in games, and occasionally break out the cards or the Monopoly set. What is the origin of this human impulse, and what makes for a great game? Frank Lantz is both a working game designer and an academic who thinks about the nature of games and gaming. We discuss what games are, contrast the challenges of Go and Poker and other games, and investigate both the

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01:31:52

51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and...

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

2019/06/17

Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, whether there was a period of inflation, the evolution of structure, and so on. But there are also even deeper questions, having to do with why there is a universe at all, and why the early universe had low entropy, that most working cosmologists don’t address. Today’s guest, Anthony Aguirre, is an exception. We talk about these deep issues, and how tackling them might lead to a very different

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01:12:08

50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and...

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

2019/06/10

It’s fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have an inner voice that keeps offering opinions about how we should behave ourselves: our conscience. Where did that come from? Today’s guest, Patricia Churchland, is a philosopher and neuroscientist, one of the founders of the subfield of “neurophilosophy.” We dig into the neuroscience of it all, especially how neurochemicals like oxytocin affect our attitudes and behaviors. But we also explore the

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01:54:29

49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and...

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

2019/06/03

It’s easy to be cynical about humanity’s present state and future prospects. But we have made it this far, and in some ways we’re doing better than we used to be. Today’s guest, Nicholas Christakis, is an interdisciplinary researcher who studies human nature from a variety of perspectives, including biological, historical, and philosophical. His most recent book is Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, in which he tries to pinpoint the common features of all human societies,

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01:11:04

48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation

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

2019/05/27

If you’re bad, we are taught, you go to Hell. Who in the world came up with that idea? Some will answer God, but for the purpose of today’s podcast discussion we’ll put that possibility aside and look into the human origins and history of the idea of Hell. Marq de Villiers is a writer and journalist who has authored a series of non-fiction books, many on science and the environment. In Hell & Damnation, he takes a detour to examine the manifold ways in which societies have imagined the afterlife

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01:38:15

47 | Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in...

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

2019/05/20

Most people in the modern world — and the vast majority of Mindscape listeners, I would imagine — agree that humans are part of the animal kingdom, and that all living animals evolved from a common ancestor. Nevertheless, there are ways in which we are unique; humans are the only animals that stress out over Game of Thrones (as far as I know). I talk with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about what makes us human, and how we got that way, both biologically and culturally. One big

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01:06:44

46 | Kate Darling on Our Connections with Robots

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

2019/05/13

Most of us have no trouble telling the difference between a robot and a living, feeling organism. Nevertheless, our brains often treat robots as if they were alive. We give them names, imagine that they have emotions and inner mental states, get mad at them when they do the wrong thing or feel bad for them when they seem to be in distress. Kate Darling is a research at the MIT Media Lab who specializes in social robotics, the interactions between humans and machines. We talk about why we cannot help

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01:13:35

45 | Leonard Susskind on Quantum Information, Quantum...

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

2019/05/06

For decades now physicists have been struggling to reconcile two great ideas from a century ago: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We don’t yet know the final answer, but the journey has taken us to some amazing places. A leader in this quest has been Leonard Susskind, who has helped illuminate some of the most mind-blowing ideas in quantum gravity: the holographic principle, the string theory landscape, black-hole complementarity, and others. He has also become celebrated as a writer,

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01:12:26

44 | Antonio Damasio on Feelings, Thoughts, and the...

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

2019/04/29

When we talk about the mind, we are constantly talking about consciousness and cognition. Antonio Damasio wants us to talk about our feelings. But it’s not in an effort to be more touchy-feely; Damasio, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, believes that feelings generated by the body are a crucial part of how we achieve and maintain homeostasis, which in turn is a key driver in understanding who we are. His most recent book, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of

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