163 | Nigel Goldenfeld on Phase Transitions, Criticality, and Biology
Physics is extremely good at describing simple systems with relatively few moving parts. Sadly, the world is not like that; many phenomena of interest are complex, with multiple interacting parts and ...
6 Sep 20211h 31min
162 | Leidy Klotz on Our Resistance to Subtractive Change
There is no general theory of problem-solving, or even a reliable set of principles that will usually work. It's therefore interesting to see how our brains actually go about solving problems. Here's ...
30 Aug 20211h 14min
161 | W. Brian Arthur on Complexity Economics
Economies in the modern world are incredibly complex systems. But when we sit down to think about them in quantitative ways, it's natural to keep things simple at first. We look for reliable relations...
23 Aug 20211h 35min
160 | Edward Slingerland on Confucianism, Daoism, and Wu Wei
Plato and Aristotle founded much of what we think of as Western philosophy during the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. Interestingly, that historical period also witnessed the foundation of some of the...
16 Aug 20211h 23min
AMA | August 2021
Welcome to the August 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 ques...
12 Aug 20213h 11min
159 | Mari Ruti on Lack, Love, and Psychoanalysis
Neuroscience has given us great insights into how our brains work. But there is still room for purely humanistic disciplines to help us think through our thoughts and emotions, not to mention the mean...
9 Aug 20211h 49min
158 | David Wallace on the Arrow of Time
The arrow of time — all the ways in which the past differs from the future — is a fascinating subject because it connects everyday phenomena (memory, aging, cause and effect) to deep questions in phys...
2 Aug 20211h 47min
157 | Elizabeth Strychalski on Synthetic Cells and the Rules of Biology
Natural selection has done a pretty good job at creating a wide variety of living species, but we humans can't help but wonder whether we could do better. Using existing genomes as a starting point, b...
26 Jul 20211h 17min
