Best Bousso Podcasts (2023)

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

1
230 | Raphaël Millière on How Artificial Intelligence Thinks 1:57:52

32m ago1:57:52

1:57:52

Welcome to another episode of Sean Carroll's Mindscape. Today, we're joined by Raphaël Millière, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Columbia University. We'll be exploring the fascinating topic of how artificial intelligence thinks and processes information. As AI becomes increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, it's important to understand…

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

1
229 | Nita Farahany on Ethics, Law, and Neurotechnology 1:11:59

1h ago1:11:59

1:11:59

Every time our brain does some thinking, there are associated physical processes. In particular, electric currents and charged particles jump between neurons, creating associated electromagnetic fields. These fields can in principle be detected with proper technology, opening the possibility for reading your mind. That technology is currently primi…

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

1
AMA | March 2023 3:01:08

3d ago3:01:08

3:01:08

Welcome to the March 2023 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 questio…

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

1
228 | Skye Cleary on Existentialism and Authenticity 1:16:43

10d ago1:16:43

1:16:43

God is dead, as Nietzsche’s madman memorably reminded us. So what are we going to do about it? If there is no powerful force out there to guide us and give meaning to our lives, how are we supposed to live? Do we have to come up with meaning and purpose ourselves? Apparently so, and how to pull it off was a major question addressed by the existenti…

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

1
227 | Molly Crockett on the Psychology of Morality 1:11:47

17d ago1:11:47

1:11:47

Most of us strive to be good, moral people. When we are doing that striving, what is happening in our brains? Some of our moral inclinations seem pretty automatic and subconscious. Other times we have to sit down and deploy our full cognitive faculties to reason through a tricky moral dilemma. I talk with psychologist Molly Crockett about where our…

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

1
226 | Johanna Hoffman on Speculative Futures of Cities 1:12:37

24d ago1:12:37

1:12:37

Cities are incredibly important to modern life, and their importance is only growing. As Geoffrey West points out, the world is adding urban areas equivalent to the population of San Francisco once every four days. How those areas get designed and structured is a complicated interplay between top-down planning and the collective choices of millions…

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

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AMA | February 2023 3:07:34

1M ago3:07:34

3:07:34

Welcome to the February 2023 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 ques…

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

1
225 | Michael Tomasello on The Social Origins of Cognition and Agency 1:22:00

1M ago1:22:00

1:22:00

Human beings have developed wondrous capacities to take in information about the world, mull it over, think about a suite of future implications, and decide on a course of action based on those deliberations. These abilities developed over evolutionary history for a variety of reasons and under a number of different pressures. But one crucially imp…

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

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Wondery Presents: Frozen Head 3:46

1M ago3:46

3:46

Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid. When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belie…

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

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224 | Edward Tufte on Data, Design, and Truth 1:16:19

2M ago1:16:19

1:16:19

So you have some information — how are you going to share it with and present it to the rest of the world? There has been a long history of organizing and displaying information without putting too much thought into it, but Edward Tufte has done an enormous amount to change that. Beginning with The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and co…

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

1
223 | Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are 1:10:45

2M ago1:10:45

1:10:45

There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations concerning what happens, and when what we experience differs from those expectations, we want to know the reason why. There are obvious philosophy questions here: What is an explanation? Do explanations bottom out, or go forever? But there are also psych…

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

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Introducing SUSPECT: Vanished in the Snow 6:21

2M ago6:21

6:21

For more than three and a half decades, the disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews was a mystery – a riddle neither authorities nor her family members could solve. The residents of her cloistered Colorado hometown had scoured every inch of prairie. Jonelle’s face had been on milk cartons nationwide. Even the President of the United States ha…

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

1
222 | Andrew Strominger on Quantum Gravity and the Real World 1:24:38

2M ago1:24:38

1:24:38

Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports quantum mechanics, and supports general relativity — but it’s only inspiration, not detailed guidance. So it’s easy to “do research on quantum gravity” and get lost in a world of toy models and mathematical abstraction. Today’s guest, Andrew Strominger, …

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

1
221 | Adam Bulley on How Mental Time Travel Makes Us Human 1:20:42

3M ago1:20:42

1:20:42

One of the most powerful of all human capacities is the ability to imagine ourselves in hypothetical situations at different times. We can remember the past, but also conjure up possible futures that haven’t yet happened. This simple ability underlies our capability to organize socially and make contracts with other people. Today’s guest, psycholog…

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

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Holiday Message 2022: Thinking Really Slowly 47:51

3M ago47:51

47:51

Welcome to that beloved Mindscape annual tradition, the Holiday Message. An opportunity for a quicker and less-well-thought-out solo episode to round off another year. Ironically, this year the theme is the importance of slowing down and thinking things out really well! Illustrated by two things that have been on my mind: a couple of internet/tech …

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

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220 | Lara Buchak on Risk and Rationality 1:16:52

3M ago1:16:52

1:16:52

Life is rich with moments of uncertainty, where we’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen next. We often find ourselves in situations where we have to choose between different kinds of uncertainty; maybe one option is very likely to have a “pretty good” outcome, while another has some probability for “great” and some for “truly awful.” In such …

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

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AMA | December 2022 3:15:31

3M ago3:15:31

3:15:31

Welcome to the December 2022 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 ques…

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

1
219 | Dani Bassett and Perry Zurn on the Neuroscience and Philosophy of Curiosity 1:02:32

3M ago1:02:32

1:02:32

It’s easy enough to proclaim that we are curious creatures, but what does that really mean? What kinds of curiosity are there? And how does curiosity arise in our brains? Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett are a philosopher and neuroscientist, respectively (as well as twins), whose new book Curious Minds: The Power of Connection explores these questions t…

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

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218 | Raphael Bousso on Black Holes and the Holographic Universe 1:21:41

4M ago1:21:41

1:21:41

Stephen Hawking’s discoveries of black hole radiation, entropy, and the information-loss problem have both taught us an enormous amount about the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity, and also left us with some knotty puzzles. One major insight is the holographic principle: the information describing a black hole can be thought of as …

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

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217 | Margaret Levi on Moral Political Economy 1:21:16

4M ago1:21:16

1:21:16

Why do people voluntarily hand over authority to a government? Under what conditions should they do so? These questions are both timeless and extremely timely, as modern democratic governments struggle with stability and legitimacy. They also bring questions from moral and political philosophy into conversations with empirically-minded social scien…

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

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AMA | November 2022 3:00:13

4M ago3:00:13

3:00:13

Welcome to the November 2022 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 ques…

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

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216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy 1:10:34

4M ago1:10:34

1:10:34

People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from calculating a tip at a restaurant to estimating the probability of some future event. But many people find the subject intimidating, if not off-putting. John Allen Paulos has long been working to make mathematics more approachable and encourage people t…

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

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215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld 1:34:29

5M ago1:34:29

1:34:29

The founders of statistical mechanics in the 19th century faced an uphill battle to convince their fellow physicists that the laws of thermodynamics could be derived from the random motions of microscopic atoms. This insight turns out to be even more important than they realized: the emergence of patterns characterizing our macroscopic world relies…

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

3401
214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe 1:15:50

5M ago1:15:50

1:15:50

It’s a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe it. There are roughly 10^22 stars in the observable universe, and about 10^88 particles altogether. But these numbers are nothing compared to some of the truly ginormous quantities that mathematicians have found to talk about, with inscrutable names l…

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

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AMA | October 2022 3:01:16

5M ago3:01:16

3:01:16

Welcome to the October 2022 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 quest…

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1
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Sean Carroll | Wondery

1
230 | Raphaël Millière on How Artificial Intelligence Thinks 1:57:52

1
229 | Nita Farahany on Ethics, Law, and Neurotechnology 1:11:59

1
AMA | March 2023 3:01:08

1
228 | Skye Cleary on Existentialism and Authenticity 1:16:43

1
227 | Molly Crockett on the Psychology of Morality 1:11:47

1
226 | Johanna Hoffman on Speculative Futures of Cities 1:12:37

1
AMA | February 2023 3:07:34

1
225 | Michael Tomasello on The Social Origins of Cognition and Agency 1:22:00

1
Wondery Presents: Frozen Head 3:46

1
224 | Edward Tufte on Data, Design, and Truth 1:16:19

1
223 | Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are 1:10:45

1
Introducing SUSPECT: Vanished in the Snow 6:21

1
222 | Andrew Strominger on Quantum Gravity and the Real World 1:24:38

1
221 | Adam Bulley on How Mental Time Travel Makes Us Human 1:20:42

1
Holiday Message 2022: Thinking Really Slowly 47:51

1
220 | Lara Buchak on Risk and Rationality 1:16:52

1
AMA | December 2022 3:15:31

1
219 | Dani Bassett and Perry Zurn on the Neuroscience and Philosophy of Curiosity 1:02:32

1
218 | Raphael Bousso on Black Holes and the Holographic Universe 1:21:41

1
217 | Margaret Levi on Moral Political Economy 1:21:16

1
AMA | November 2022 3:00:13

1
216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy 1:10:34

1
215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld 1:34:29

3401
214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe 1:15:50

1
AMA | October 2022 3:01:16

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