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

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.

Episodes

June 22, 2026 119 mins

The most surprising discovery in fundamental physics during my career as a scientist was undoubtedly the acceleration 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 a...

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Messenger RNA (mRNA) plays a literally central ro...

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All ideas have a history, no matter how inevitabl...

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June 1, 2026 237 mins

Welcome to the June 2026 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 questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a ...

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One of the major obstacles to understanding quant...

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Did I have any freedom in choosing this particula...

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Economic markets are efficient ways of deciding f...

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May 4, 2026 246 mins

Welcome to the May 2026 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 questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are abou...

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The connectome is the wiring diagram of a brain, ...

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Peter Singer has been an influential philosopher ...

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We are more familiar with ourselves than with any...

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April 5, 2026 226 mins

Welcome to the April 2026 Ask Me Anything episode...

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There is something special about gravity. After d...

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"Lamarkism" is a term often attached to a seeming...

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In the 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham s...

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Intelligence is a many splendored thing, especial...

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March 2, 2026 233 mins

Welcome to the March 2026 Ask Me Anything episode...

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Behaving rationally involves facing up to conditi...

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It's possible to look at the course of history ov...

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February 9, 2026 79 mins

For all that human beings spend a lot of their ti...

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