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 Juni 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 Juni 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 Juni 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 Maj 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 Maj 20211h 26min
147 | Rachel Laudan on Cuisine, Culture, and Empire
For as much as people talk about food, a good case can be made that we don't give it the attention or respect it actually deserves. Food is central to human life, and how we go about the process of cr...
17 Maj 20211h 16min
AMA | May 2021
Welcome to the May 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 questio...
13 Maj 20212h 58min
146 | Emily Riehl on Topology, Categories, and the Future of Mathematics
"A way that math can make the world a better place is by making it a more interesting place to be a conscious being." So says mathematician Emily Riehl near the start of this episode, and it's a good ...
10 Maj 20211h 16min
