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

By: Sean Carroll | Wondery
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  • Summary

  • 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 2018
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Philosophy Physics Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • 300 | Solo: Does Time Exist?

    300 | Solo: Does Time Exist?
    Jan 6 2025

    A new year, and a new centennial -- 300 (regularly-numbered) episodes of Mindscape! Our tradition is to have a solo episode, and what better topic than the nature of time? Physicists and philosophers have so frequently suggested that time is some kind of illusion that it's become almost passé to believe that it might be fundamental. This is an issue where, despite the form of the question, physics has important things to say that most philosophers haven't yet caught up to. I will talk about ideas from quantum mechanics and quantum gravity that bear on the question of whether time is emergent or fundamental, and the implications of each possibility.

    Support Mindscape on Patreon.

    Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/01/06/300-solo-does-time-exist/

    Some of the papers discussed herein:

    • Carroll (2008), "What If Time Really Exists?"
    • Dyson, Kleban, and Susskind (2002), "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant."
    • Albrecht and Sorbo (2004), "Can the Universe Afford Inflation?"
    • Boddy, Carroll, and Pollack (2014), "De Sitter Space Without Dynamical Quantum Fluctuations."
    • Lloyd (2016), "Decoherent Histories Approach to the Cosmological Measure Problem."
    • Page and Wootters (1983), "Evolution Without Evolution: Dynamics Described by Stationary Observables."
    • Albrecht (1994), "The Theory of Everything vs the Theory of Anything."
    • Albrecht and Iglesias (2007), "The Clock Ambiguity and the Emergence of Physical Laws."


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    2 hrs and 12 mins
  • Holiday Message | Hits and Misses

    Holiday Message | Hits and Misses
    Dec 23 2024
    It's the end of the year, and time for our annual holiday break here at Mindscape. But as usual, we wrap up with a Holiday Message. This year, inspired by Joni Mitchell's "Hits" and "Misses" albums, I go through my scientific papers and talk about some of my favorites -- some of which were hits, in terms of making an impact on subsequent research, and some of which were misses by that standard. But I love them all! It's an excuse to talk about process -- how papers come to be, from the initial informal idea to sitting down and doing the work.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/12/23/holiday-message-hits-and-misses/Here are links to the papers I discuss in the episode.S.M. Carroll, G.B. Field and R. Jackiw, 1990, "Limits on A Lorentz and Parity-Violating Modification of Electrodynamics,'' Phys. Rev. D 41, 1231. [pdf file; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll, E. Farhi and A.H. Guth, 1992, "An Obstacle to Building a Time Machine,'' Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 263; Erratum: 68, 3368. [pdf file; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll, E. Farhi, A.H. Guth and K.D. Olum, 1994, "Energy-Momentum Restrictions on the Creation of Gott Time Machines,'' Phys. Rev. D 50, 6190; gr-qc/9404065. [arXiv; pdf; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll, 1998, "Quintessence and the Rest of the World,'' Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 3067; astro-ph/9806099. [arXiv; pdf; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll, V. Duvvuri, M. Trodden, and M.S. Turner, 2003, "Is Cosmic Speed-Up Due to New Gravitational Physics?'' astro-ph/0306438. [arXiv; pdf; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll and J. Chen, 2004, "Spontaneous Inflation and the Origin of the Arrow of Time'', hep-th/0410270. [arXiv, inSPIRE]L. Ackerman, M.R. Buckley, S.M. Carroll, and M. Kamionkowski, 2008, "Dark Matter and Dark Radiation," arxiv:0807.5126. [arXiv; pdf; inSPIRE]S.M. Carroll, M.C. Johnson, and L. Randall, 2009, "Dynamical Compactification," arxiv:0904.3115. [arXiv; pdf; inSPIRE]C. Cao, S.M. Carroll, and S. Michalakis, 2016, "Space from Hilbert Space: Recovering Geometry from Bulk Entanglement," arxiv:1606.08444. [arXiv, inSPIRE]C. Cao and S.M. Carroll, 2018, "Bulk Entanglement Gravity without a Boundary: Towards Finding Einstein's Equation in Hilbert Space," arxiv:1712.02803. [arXiv, inSPIRE]N. Bao, S.M. Carroll, A. Chatwin-Davies, J. Pollack, and G. Remmen, 2017, “Branches of the Black Hole Wave Function Need Not Contain Firewalls," arxiv:1712.04955. [arXiv, inSPIRE]See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    2 hrs and 1 min
  • 299 | Michael Wong on Information, Function, and the Origin of Life

    299 | Michael Wong on Information, Function, and the Origin of Life
    Dec 16 2024

    Living organisms seem exquisitely organized and complex, with features clearly adapted to serving certain functions needed to survive and procreate. Natural selection provides a compelling explanation for why that is so. But is there a bigger picture, a more general framework that explains the origin and evolution of functions and complexity in a world governed by uncaring laws of physics? I talk with planetary scientist and astrobiologist Michael Wong about how we can define what "functions" are and the role they play in the evolution of the universe.

    Support Mindscape on Patreon.

    Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/12/16/299-michael-wong-on-information-function-and-the-origin-of-life/

    Michael Wong received his Ph.D. in planetary science from Caltech. He is currently a Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Scienceʼs Earth & Planets Laboratory. He is in the process of co-authoring two books: A Missing Law: Evolution, Information, and the Inevitability of Cosmic Complexity with Robert M. Hazen, and a revised edition of Astrobiology: A Multidisciplinary Approach with Jonathan Lunine.

    • Web site
    • Carnegie web page
    • Strange New Worlds podcast
    • Wong et al. (2023), "On the Roles of Function and Selection in Evolving Systems."
    • Wong and Prabhu (2023), "Cells as the First Data Scientists."


    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    1 hr and 13 mins

What listeners say about Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

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Foundation of ideas

Sean Caroll is an amazing figure. He is a good moderator that is well-articulated with a sense of humor, humble that some popular science communicators lack (e.g. Neil deGrasse Tyson), not to mention his intelligence, and actively listens with a genuine sense of interest in ideas. Moreover, it seems that he can grasp the gist of ideas foreign to him in a short time, and, meanwhile, ask questions that audience a la laypeople egaer to know the answers thereof. A big bonus to me is that he loves philosophy and invites philosophers on the show. As for the content? The topic of each episode speaks for itself -interesting! No need to worry about the quality. But I don't recommend binge listening even though the series is arresting because rich and complex thoughts take time to sink in.

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The Ultimate Podcast for the Curious

Sean may not be widely popular perhaps because he dwells not in hypes and elusive ambitious statements - a trait most of his colleagues are known for. Here Professor Carroll leads the curious mind to explore many disciplines from "working" experts in the fields. No other science popularization and education podcast compares to Mindscape.

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Best Podcast

This is the best podcast In its space!

Sean has a brilliant mind and he does an amazing job of navigating conversations with those whom he didn doesn’t agree with.

Great for fans of Skeptics Guide or Sam Harris’ Making Sense (but w/out Sam’s particular set of biases). More science and philosophy, less pushing a set agenda.

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Came here for Robert Sapolsky ...

Stayed for Sean Carroll. I’m enjoying more than 70% of these podcasts. 3 more words needed.

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The Very Best

The very best of academia interviewed by one of the deepest thinkers of our time.

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My favorite podcast

I've been following the podcast for a while on Spotify, and was thrilled to find it here on Audible while looking for his books. Sean Carroll's ability to walk a lay audience through a wide range of difficult ideas is truly Asimovian.

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more sociology than game theory.. wonders

more sociology than game theory wonders from topic. should rel'llabel titlte or stick to subject not very good

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Loves to talk about himself

This guy is a bore in the true sense of the word. Spends more time than enough talking about himself, ego driven.

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