Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
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.
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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 f
The number of neurons in the human brain is comparable to the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Unlike the stars, however, in the case of neurons the real action is in how they are directly connected to each other: receiving signals over synapses via their dendrites, and when appropriately triggered, sending sig
Welcome to the December 2024 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 a
Not too long ago, Brad Pitt and Eric Bana starred in a (loose) adaptation of Homer's epic poem The Iliad; next month, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche will headline a film based on The Odyssey. Given that the originals were written (or at least written down) in the 8th century BCE, that is some impressive staying pow
Brandon Ogbunu on Fitness Seascapes and the Course of Evolution
Biological evolution via natural selection is a simple idea that becomes enormously complicated in its realization. Populations of organisms are driven toward increased "fitness," a measure of how successfully we reproduce our genetic information. But fitness is a subtle concept, changing with time and environment and
Emergence is a centrally important concept in science and philosophy. Indeed, the existence of higher-level emergent properties helps render the world intelligible to us -- we can sensibly understand the macroscopic world around us without a complete microscopic picture. But there are various different ways in which em
