
203 | N.J. Enfield on Why Language is Good for Lawyers and Not Scientists
We describe the world using language — we can’t help it. And we all know that ordinary language is an imperfect way of communicating rigorous scientific statements, but sometimes it’s the best we can do. Linguist N.J. Enfield argues that the difficulties run more deeply than we might ordinarily suppose. We use language as a descriptive tool, but its origins are found in more social practices — communicating with others to express our feelings and persuade them to agree with us. As such, the very structure of language itself reflects these social purposes, and we have to be careful not to think it provides an unfiltered picture of reality.Support Mindscape on Patreon.N.J. Enfield received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Melbourne. He is currently a professor of linguistics and Director of the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney. His recent book is Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists.Web siteUniversity of Sydney web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsAmazon author pageSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
11 Heinä 20221h 24min

AMA | July 2022
Welcome to the July 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable size — 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.Big news this week! Mindscape is working with Bold.org to sponsor a college scholarship for students interested in studying the fundamental nature of reality. Listeners can find more details and donate here. Our immediate goal is to raise $10,000, and I will match the first $5,000, so this shouldn’t be too hard for us here. Hopefully we can raise much more! And hopefully this will help encourage someone who might not otherwise have been able to study this kind of topic.Support Mindscape on Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
4 Heinä 20223h 26min

202 | Andrew Papachristos on the Network Theory of Gun Violence
The United States is suffering from an epidemic of tragic gun violence. While a political debate rages around the topic of gun control, it remains important to understand the causes and possible remedies for gun violence within the current system. Andrew Papachristos is a sociologist who uses applied network science to study patterns of street violence in urban areas. His research shows that such violence is highly non-random; knowing something about the social networks of perpetrators and victims can help identify who might be at heightened risk of gun violence. It’s an interesting example of applying ideas from mathematics and computer science to real-world social situations.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Andrew Papachristos received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. He is currently a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. He is also founding director of the Northwestern Neighborhoods and Networks Initiative.Web siteNorthwestern web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsWikipediaTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
27 Kesä 20221h 15min

201 | Ed Yong on How Animals Sense the World
All of us construct models of the world, and update them on the basis of evidence brought to us by our senses. Scientists try to be more rigorous about it, but we all do it. It’s natural that this process will depend on what form that sensory input takes. We know that animals, for example, are typically better or worse than humans at sight, hearing, and so on. And as Ed Yong points out in his new book, it goes far beyond that, as many animals use completely different sensory modalities, from echolocation to direct sensing of electric fields. We talk about what those different capabilities might mean for the animal’s-eye (and -ear, etc.) view of the world.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Ed Yong received Masters and Bachelors degrees in zoology from Cambridge University, and an M.Phil. in biochemistry from University College London. He is currently a staff writer for The Atlantic. His work has appeared in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, the New York Times, and elsewhere. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among his other awards are the George Polk award for science reporting and the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for in-depth reporting. His new book is An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.Web siteStories at The AtlanticPulitzer citationWikipediaAmazon author pageTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
20 Kesä 20221h 9min

AMA | June 2022
Welcome to the June 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! We are inaugurating a slightly different publication schedule, in which these monthly AMA will take the place of one of the regular Monday episodes, rather than being in addition to all of them. A slight tweak that will hopefully make my obligations a little more manageable.These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable size — 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!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
13 Kesä 20223h 4min

200 | Solo: The Philosophy of the Multiverse
The 200th episode of Mindscape! Thanks to everyone for sticking around for this long. To celebrate, a solo episode discussing a set of issues naturally arising at the intersection of philosophy and physics: how to think about probabilities and expectations in a multiverse. Here I am more about explaining the issues than offering correct answers, although I try to do a bit of that as well.Support Mindscape on Patreon.References:Guth, “Inflation and Eternal Inflation“Weinberg, “Living In the Multiverse“Susskind, “The Anthropic Landscape of String Theory“Carroll, Johnson, and Randall, “Dynamical Compactification from De Sitter Space“Sebens and Carroll, “Self-Locating Uncertainty and the Origin of Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics“Wald, “Asymptotic behavior of homogeneous cosmological models in the presence of a positive cosmological constant“Gibbons and Hawking, “Cosmological Event Horizons, Thermodynamics, and Particle Creation“Carroll and Chatwin-Davies, “Cosmic Equilibration: A Holographic No-Hair Theorem from the Generalized Second Law“Dyson, Kleban, and Susskind, “Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant“Albrecht and Sorbo, “Can the Universe Afford Inflation?“Boddy, Carroll, and Pollack, “De Sitter Space Without Dynamical Quantum Fluctuations“Carroll, “Why Boltzmann Brains Are Bad“Aguirre, Carroll, and Johnson, “Out of Equilibrium: Understanding Cosmological Evolution to Lower-Entropy States“Carroll, “Beyond Falsifiabiliy: Normal Science in a Multiverse“Carter and McCrea, “The Anthropic Principle and its Implications for Biological Evolution“Leslie, “Doomsday Revisited“Gott, “Implications of the Copernican Principle for Our Future Prospects“Bostrom, Anthropic BiasVilenkin, “The Principle of Mediocrity“Olum, “Conflict Between Anthropic Reasoning and Observation“Elga, “Self-Locating Belief and the Sleeping Beauty Problem“Lewis, “Sleeping Beauty: Reply to Elga“Hartle and Srednicki, “Are We Typical?“Hartle and Srednicki, “Science in a Very Large Universe“Neal, “Puzzles of Anthropic Reasoning Resolved Using Fully Non-Indexical Conditioning“See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
6 Kesä 20222h 14min

199 | Elizabeth Cohen on Time and Other Political Values
Time is everywhere, pervading each aspect of intellectual inquiry — from physics to philosophy to biology to psychology, and all the way up to politics. Considerations of time help govern a nation’s self-conception, decide who gets to vote and enjoy other privileges, and put limits on the time spent in office. Not to mention the role of time as a precious commodity, one that is used up every time we stand in line or fill out a collection of forms. Elizabeth Cohen shines a light on the role of time in politics and citizenship, a topic that has been neglected by much political theorizing.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Elizabeth Cohen received her Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. She is currently a professor of political science at Syracuse, and in March 2023 will move to Boston University to become the Maxwell Professor of United States Citizenship in the Department of Political Science. Among her awards are the Moynihan Award for Outstanding Research and Teaching at Syracuse and the Best Book award from the American Political Science section on Migration and Citizenship, for The Political Value of Time.Web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsWikipediaAmazon author pageTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
30 Touko 20221h 12min

198 | Nick Lane on Powering Biology
The origin of life here on Earth was an important and fascinating event, but it was also a long time ago and hasn’t left many pieces of direct evidence concerning what actually happened. One set of clues we have comes from processes in current living organisms, especially those processes that seem extremely common. The Krebs cycle, the sequence of reactions that functions as a pathway for energy distribution in aerobic organisms, is such an example. I talk with biochemist about the importance of the Krebs cycle to contemporary biology, as well as its possible significance in understanding the origin of life.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Nick Lane received his PhD from the Royal Free Hospital Medical School. He is currently a professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and is Co-Director of the UCL Centre for Life’s Origin and Evolution. He was awarded the 2009 UCL Provost’s Venture Research Prize, the 2011 BMC Research Award for Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Evolution, the 2015 Biochemical Society Award, and the 2016 Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture. His new book is Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death.Web siteUCL web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsAmazon author pageWikipediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
23 Touko 20221h 25min