
154 | Reza Aslan on Religion, Metaphor, and Meaning
Religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people around the world, but what religious belief actually amounts to can vary considerably from person to person. Some believe in an anthrop...
5 Jul 20211h 25min

153 | John Preskill on Quantum Computers and What They're Good For
Depending on who you listen to, quantum computers are either the biggest technological change coming down the road or just another overhyped bubble. Today we're talking with a good person to listen to...
28 Jun 20211h 32min

152 | Charis Kubrin on Criminology, Incarceration, and Hip-Hop
It's all well and good to talk abstractly about morality and justice, but at some point you have to sit down and figure out what to do about people who break the rules. In our modern legal system, mos...
21 Jun 20211h 19min

151 | Jordan Ellenberg on the Mathematics of Political Boundaries
Any system in which politicians represent geographical districts with boundaries chosen by the politicians themselves is vulnerable to gerrymandering: carving up districts to increase the amount of se...
14 Jun 20211h 23min

AMA | June 2021
Welcome to the June 2021 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 questi...
10 Jun 20213h 18min

150 | Simon DeDeo on How Explanations Work and Why They Sometimes Fail
You observe a phenomenon, and come up with an explanation for it. That's true for scientists, but also for literally every person. (Why won't my car start? I bet it's out of gas.) But there are litera...
7 Jun 20211h 32min

149 | Lee Smolin on Time, Philosophy, and the Nature of Reality
The challenge to a theoretical physicist pushing beyond our best current theories is that there are too many ways to go. What parts of the existing paradigm do you keep, which do you discard, and why ...
31 Mai 20211h 29min

148 | Henry Farrell on Democracy as a Problem-Solving Mechanism
Democracy posits the radical idea that political power and legitimacy should ultimately be found in all of the people, rather than a small group of experts or for that matter arbitrarily-chosen heredi...
24 Mai 20211h 26min




















