287 | Jean-Paul Faguet on Institutions and the Legacy of History
One common feature of complex systems is sensitive dependence on initial conditions: a small change in how systems begin evolving can lead to large differences in their later behavior. In the social s...
26 Aug 20241h 32min
286 | Blaise Agüera y Arcas on the Emergence of Replication and Computation
Understanding how life began on Earth involves questions of chemistry, geology, planetary science, physics, and more. But the question of how random processes lead to organized, self-replicating, info...
19 Aug 20241h 20min
285 | Nate Silver on Prediction, Risk, and Rationality
Being rational necessarily involves engagement with probability. Given two possible courses of action, it can be rational to prefer the one that could possibly result in a worse outcome, if there's al...
12 Aug 20241h 11min
AMA | August 2024
Welcome to the August 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 Patr...
5 Aug 20243h 37min
284 | Doris Tsao on How the Brain Turns Vision Into the World
The human brain does a pretty amazing job of taking in a huge amount of data from multiple sensory modalities -- vision, hearing, smell, etc. -- and constructing a coherent picture of the world, const...
29 Jul 20241h 2min
283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power
Change is scary. But sometimes it can all work out for the best. There's no guarantee of that, however, even when the change in question involves the introduction of a powerful new technology. Today's...
22 Jul 20241h 17min
282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity
The philosophy of mathematics would be so much easier if it weren't for infinity. The concept seems natural, but taking it seriously opens the door to counterintuitive results. As mathematician and ph...
15 Jul 20241h 18min
Ask Me Anything | July 2024
Welcome to the July 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 Patreo...
8 Jul 20243h 21min
