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

Sean Carroll | Wondery

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Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle

1/19/2026 • 72 min

"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 Ma… Play episode

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters
Ned Block on Whether Consciousness Requires Biology
Holiday Message 2025 | The Romance of the University
AMA | December 2025
Ryan Patterson on the Physics of Neutrinos
Kevin Zollman on Game Theory, Signals, and Meaning
Anil Ananthaswamy on the Mathematics of Neural Nets and AI
AMA | November 2025
Andrew Jaffe on Models, Probability, and the Universe
Daniel Whiteson on the Physics of and by Aliens
Gordon Pennycook on Unthinkingness, Conspiracies, and What to Do About Them
Dmitri Tymoczko on the Mathematics Behind Music
AMA | October 2025
Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse
Petter Törnberg on the Dynamics of (Mis)Information
Steven Pinker on Rationality and Common Knowledge
Mary Roach on Replacing Parts of Our Bodies
AMA | September 2025
Cass Sunstein on Liberalism
Natalie Batalha on What We Know and Will Learn About Exoplanets
Alvy Ray Smith on Pixar, Pixels, and the Great Digital Convergence
Elizabeth Mynatt on Universities and the Importance of Basic Research
AMA | August 2025
Jacob Barandes on Indivisible Stochastic Quantum Mechanics
Philip Pettit on Language, Agency, Politics, and Freedom
David Tong on Open Questions in Quantum Field Theory
AMA | July 2025
Solo: Complexity and the Universe
Bryan Van Norden on Philosophy From the Rest of the World
Edward Miguel on the Developing Practice of Development Economics
Nicole Rust on Why Neuroscience Hasn't Solved Brain Disorders
AMA | June 2025
Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper
Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability
Karen Lloyd on the Deep Underground Biosphere
Eric Topol on the Changing Face of Medicine and Aging
AMA | May 2025
Thomas Levenson on the Mutual History of Humans and Germs
Annaka Harris on Whether Consciousness is Fundamental
AMA | April 2025
Marc Kamionkowski on Dark Energy and Cosmic Anomalies
Christof Koch on Consciousness and Integrated Information
Alison Gopnik on Children, AI, and Modes of Thinking
AMA | March 2025
Kevin Peterson on the Theory of Cocktails
Helen Czerski on Our Energetic Oceans
Lilliana Mason on Polarization and Political Psychology
Bonus | Cuts to Science Funding and Why They Matter
James Evans on Innovation, Consolidation, and the Science of Science

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