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Sean Carroll

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, philosophy, culture and much more.

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

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 explains in his new book The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of Mind.
 
Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code MINDSCAPE at this link and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/mindscape #sponsore
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/02/09/343-tom-griffiths-on-the-laws-of-thought/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Tom Griffiths received his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University. He is currently Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Princeton University, Director of the Computational Cognitive Science Lab, and Director of the Princeton Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence. He is the co-author of Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, as well as the upcoming The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources.
 
 Web site Princeton web page Google Scholar publications Wikipedia

343 | Tom Griffiths on The Laws of Thought

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: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/02/02/ama-february-2026/
 
Note that Mindscape now has a new hosting provider, Libsyn. (Actually a return home, as that was my first host when Mindscape was launched.) Things seem to be going smoothly, but let us know if there are any technical glitches.
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.

AMA | Feb 2026

Evolution with natural selection involves an intricate mix of the random and the driven. Mutations are essentially random, while selection pressures work to prefer certain outcomes over others. There is tremendous divergence of species over time, but also repeated convergence to forms and mechanisms that are unmistakably useful. We see this clearly in eyes and fins, but the basic pattern also holds for brains and forms of social organization. I talk with philosopher Rachell Powell about what these ideas mean for humans, other terrestrial species, and also for forms of life we have not yet encountered.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/26/342-rachell-powell-on-evolutionary-convergence-morality-and-mind/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Rachell Powell received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University. She is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. She has held fellowships at the National Humanities Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, the Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt University, and the Center for Genetic Engineering and Society at North Carolina State University.
 
 Boston University web page PhilPapers publications

342 | Rachell Powell on Evolutionary Convergence, Morality, and Mind

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," wrote W.B. Yeats. I don't know about the centre, but the tendency of things to fall apart is pretty universal, ultimately due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Anyone living in a society or involved with technology must therefore be interested in the concept of maintenance -- keeping systems working. In his book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, Stewart Brand looks at the challenges and rewards of this concept.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/19/341-stewart-brand-on-maintenance-as-an-organizing-principle/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Stewart Brand received an undergraduate degree in biology from Stanford University. He was the founder, editor, and publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, which won a National Book Award. He founded the journal CoEvolution Quarterly and the WELL electronic community, and was a co-founder of the Long Now Foundation. He has been called "the 20th century's top influencer."
 
 Web site Amazon author page Wikipedia

341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle

At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to matter -- to ourselves as well as to others? The need to matter can be motivation to do great things, but it can also be a reason for people to come into conflict. Philosopher/novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explores this issue in her new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/12/340-rebecca-newberger-goldstein-on-what-matters-and-why-it-matters/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. She is the author of several novels and works of non-fiction. Among her awards are the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Humanities Medal.
 
 Web site Amazon author page Wikipedia

340 | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters

It's become increasingly clear that the Turing Test -- determining whether human interlocutors can tell whether a conversation is being carried out by a human or a machine -- is not a good way to think about consciousness. Modern LLMs can mimic human conversation with extraordinary verisimilitude, but most people would not judge them to be conscious. What would it take? Is it even possible for a computer program to achieve consciousness, or must consciousness be fundamentally "meat-based"? Philosopher Ned Block has long argued that consciousness involves something more than simply the "functional" aspects of inputs and outputs.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/05/339-ned-block-on-whether-consciousness-requires-biology/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Ned Block received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. He is currently Silver Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University, with secondary appointments in Psychology and Neural Science. He is also co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. He is Past President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
 
 Web site NYU web page PhilPeople profile Google Scholar publications Wikipedia

339 | Ned Block on Whether Consciousness Requires Biology

Time for the holiday message! Rounding off the year with a brief and casual reflection on some issue that doesn't quite rise to the level of a full solo podcast. And hopefully something uplifting.
 
This year, I offer a short apologia for higher education in the liberal arts and sciences, focusing not on the down-to-earth economic/occupational benefits of a college degree, but on the very real ways in which such an education opens up possibilities for personal growth. I think all of us in academia should be loud and unapologetic about the more romantic, idealistic values of the modern university.
 
Happy holidays all!
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/22/holiday-message-2025-the-romance-of-the-university/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Holiday Message 2025 | The Romance of the University

Welcome to the December 2025 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.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/15/ama-december-2025/
 
In the intro I give a plug for the Pods Fight Poverty effort organized by GiveDirectly. Please consider making a donation to help families in Rwanda!
 
Enjoy!

AMA | December 2025

The story goes that Wolfgang Pauli, who first proposed the existence of neutrinos, was embarrassed to have done so, as it was considered uncouth to hypothesize new particles that could not be detected. Modern physicists have no such scruples, of course, but more importantly neutrinos turn out to be very detectable, given sufficient resources and experimental technique. I talk with neutrino physicist Ryan Patterson about what current and upcoming experiments teach us about neutrinos themselves, as well as implications for dark matter and why there are more particles than antiparticles in the universe.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/08/228-ryan-patterson-on-the-physics-of-neutrinos/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Ryan Patterson received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He is currently Professor of Physics at Caltech. His research involves a number of aspects of experimental neutrino physics, including involvement in the NOvA and DUNE experiments.
 
 Caltech web page Publications at inSpire

338 | Ryan Patterson on the Physics of Neutrinos

Game theory is a way of quantitatively describing what happens any time one thing interacts with another thing, when both things have goals and potential rewards. That's a pretty broad class of interesting events, so it is unsurprising that game theory is a useful way of thinking about everything from international relations to the evolution of peacock feathers. I talk with philosopher Kevin Zollman about what game theory is and how it gets used in biology and human interactions. We discuss how thinking in game-theoretic terms can help understand the origin of meaning and intentionality in human language.
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/01/337-kevin-zollman-on-game-theory-signals-and-meaning/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Kevin Zollman received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. He is currently the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and a visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. He serves as the Director of the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at CMU. He is the co-author, with Paul Raeburn, of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting.
 
 Web site CMU web page Google Scholar publications PhilPeople profile

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

The final Mindscape podcast of each year is devoted to a short, reflective Holiday Message. This year the theme is Immortality: whether it's an attractive idea, and whether the laws of physics and cosmology would allow for it in principle. (Spoiler: they do not.) Mindscape will return as usual on January 1, 2024. Happy holidays everyone!
 
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/12/18/holiday-message-2023-reflections-on-immortality/
 
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
 
Here are some of the stories and papers mentioned in the episode:
 
 Borges, "The Immortal" Barnes, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters The Good Place Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others Dyson, "Time Without End: Physics and Biology in an Open Universe"

Holiday Message: Reflections on Immortality

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