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

Welcome to the November 2026 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. Enjoy!
Blog post with AMA questions and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/11/09/ama-november-2026/
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Economics often starts with an assumption that people are rational maximizers of their own self-interest; but it doesn't stop there. Economists do understand that sometimes people are irrational, altruistic, or just random. So how can we understand how people actually do behave in economic circumstances? Colin Camerer is a pioneer of "neuroeconomics" -- not only understanding how people make economic choices, but relating it to processes in the brain.
Blog post with transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/11/02/373-colin-camerer-on-the-neuroscience-of-economic-thinking/
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Colin Camerer received a Ph.D. in behavioral decision theory from the University of Chicago. He is currently the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair, and Director, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience at Caltech. He has been awarded a MacArthur fellowship among other awards. He is the author of Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction.
Web site
Caltech web page
Google Scholar publications
Bluesky
Wikipedia

When we think of computers, we think of machines running on some kind of silicon chips. But the idea is more general: at heart, a computer is any object that takes in input, processes information, and produces output. Taking inspiration from biology, it is interesting to imagine building computers out of DNA -- a molecule that can store and process information, and is even programmable. Erik Winfree is one of the leading scientists who are using DNA to build tiny computers and even robots that can perform a number of tasks, with important implications for future biology and medicine.
Blog post with transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/10/26/372-erik-winfree-on-dna-robots-and-computers/
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Erik Winfree received his Ph.D. in computation and neural science from the California Institute of Technology. He is currently Professor of Computer Science, Computation and Neural Systems, and Bioengineering at Caltech. Among his awards are the Tulip Prize in DNA Computing, the Feynman Prize for nanotechnology, the MacArthur Fellowship, and fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Web page
Google Scholar publications
Wikipedia

Humanity is merely one species out of millions living on Earth, but we have a disproportionate impact on the rest of the biosphere. Recent transformations have accelerated that impact, but in fact it stretches back to the earliest days in human history. In his new book The Last Animal: Human History and the Fate of Life on Earth from the Ice Age to the Sixth Extinction, historian Kyle Harper traces how humans have impacted the rest of the planet, from extinction events to much more subtle changes.
Blog post with transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/10/19/371-kyle-harper-on-how-humans-have-shaped-life-on-earth/
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Kyle Harper received a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He is currently the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty, Professor of Classics and Letters, Senior Advisor to the President, and Provost Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma, and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. Among his honors are the Award for Excellence in Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion and the PROSE winner for best book in the history of science, technology, and medicine.
University of Oklahoma web page
Google Scholar publications
Amazon author page
Wikipedia

Welcome to the October 2026 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. Enjoy!
Blog post with show notes, AMA questions, and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/10/12/ama-october-2026/
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