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 also even deeper questions, having to do with why there is a universe at all, and why the early universe had low entropy, that most working cosmologists don't address. Today's guest, Anthony Aguirre, is an exception. We talk about these deep issues, and how tackling them might lead to a very different way of thinking about our universe. At the end there's an entertaining detour into AI and existential risk. Anthony Aguirre received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. He is currently associate professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his research involves cosmology, inflation, and fundamental questions in physics. His new book, Cosmological Koans, is an exploration of the principles of contemporary cosmology illustrated with short stories in the style of Zen Buddhism. He is the co-founder of the Foundational Questions Institute, the Future of Life Institute, and the prediction platform Metaculus. Web site UCSC web page Google Scholar page Wikipedia Amazon.com author page Foundational Questions Institute Future of Life Institute Metaculus Twitter

Jaksot(415)

6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities

6 | Liv Boeree on Poker, Aliens, and Thinking in Probabilities

Poker, like life, is a game of incomplete information. To do well in such a game, we have to think in terms of probabilities, unpredictable strategies, and Bayesian inference. These are ideas that pla...

23 Heinä 20181h 10min

5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life

5 | Geoffrey West on Networks, Scaling, and the Pace of Life

If you scale up an animal to twice its height, keeping everything else proportionate, its volume and weight become eight times as much. Such a scaling relation was used by J.B.S. Haldane in his famous...

16 Heinä 20181h 23min

4 |  Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community

4 | Anthony Pinn on Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community

According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simply proclaim God's existence: they have provided communities, promoted the arts, handed down moral gui...

12 Heinä 20181h

3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice

3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice

The human mind loves nothing more than to build mental boxes -- categories -- and put things into them, then refuse to accept it when something doesn't fit. Nowhere is this more clear than in the idea...

11 Heinä 20181h 20min

2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality

2 | Carlo Rovelli on Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime, and Reality

Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the two great triumphs of twentieth-century theoretical physics. Unfortunately, they don't play well together -- despite years of effort, we currently lack...

10 Heinä 20181h 12min

1 | Carol Tavris on Mistakes, Justification, and Cognitive Dissonance

1 | Carol Tavris on Mistakes, Justification, and Cognitive Dissonance

For the first full episode of Mindscape, it's an honor to welcome social psychologist Carol Tavris. Her book with co-author Eliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), explores the effect that ...

4 Heinä 20181h 11min

Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast!

Welcome to the Mindscape Podcast!

I've decided to officially take the plunge into the world of podcasting. The new show will be called Mindscape, and will mostly consist of me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. (Occasion...

1 Heinä 201816min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

tiedekulma-podcast
rss-poliisin-mieli
rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
docemilia
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-luontopodi-samuel-glassar-tutkii-luonnon-ihmeita
utelias-mieli
radio-antro
rss-astetta-parempi-elama-podcast
rss-lapsuuden-rakentajat-podcast
rss-lihavuudesta-podcast
rss-sosiopodi