Podcast · Tech & Science

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

by Sean Carroll · English · Tech & Science

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…

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 24 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 3 hr 32 minNew

Ask Me Anything | October 2026

Welcome to the October 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 show notes, AMA questions, and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/10/12/ama-october-2026/ Listen or watch…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E370 · 3 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
370 | Daniel Akerib on a Faint Hint of Dark Matter
One reason it's been so hard to directly detect the dark matter is that we're not sure what it is. But for a long time, a leading candidate has been "Weakly Interacting Massive Particles" (WIMPs), so an impressive amount of experimental effort has been put into trying to detect them. Recently, a single provocative event appeared in the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter experiment. Daniel Akerib, a physicist at LZ, joins us to talk about dark matter and the recent data, which has low statistical significance but is intriguing nevertheless. Blog post with show notes and transcript:…
E369 · 28 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 24 min
369 | Gregg Caruso on Living Well Without Free Will
The worry about debates over free will is that they degenerate into semantics -- what do you mean by "free will," really? But there are important substantive issues that shouldn't be ignored. Do people deserve blame for doing wrong things? Can we make choices that create meaning for our lives? Philosopher Gregg Caruso denies the reality of free will, but is in favor of making good choices, as he discusses in his new book How to Live Well Without Free Will. Listen or watch Rolex Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts. #ad Blog post with transcript:…
E368 · 21 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
368 | Elizabeth Alexander on Why Democracy Needs Imagination
In all sorts of ways, the modern world makes it difficult to nurture our individual humanity and connect with the humanity of others. The disciplines that try to do so are, naturally enough, the humanities. Poet Elizabeth Alexander's new book, Signals Across Vast Distances , grapples with the question of how literature and other humanistic studies can help us build empathy and become better people, and why that task is crucial to a flourishing democratic society. Blog post with transcript:…
14 Sep 2026 · 3 hr 52 min
Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | September 2026
Welcome to the September 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 show notes and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/09/14/ama-september-2026/ Stop piecing your software…
E367 · 7 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 17 min
367 | Jared Diamond on the Course of History and the Role of leaders
The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of large groups of people, their biological and physical abilities, and their geographical and environmental contexts. Sometimes, it would seem, history -- or corporations, or religions, or sports teams -- can be affected by the actions of just a few influential persons. In his new book, Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings , Jared Diamond asks what effect leaders can have, and what it is that makes them successful (or not). Right now, Babbel is offering listeners who want to learn a new language…
E366 · 31 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
366 | Jim Al-Khalili on Time, Quantum, Biology, and Cosmology
Everyone lives through time, but we continue to struggle to fully understand it. We remain unsure whether time is fundamental or emergent, why it has an arrow pointing from past to future, and how that arrow connects to our experience of time's passage. Jim Al-Khalili's new book is On Time: The Physics that Makes the Universe Tick . We discuss what time is at the most basic level, and how it connects to open questions in biology, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. Mindscape listeners can try StatsKey Pro free for one month with code MINDSCAPE . After that, it's $4.99 per month unless…
E365 · 24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
365 | Vitor Cardoso on Why Black Holes Are Special
Black holes, as Stephen Hawking discovered, do grow old: they emit radiation, lose mass, and eventually evaporate away. But our fascination with black holes never grows old. This is especially true today, as we are seeing a flood of new data and intriguing theoretical ideas, which both tests the limits of Einstein's general relativity and teach us new things about the astrophysical universe. At the Center of Gravity at the University of Copenhagen, they are currently celebrating Black Hole Week , which provides an excellent opportunity to talk with Center director Vitor Cardoso about what…
E364 · 17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
364 | Stuart Firestein on How Science Relies on Ignorance and Failure
One of the paradoxes of science is that it seeks objectively true understanding of the world, but its methodology is driven by ignorance, failure, and uncertainty. Some phenomena we understand pretty well, but interesting research happens at the boundary of what we do and don't know. And there is no foolproof algorithm for moving in the right direction; we need to make conjectures and test them against the world. Biologist Stuart Firestein has been advocating for a better public understanding of the true methods of science, most recently in his new book It Could Be Otherwise: Science In the…
E363 · 10 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 52 min
363 | Chandra Sripada on How LLMs and Humans are Cognitive Cousins
Large Language Models display an uncanny ability to construct human-sounding speech, and can synthesize concepts in novel ways. Is this because they are truly thinking like human beings in some way, or have they found a way to be human-like without reproducing the internal mechanisms of human thought? Chandra Sripada argues that LLM cognition is more human-like than we suppose, and offers evidence from the ways that cognitive scientists study actual humans. Blog post with transcript:…
3 Aug 2026 · 3 hr 58 min
Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | August 2026
Welcome to the August 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 questions and full transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/08/03/ama-august-2026/ Support Mindscape on Patreon .
E362 · 27 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
362 | Luis Bettencourt on the Universal Properties of Self-Organizing Cities
People who live in large cities produce more patents per person than those who live in small towns. They also walk faster down the street, and use less infrastructure per person. Indeed, the relationships between these quantities and city population obey power laws with apparently universal exponents, reminiscent of scaling laws is biological organisms? Luis Bettencourt argues that they can be explained in similar ways, using ideas from complex systems and network theory. Blog post with transcript:…
E361 · 20 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
361 | Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Talk and Work Together
One of the characteristics of life is that living organisms gather information and put it to use. Even one of the simplest lifeforms, bacteria, are able to sense features of their surroundings and alter their behavior accordingly. Most impressively, they are able to sense the presence of similar bacteria by a process called quorum sensing . Today's guest, Bonnie Bassler, is a leader in this field, and explains how quorum sensing allows groups of bacteria to do things (including in our bodies) that wouldn't be possible for individual bacteria. Blog post with transcript:…
13 Jul 2026 · 4 hr 3 min
Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | July 2026
Welcome to the July 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 transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/07/13/ama-july-2026/ Support Mindscape on Patreon .
E360 · 6 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
360 | Marc Berman on the Science of Touching Grass
Modern life has, in many ways, removed us from the environments in which our ancestors lived and adapted. Not only do we spend time looking at screens, but we spend time indoors, or outdoors but in urban spaces. How does this affect how we think and feel? Psychologist Marc Berman is a pioneer of "environmental neuroscience." In his recent book, Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being , he presents evidence that spending time in nature not only puts us in a better mood, it makes us better thinkers. Blog post with transcript:…
E359 · 29 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 56 min
359 | Solo: Theories of Dark Energy
The cosmological constant, as discussed last episode, provides a perfectly good (thus far) explanation for why we observe the universe to be accelerating. But it might not be the right explanation, and demonstrating that would be yet another foundational discovery. In this episode I discuss what is required to invent a plausible theory of dynamical dark energy , This includes considerations from particle physics, possible experimental tests, and the option that we should modify gravity rather than adding a new source of energy to the equations. Blog post with transcript:…
E358 · 22 Jun 2026 · 2 hr
358 | Solo: Vacuum Energy and the Cosmological Constant
The most surprising discovery in fundamental physics during my career as a scientist was undoubtedly the acceleration of the universe , announced in 1998. The most straightforward explanation for these observations is a positive cosmological constant, or vacuum energy. I talk about the origin of the idea with Einstein, how quantum physicists started to think about it and understand the "cosmological constant problem," as well as how its discovery also raised the "coincidence problem." This is the first of two connected solo episodes; the next will be on theories of dark energy that are not…
E357 · 15 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
357 | Jeff Coller on mRNA, Vaccines, and Bespoke Therapeutics
Messenger RNA (mRNA) plays a literally central role in the functioning of life as we know it, shuttling information back and forth between the DNA where it is stored to the ribosome where it is used to produce proteins. RNA may even have been the first molecule to kick-start the origin of life. Today, scientists are learning how to manipulate mRNA to cure and prevent diseases, whether through vaccination or literally editing one's DNA. Jeff Coller explains how it all works and how mRNA is revolutionizing medicine as we know it. Blog post with transcript:…
E356 · 8 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 17 min
356 | Andrea Wulf on Enlightenment, Nature, Romanticism, and Modernity
All ideas have a history, no matter how inevitable and well-entrenched they may seem to us today. The later Enlightenment was a heady time when people were exploring new conceptions of nature, humanity, and the self. Andrea Wulf is a writer of narrative histories, examining the origins of ideas through the lives of the people who explored them. In this episode we discuss three of her books: The Invention of Nature , about Alexander von Humboldt and environmentalism; Magnificent Rebels , about the Jena circle of Romantics including Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, and others; and most recently The…
1 Jun 2026 · 3 hr 57 min
AMA | June 2026
Welcome to the June 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/2026/06/01/ama-june-2026/ New paper I talk about in the…
E355 · 24 May 2026 · 1 hr 44 min
355 | Solo: Looking Quantum Mechanics in the Eyeball
One of the major obstacles to understanding quantum mechanics is the difficulty we have in simply accepting what the theory itself is telling us. The problem is that we know what the everyday world looks like -- stuff, arranged in space, evolving through time. So we can't resist the temptation to impose that picture on the quantum description, even if it's not actually there. In this solo episode I talk about what it means to take quantum mechanics at face value, and the difficult work involved in understanding how the everyday world of our experience fits into the picture. Blog post with…
E354 · 18 May 2026 · 1 hr 27 min
354 | Christian List on Free Will and Levels of Reality
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 thinking carefully about emergence and the relationship between levels of reality. Take your…
E353 · 11 May 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
353 | Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally Contested Markets
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 investigates how we should reason through such tricky cases, and what we can learn from them. Get twenty…
4 May 2026 · 4 hr 6 min
AMA | May 2026
Welcome to the May 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 full transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/05/04/ama-may-2026/ Henson Shaving is offering…
E352 · 27 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
352 | Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to the Body
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 understand bodily motion in flies and other creatures, and where it's all taking us. Chubbies is here to…
E351 · 20 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures
Peter Singer has been an influential philosopher for a number of decades. He was a significant early voice in animal rights, has been a leading thinker of utilitarianism, and helped inspire the effective altruism movement. In this podcast episode, we try our best to talk about all of those things -- working from metaethical questions of consequentialism vs. other approaches, to specific flavors of utilitarianism, the practical demands that ethics places on people, the rights of animals, and the decisions we make at the end of our lives. Blog post with transcript:…
E350 · 13 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It
We are more familiar with ourselves than with anything else in the universe, but we generally don't come very close to really understanding what our "self" is. That's not too surprising, as selves are very complicated and we are burdened by all sorts of biases. Today's guest is J. Eric Oliver, who has been teaching a popular course at the University of Chicago called " The Intelligible Self ." His academic specialty is political science, but he brings together ideas from psychology, neuroscience, and a broad swath of the humanities. His view is summarized in his recent book, How to Know…
5 Apr 2026 · 3 hr 47 min
AMA | April 2026
Welcome to the April 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! Henson Shaving is offering 100 blades free with the purchase of a razor — just head to hensonshaving.com/MINDSCAPE and or use code MINDSCAPE at…
E349 · 30 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 26 min
349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics
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 of information loss in black holes; in this conversation we turn those insights onto quantum…
E348 · 23 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
348 | Jessica Riskin on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Life as Creative Agency
"Lamarkism" is a term often attached to a seemingly discredited idea in evolutionary biology: that one organism could acquire characteristics (e.g., becoming stronger through exercise) that would then be inherited by its descendants. This is a different story than the one ultimately told by the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology, according to which inheritance passes through our genome (which doesn't know that we've been working out). In her book The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , historian of science Jessica Riskin…

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

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas is a English tech & science podcast from Sean Carroll. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Sean Carroll
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 24 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1406534739
Website: preposterousuniverse.com/podcast

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