Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to matter -- to ourselves as well as to others? The need to matter can be motivation to do great things, but it can also be a reason for people to come into conflict. Philosopher/novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explores this issue in her new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/12/340-rebecca-newberger-goldstein-on-what-matters-and-why-it-matters/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. She is the author of several novels and works of non-fiction. Among her awards are the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Humanities Medal.Web siteAmazon author pageWikipediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's become increasingly clear that the Turing Test -- determining whether human interlocutors can tell whether a conversation is being carried out by a human or a machine -- is not a good way to think about consciousness. Modern LLMs can mimic human conversation with extraordinary verisimilitude, but most people would not judge them to be conscious. What would it take? Is it even possible for a computer program to achieve consciousness, or must consciousness be fundamentally "meat-based"? Philosopher Ned Block has long argued that consciousness involves something more than simply the "functional" aspects of inputs and outputs.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/01/05/339-ned-block-on-whether-consciousness-requires-biology/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Ned Block received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. He is currently Silver Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University, with secondary appointments in Psychology and Neural Science. He is also co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. He is Past President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.Web siteNYU web pagePhilPeople profileGoogle Scholar publicationsWikipediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Time for the holiday message! Rounding off the year with a brief and casual reflection on some issue that doesn't quite rise to the level of a full solo podcast. And hopefully something uplifting.This year, I offer a short apologia for higher education in the liberal arts and sciences, focusing not on the down-to-earth economic/occupational benefits of a college degree, but on the very real ways in which such an education opens up possibilities for personal growth. I think all of us in academia should be loud and unapologetic about the more romantic, idealistic values of the modern university.Happy holidays all!Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/22/holiday-message-2025-the-romance-of-the-university/Support Mindscape on Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the December 2025 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 Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/15/ama-december-2025/In the intro I give a plug for the Pods Fight Poverty effort organized by GiveDirectly. Please consider making a donation to help families in Rwanda!Enjoy!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The story goes that Wolfgang Pauli, who first proposed the existence of neutrinos, was embarrassed to have done so, as it was considered uncouth to hypothesize new particles that could not be detected. Modern physicists have no such scruples, of course, but more importantly neutrinos turn out to be very detectable, given sufficient resources and experimental technique. I talk with neutrino physicist Ryan Patterson about what current and upcoming experiments teach us about neutrinos themselves, as well as implications for dark matter and why there are more particles than antiparticles in the universe.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/08/228-ryan-patterson-on-the-physics-of-neutrinos/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Ryan Patterson received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He is currently Professor of Physics at Caltech. His research involves a number of aspects of experimental neutrino physics, including involvement in the NOvA and DUNE experiments.Caltech web pagePublications at inSpireSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.