9 | Solo -- Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?

9 | Solo -- Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?

It's fun to be in the exciting, chaotic, youthful days of the podcast, when anything goes and experimentation is the order of the day. So today's show is something different: a solo effort, featuring just me talking without any guests to cramp my style. This won't be the usual format, but I suspect it will happen from time to time. Feel free to chime in below on how often you think alternative formats should be part of the mix. The topic today is "Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?", or equivalently "Why Does the Universe Exist at All?" Heady stuff, but we're not going to back away from the challenge. What I have to say will roughly follow my recent paper on the subject, although in a more chatty and accessible style. It concerns ideas at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and theology, so tune in if you're into that sort of thing. [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/seancarroll/something-nothing.mp3" social_gplus="false" social_linkedin="true" social_email="true" hashtag="mindscapepodcast" ] Big news! After a number of people have asked, I have finally opened a Patreon account for people who would like to support Mindscape in some way. You can sign up to kick in a dollar or more per podcast episode, and in return you get 1) access to occasional Ask Me Anything episodes done exclusively for patrons, and 2) my undying gratitude. If the Patreon route is successful enough, I'll forego having ads on the podcast -- we'll see how it goes. Download Episode

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55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds

55 | A Conversation with Rob Reid on Quantum Mechanics and Many Worlds

As you may have heard, I have a new book coming out in September, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime. To celebrate, we're going to have more than the usual number o...

15 Heinä 20191h 26min

54 | Indre Viskontas on Music and the Brain

54 | Indre Viskontas on Music and the Brain

It doesn't mean much to say music affects your brain — everything that happens to you affects your brain. But music affects your brain in certain specific ways, from changing our mood to helping us le...

8 Heinä 20191h 15min

53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we might appeal to the instructions we get from God, but a modern naturalist has to look elsewhere. To...

1 Heinä 20192h 5min

52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games

52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games

Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers and our phones, watch other people compete in games, and occasionally break out the cards or the Mo...

24 Kesä 20191h 4min

51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information

51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information

Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, whether there was a period of inflation, the evolution of structure, and so on. But there are a...

17 Kesä 20191h 31min

50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain

50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain

It's fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have an inner voice that keeps offering opinions about how we should behave ourselves: our conscience. Whe...

10 Kesä 20191h 12min

49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good

49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good

It's easy to be cynical about humanity's present state and future prospects. But we have made it this far, and in some ways we're doing better than we used to be. Today's guest, Nicholas Christakis, i...

3 Kesä 20191h 54min

48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation

48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation

If you're bad, we are taught, you go to Hell. Who in the world came up with that idea? Some will answer God, but for the purpose of today's podcast discussion we'll put that possibility aside and look...

27 Touko 20191h 11min

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