People often suggest guests to appear on Mindscape — which I very much appreciate! Several of my best conversations were with people I had never heard of before they were effectively suggested by someone. Suggestions could be made here (in comments below), or on the subreddit, or on Twitter or anywhere else.
My policy is not to comment on individual suggestions, but it might be useful for me to lay out what I look for in potential Mindscape guests. Hopefully this will help people make suggestions, and lead to the discovery of some gems I would have otherwise overlooked.
- Obviously I’m looking for smart people with interesting ideas. Most episodes are idea-centered, rather than “let’s talk to this fascinating person,” although there are exceptions.
- I’m more interested in people doing original idea-creation, rather than commentators/journalists/pundits (or fellow podcasters!). Again, there are always exceptions — nobody can complain when I talk to Carl Zimmer about inheritance — but that’s the tendency.
- Hot-button topical/political issues are an interesting case. I’m not averse to them, but I want to focus on the eternal big-picture concerns at the bottom of them, rather than on momentary ephemera. Relatedly, I’m mostly interested in talking with intellectuals and analysts, not advocates or salespeople or working politicians.
- I’m happy to talk with big names everyone has heard of, but am equally interested in lesser-known folks who have something really interesting to say.
- Sometimes it should be clear that I’m already quite aware of the existence of a person, so suggesting them doesn’t add much value. Nobody needed to tell me to ask Roger Penrose or Dan Dennett on the show.
- I like to keep things diverse along many different axes, most especially area of intellectual inquiry. Obviously there is more physics than on most people’s podcasts, but there will rarely if ever be two physics episodes in a row, or even two in the same month. Likewise, if I do one episode on a less-frequent topic, I’m unlikely to do another one on the same topic right away. (“That episode on the semiotics of opera was fine, but you need to invite the real expert on the semiotics of opera…”) More generally, podcast episodes should be of standalone interest, not responses to previous podcast episodes.
- I am very happy to talk with people I disagree with, but only if I think there is something to be learned from their perspective. I want to engage with the best arguments against my positions, not just with any old arguments. Zero interest in debating or debunking on the podcast. If I invite someone on, I will challenge them where I think necessary, but my main goal is to let them put forward their case as clearly as possible.
- Corollary: someone is not worth engaging with merely because they make claims that would be extremely important if they were true. There has to be some reason to believe, in the minds of some number of reasonable people, that they could actually be true. My goal is not to clean up all the bad ideas on the internet.
- Obvious but often-overlooked consideration: the person should be good on podcasts! This is a tricky thing. Clearly they should be articulate and engaging in an audio-only format. But also there’s an art to giving answers that are long enough to be substantive, short enough to allow for give-and-take. Conversation is a skill. (Though Fyodor Urnov barely let me get a word in edgewise, and he was great and everyone loved him, so maybe I should take the hint.)
- This is a long list, but the most useful guest suggestions include not just a person’s name, but some indication that they satisfy the above criteria. A brief mention of the ideas they have and evidence that they’d be a good guest is extremely helpful.
- None of these rules is absolute! I’m always happy to deviate a little if I think there is a worthwhile special case.
Thanks again for listening, and for all the suggestions. I am continually amazed at the high quality of guests who have joined me, and at the wonderful support from the Mindscape audience.
I would suggest software engineer and philosopher Dennis Hackethal.
He wrote an intersting book: https://www.windowonintelligence.com/
Building on the theory of evolution, epistemology, psychotherapy, and astronomy, he presents a bold new explanation of how people evolved and provides insight into the potential of artificial general intelligence.
Eva Jablonka – evolutionary biologist working on identifying a marker for the minimal forms of animal consciousness. She and Simona Ginaburg suggest we should define consciousness in a way similar to life: not as a “thing” made of mystical stuff but as a collection of biological characteristics.
Vaclav Smil – arguably the world’s best thinker on energy transitions and human environment impact. He has done original research in a huge variety of topics and has written over 40 books. However he likes his privacy and would likely turn down your invitation
Joe Henrich!
Harvard Anthropologist with a great new book out: “The WEIRDEST People in the World”. Spoiler alert: that’s us. He is probably the leading researcher in the gene-culture co-evolution paradigm that is revolutionizing our understanding of psychology and history (at least for me). His previous book “The Secret of our Success” is a great intro to cultural evolution, and he did fundamental work on human cooperation. A smart guy, needless to say…
Dear, prof. Carroll,
I would like to suggest, Felipe Coronel a.k.a Immortal Technique. Although he is mostly known for his Hip-hop carrier; he’s also a well spoken activist with vast knowledge of cultural history. He taught history courses to inmates in prison after going though the prison system himself. I believe some topics that might interest you both are:
The American prison system (first had experience of being convicted and sentenced.)
The religious justification of slavery that contributed to systemic racism.
Felipe’s orphanage in Afghanistan.
He is currently running a charity he founded that provides food and supplies to the elderly in both New York and Los Angeles.
I hope that you’ll consider my suggestion because I believe there could be interesting ideas discussed among the two of you. I’ve linked a video of him speaking to give an idea as to what sort of dialog you two could have. https://youtu.be/sMKp2K2t6U4
Sincerely,
Brian Davis
p.s.
I love your content. I believe that you and others like you, who teach for the sake of it, are going to make the world the better place. Thank you.
Robert Laughlin, Nobel for his part in Hall effect, to speak on your podcast on Thermal Innovation.
Very engaging. Great writer “A different Universe” in compelling metaphors I can understand.
Thermal Innovation on the prospect of bible alternatives to fossil Fuels.
Some suggestions:
Dr. Lisa Cook — Economist who studies patent laws and how they can fail to protect citizens’ innovations in unequal societies. Striking and interesting work.
Dr. John Baez, Dr. Eugenia Cheng — Mathematicians who do category theory (a mathematical branch that has very high ambitions, with connections to the philosophy of mathematics). Both are great communicators.
Dr. Stuart Ritchie — Psychologist and science communicator. Has recently written a book about the recent republication crisis and other problematic issues of science.
Hi Sean,
I enjoy your podcast, particularly the give and take as you and guests work through ideas.
Have you had Prof. Manu Prakash of Stanford on your program? He is a bioengineer who currently focuses on affordable, scalable solutions to addressing Covid and more generally comes up with inexpensive but well performing instruments ($1 microscope, inexpensive centrifuge, etc.). http://web.stanford.edu/group/prakash-lab/cgi-bin/labsite/
Another suggestion is for a topic: animal behavior. There must be experts (I don’t know of any) that can bring the latest scientific understanding to the everyday puzzling animal behavior many of us wonder about: What exactly do cats communicate to each other? What do they communicate to us? What, if anything, are budgies saying to each other? (budgerigars are Australian birds, often kept as pets). Why are squirrels so very bad at avoiding cars and bicycle tires but (mostly) so good at running along the high telephone wires?
Peter Shor is of course well-known but Gilles Brassard, a co-inventor of quantum cryptography that I met when studying computer science at Université de Montréal is somebody I would suggest inviting. He was only a precocious 13 at the time but already impressively bright as he breezed through the curriculum with perfect notes…
Hi Sean,
I’d love to hear you talk to Sacha Baron Cohen.
I would absolutely love to listen to a conversation between you and Dr. Stephen Wolfram.
Prof. Carroll, I would be most interested to hear you discuss ergodicity with Ole Peters.
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~ole/
https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/peters-and-gell-mann-author-most-read-chaos-paper-2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-019-0732-0
Stephen Wolfram
Neri Oxman, bio-architecture @ MIT Media Lab. Check out the “Abstract” episode about her on Netflix. I was blown away.
✓ Smart with extremely original ideas
✓ Not a name most will know
✓ Very articulate and passionate
✓ At the intersection of ideas, like your podcast
I think philosopher from the university of Colorado – Michael Hummer – would be a great guess. In the light of current events (the elections) you may want to discuss “the problem of political authority” which is the title of Hummer`s boook.
Just a suggestion
Dear Sean: I would propose Dr. Basil Hiley. Basil worked with David Bohm and is still working on the forefront of their quantum theories. Despite being in his mid-80’s I have seen him present, and be interviewed, within the last few months and he is a very engaging and enthusiastic communicator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Hiley
Regards, David
Linguist here: I recommend David Adger! He’s professor of linguistics at Queen Mary University of London, currently President of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, and I think one of the best people to talk about (Chomskyan) theoretical linguistics. Very cool subject that math/physics types tend to find interesting. He also has a recent book, Language Unlimited.
https://davidadger.org/
Dear Sean,
I nominate Joscha Bach as a future podcast guest. Dr. Bach is an AI researcher out of MIT & Harvard who I first heard on Lex Fridman’s podcast a few months ago. (Take 30 seconds to read the YouTube comments on that episode)
I’ve listened to hundreds (possibly over 1000+) science related podcasts over the years and Joscha is by far one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of our generation.
The world needs this podcast to happen; our future depends on it.
Thanks in advance,
An avid fan.
Hi! Thanks for the great conversations and youtube videos, they are making the pandemic much more bearable.
I would love to hear you converse with many people, but a few I would find especially interesting are Robert Sapolsky, Iain McGilchrist, Joanne Edgar, and Monica Gagliano.
Wishing you all the best!
I’ll suggest Stuart Kauffman (sp?). A professor of humanities/philosophy @ University of Calgary. He was a bit is a hermit, but has probably changed. I have not read recent work, but, At Home in the Universe seems up your alley.
Here are some suggestions for guests:
David Sinclair, author of “Lifespan: why we age and why we don’t have to”, has fascinating ideas about how the loss of epigenetic information might be the main cause of aging.
Jeremy Sherman, author of “Neither ghost nor machine”, in this book he explores what constitutes a “self” at the most basic level.
Penolope A. Lewis, author of “The Secret World of Sleep”, she’s a neuroscientist who investigates what happens in the brain when we sleep.
Dean Buonomano, author of “Your brain is a time machine”, it’s about how the architecture of the human brain shapes our understanding of the nature of time.
Two fellow Dutchmen I also would like to recommend as guests: Dick Swaab and Erik Scherder (a neurobiologist and neuropsychologist, respectively).
I would love to hear you talk with Sara Seager or Rebecca Solnit.
Would you consider interviewing someone like Richard Garfield (the game designer)? I found your episodes with game theorists and mathematicians very interesting, and I’d love to hear more how games might influence human discovery/understanding. I remember reading about how a lot of statistics evolved with people just being interested in games. As a legendary game designer who studied math, it would be great to hear his thoughts on how fundamental games are to us as a species, and maybe where they fit in our future math and sciences.
Although I think you are familiar with David Deutsch, I think he would make a really good podcast guest (as an Everettian physicist also interested in the philosophy of science). He has very original ideas when it comes to physics, information, the growth of knowledge, criteria for good explanations, moral philosophy and people, often crossing boundaries between fields. It would be interesting to compare and contrast both your views because all these themes are explored in The Beginning of Infinity and The Big Picture (as well as Fabric of Reality and Something Deeply Hidden), especially where your opinions converge or diverge on different points (things like Many Worlds and probability, Bayesianism and critical rationalism, moral realism).
I would love to hear you interview more scholars in the humanities, especially those who work on the history of natural philosophy and metaphysics.
For example, may I suggest Michael Friedman as a guest? He is an eminent interpreter of Kant’s philosophy of science (Kant and the Exact Sciences https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674500369/ and Kant’s Construction of Nature https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521198399) who is well-informed enough about modern developments in mathematics and physics to assess the significance of Kant’s thought in light of scientific discoveries he could not have foreseen. Related to this, he wrote an excellent study of the mathematical and conceptual innovations that made possible the transition from the newtonian conception of space to the einsteinian conception (Foundations of Space-Time Theories: Relativistic Physics and Philosophy of Science https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691610428). Also of interest is his account of the cultural/political/methodological split that emerged in the early 20th century between the perennial (or ‘continental’) tradition of philosophy and the analytic tradition, which modeled itself on natural science (A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812694252/).
I very much enjoy your podcast; my only quibble is that in your discussions philosophical theories (especially those formulated by historical figures) are not always afforded the rigor that is otherwise characteristic of your series. I, for one, think that your expositions of the fascinating developments of contemporary physics would only be deepened by considering how these developments break with, modify, or perhaps even sustain the ideas of the philosophical tradition.
Thank you for the enriching content you make available to us!
Hi Sean,
Have you heard of AI researcher and philosopher Joscha Bach? He was once asked at a conference about what he thinks happens when the wave function collapses. Here’s his answer @ 48:02 https://youtu.be/OheY9DIUie4
Simply brilliant.
– Daniel