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Mindscape provides a bridge to the biggest ideas in the universe, as shared by the most creative and intelligent thinkers. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns...
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Mindscape provides a bridge to the biggest ideas in the universe, as shared by the most creative and intelligent thinkers.
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and author of numerous books. Every week he talks to a guest who is a world expert in some fascinating subject, and they talk about it in a way that is both informal and deeply informative.
Learn about the complex dynamics of social systems, the mystery of quantum superposition, the origin of life and the search for it on other planets, and more.
show less
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and author of numerous books. Every week he talks to a guest who is a world expert in some fascinating subject, and they talk about it in a way that is both informal and deeply informative.
Learn about the complex dynamics of social systems, the mystery of quantum superposition, the origin of life and the search for it on other planets, and more.
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
10 AUG 2026 · 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: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/08/10/363-chandra-sripada-on-how-llms-and-humans-are-cognitive-cousins/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Chandra Sripada received an M.D. from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers University. He is currently a professor of philosophy and psychiatry at the University of Michigan, where he holds the Theophile Raphael Research Professorship and directs the Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science. He writes https://chandrasripada.substack.com/, a Substack newsletter about AI, cognitive science, and philosophy.
- https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sripada/
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8N_cfXsAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://philpeople.org/profiles/chandra-sekhar-sripada
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3 AUG 2026 · Welcome to the August 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll (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 https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.
27 JUL 2026 · 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: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/07/27/362-luis-bettencourt-on-the-universal-properties-of-self-organizing-cities/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Luis Bettencourt received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Imperial College London. He is currently the Lorna Puttkammer Straus Professor Department of Ecology and Evolution & Data Sciences Institute, as well as Associate Faculty and Special Friend in the Department of Sociology, at the University of Chicago. He is the author of https://www.semcoop.com/introduction-urban-science-evidence-and-theory-cities-complex-systems.
- https://www.luisbettencourt.com/
- https://eegraduate.uchicago.edu/faculty/luis-bettencourt-phd
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Cr-_ezcAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_M._A._Bettencourt
20 JUL 2026 · 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/07/20/361-bonnie-bassler-on-how-bacteria-talk-and-work-together/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Bonnie Bassler received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently Andrew K. Golden University Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among her awards are a MacArthur Fellowship, the Gruber Prize in Genetics, and the National Medal of Science.
- https://basslerlab.scholar.princeton.edu/
- https://molbio.princeton.edu/people/bonnie-l-bassler
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d1Jk5ecAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Bassler
13 JUL 2026 · Welcome to the July 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll (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 https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.
6 JUL 2026 · 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, https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Mind-Improves-Cognitive-Well-Being/dp/1668058782, 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: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/07/06/360-marc-berman-on-the-science-of-touching-grass/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Marc Berman received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan. He is currently Professor of Psychology and Faculty Co-Director of the Chicago Center for Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago. Among his awards is the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions.
- https://voices.uchicago.edu/bermanlab/
- https://psychology.uchicago.edu/directory/marc-g-berman
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zCT_0OQAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marc-G.-Berman/author/B0FHH7CN74?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1783334311&sr=8-1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=27f214f5-70ba-4383-aa19-ffdbf690c956
29 JUN 2026 · 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/06/29/359-solo-theories-of-dark-energy/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.
22 JUN 2026 · The most surprising discovery in fundamental physics during my career as a scientist was undoubtedly the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_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 the cosmological constant. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/06/22/358-solo-vacuum-energy-and-the-cosmological-constant/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.
15 JUN 2026 · 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: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/06/15/357-jeff-coller-on-mrna-vaccines-and-bespoke-therapeutics/ Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Jeff Coller received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-founder of Tevard Biosciences and the Alliance for mRNA Medicines, and leads the REPAIRx consortium. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- http://collerlab.org/
- https://www.bme.jhu.edu/people/faculty/jeff-coller/
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wSJc28sAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/opinion/genetic-editing-diseases-health-care.html
8 JUN 2026 · 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: https://andreawulf.com/2015/01/15/about-the-invention-of-nature/, about Alexander von Humboldt and environmentalism; https://andreawulf.com/2022/01/05/about-magnificent-rebels/, about the Jena circle of Romantics including Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, and others; and most recently https://andreawulf.com/2025/11/19/about-the-traveller/, about George Forster, an early naturalist, ethnographer, and champion of human equality. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/06/08/356-andrea-wulf-on-enlightenment-nature-romanticism-and-modernity/  Support Mindscape on https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll. Andrea Wulf was born in India, raised in Germany, and studied design history at the Royal College of Art, London. She is the author of seven books. She is a Miller Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The Invention of Nature won multiple prizes, including the Royal Society science book prize and the LA Times book prize.
- https://andreawulf.com/
- https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Wulf/author/B001HOE9U0?ccs_id=d24d6e84-c228-44fb-90df-a4c95d0ece22
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Wulf
Mindscape provides a bridge to the biggest ideas in the universe, as shared by the most creative and intelligent thinkers. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns...
show more
Mindscape provides a bridge to the biggest ideas in the universe, as shared by the most creative and intelligent thinkers.
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and author of numerous books. Every week he talks to a guest who is a world expert in some fascinating subject, and they talk about it in a way that is both informal and deeply informative.
Learn about the complex dynamics of social systems, the mystery of quantum superposition, the origin of life and the search for it on other planets, and more.
show less
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and author of numerous books. Every week he talks to a guest who is a world expert in some fascinating subject, and they talk about it in a way that is both informal and deeply informative.
Learn about the complex dynamics of social systems, the mystery of quantum superposition, the origin of life and the search for it on other planets, and more.
Information
| Author | Sean Carroll |
| Organization | Sean Carroll |
| Categories | Physics , Philosophy |
| Website | www.spreaker.com |
| podcast@preposterousuniverse.com |
Copyright 2026 - Spreaker Inc. an iHeartMedia Company
