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.
Nomi pinns
Has interesting perspectives on capitalism and how finance really works
Do you know of Agnes Callard? Philosophy professor at University of Chicago, official specializations I think Ancient Philosophy and Ethics but very engaged in other topics as public philosophy. Has been podcast and video guest quite a bit lately, and organizes / hosts the Night Owls events formerly on campus and now online, a series of debate/interview with colleagues / experts from various specialties with a live (or again, now online but still live) audience of enthusiastic students. Since you hang out on Twitter, that’s a good place to find her, @AgnesCallard .
Podcast thought: Stu Kauffman, who is tinkering with some not so nutty ideas about some of your not so nutty ideas.
You always discriminating against uninteresting idiot people…
That said, people who might be interesting to bring to the podcast would be:
-Jill Tarter from SETI (the real person behind Jodie Foster’s character in Contact) to talk about how her field has changed during the last decades.
-Pervez Hoodbhoy nuclear physicist from Pakistan (since bringing Abdus Salam would be complicated, Pervez would be a great person to talk about challenges of fundamental science research in the Muslim world).
-Mano Singham theoretical physicist with interesting ideas about falsifiability and fundamentals of philosophy of science.
Big fan of the podcast, here are a couple ideas: it would be great for you to have a pure mathematician on, someone like Terence Tao. Many of the problems that he’s worked on can be described to a lay audience (lots of talks of his on youtube).
Since you’ve already had gamers on, I would also suggest GM Hikaru Nakamura. He’s a wizard of the game and has done amazing things for online chess.
I have been enjoying your Podcast, so I hope these people might be suitable guests. With any luck one or two you may not have heard of.
Stephon Alexander
Garrett Lisi
Bret Weinstein
Coleman Hughes
Glenn Loury
John McWhorter
Douglas Murray
Stephen Fry
Hans Zimmer
Niall Ferguson
Bettany Hughes
Mark Blyth
Nima Arkani-Hamed
Jeremy Paxman
Sorry I forgot Mauricio Cantor, biologist from the Max Plank Institute of animal behavior about his research on the language of whales.
Hi Professor Carroll,
I think your audience would enjoy hearing from Nathaniel Craig on Naturalness and the Hierarchy Problem.
Thank you for your podcast and the Biggest Ideas series this past summer!
You might like to interview me about the evolution of human morality.
I am your colleague at SFI.
You can see my work on my website. Just Google gintis website.
Yours,
Herbert Gintis
SFI External Professor
Dear mr. Carroll, I’m and avid consumer of your content, be it books, podcasts, youtube classes and debates, you name it!
I’m positive that you’d find Joscha Bach an exceptional guest to your podcast. Joscha is a cognitive scientist who makes use of his AI background in order to better understand philosophical questions. In certain ways, I find his approach very similar to your poetic naturalism worldview, however framed with computational vocabulary, which is very interesting because it allows many comparisons to be drawn between questions about human consciousness and the best of computer science.
I always find his conversations engaging, and he has been a guest on several podcasts, including Lex Friendman’s podcast on AI. He also has a number of speeches in several conventions which are available on Youtube. I’ve listed a few which I consider among his best.
– shorturl.at/boF79
– shorturl.at/ekmpH
– shorturl.at/jrHRT
It’s my sincere opinion that a conversation between both of you would be splendid and very productive for both. And personally, for myself, such an episode would be an early Christmas hahah.
Thank you for your awesome work, I admire all of it very much!
I know you have expressed in the past a mild interest in meditation and I’m fairly certain you don’t know much about it. When you’ve dealt with the issue of consciousness you’ve always interviewed philosophers with scientific background who explore the issue as an intellectual exercise (eg David Chalmers). I’d like you to consider interviewing Joseph Goldstein, a widly respected teacher of Vipassana (see Sam Harris’s bio of him here https://samharris.org/podcasts/the-path-and-the-goal/). The practice of Vipassana fits so well in the west because it doesn’t require learning chants, visualisations or mantras or anything about historical figures or believe in any deities or sit in some uncomfortable positions. You don’t have to give up being rational. Yuval Harari has said without his practice of Vipassana he wouldn’t have been able to write Sapiens. It’s a practice that allows the practitioner to study how their own mind works. When we buy a car we get a user’s manual. Vipassana is the user manual for one’s mind. Goldstein is an experienced public speaker who speaks in everyday language and has a down home sense of humour. I’d recommend you to Joseph’s latest podcast on thought and emotion to get a flavour of his teaching: https://beherenownetwork.com/joseph-goldstein-insight-hour-ep-93-thought-and-emotion/ There is a brief 2 min. promotion before JG begins.
Tamler Sommers. Academic philosopher, with books on honour and justice. Has a long running, popular podcast. And I think his views are well thought out, but might be new to lots of your listeners.
How can you gauge whether they have good conversation skills for a podcast if there are no audio clips or recordings of seminars/public talks available?
Keith Stanovich – Psychology researcher. He studies rationality and how it relates (or not) with intelligence/IQ.
http://www.keithstanovich.com/Site/Home.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Stanovich
Randolph Nesse – Physician. Founder of the field of evolutionary medicine. Latest book: “Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry”.
https://www.randolphnesse.com
https://twitter.com/RandyNesse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_M._Nesse
Stuart Ritchie – Intelligence researcher. Also interested in how scientific knowledge progresses (or stumbles). Latest book: “Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth”
https://twitter.com/StuartJRitchie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_J._Ritchie
Cass Sunstein – Legal scholar. Expert on government regulation (See “Nudge” and “The cost-Benefit Revolution”).
https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10871/Sunstein
https://twitter.com/CassSunstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein
Jason Brennan – Philosopher. Interesting book: “Against Democracy”, which “challenges the belief that the simplified version of democracy used nowadays is good and moral”.
https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RXIUAA4/jason-brennan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Brennan
How about Eliezer Yudkowsky: philosopher, AI researcher, autodidact polymath, Bayesian, and mad dog Everettian.
One very interesting guest would be David Eagleman from Stanford. Another that comes to mind is Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Also, Andrei Linde. Another really good one would be Robert Sapolsky – I bet it would be one of the most interesting podcasts you’ve done. Kip Thorne would be interesting and Andreas Antonopoulos on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. Joe Rogan getting on your podcast would be cool, too. The last that comes to mind is Steven Pinker.
I would very much like to hear your discussion of the computational theory of mind with Bruno Marchal. Bruno is a logician who works on foundations of mathematics. I think of him as Platonist version of Scott Aaronson. He quite well versed quantum mechanics although it’s not his field.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bruno_Marchal3
marchal@ulb.ac.be
Your third-from -last bullet point was illustrative. Although I am not certain I ‘got it’ entirely. Not much interested in the podcast modality anyway. My interest is in what I originally obtained from your ‘big picture’ concept., and secondarily, the eternity to here notion. The Higgs-boson particle does not hold my attention because of our lack of science-engineering means to make meaningful sense of, use for knowledge of it. Think about Feynman, et. al. Have read and parsed many thinkers. That much is easy. As stated before, my grasp of science is minimal. But interest in philosophical implication is maximal.. Because that is what I think about, given my limited skills, at an advanced age. I ‘do the best I can with what I have and what I know’.
You know, by now, that I appreciate original thought, while having little regard for plagiarism. I could not begin to argue or challenge Godel’s theorem with anyone. That is not my point, or, my job. However, as recently posted, I am prepared to argue, if not challenge, notions such as preposterousness of the universe. You. And I. And others have made that a possibility. By our very existence. Stubborn recaltricance, as humans, capabilities of thought and intuition, and , maybe, narcissism itself. The totality of circumstances, as it were. So, podcast or no, that’s my story. I’m sticking to it…
Warmest,
PDV
My suggestions for future guests would be
-British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore
for a discussion of European history, in particular the history of Jerusalem. I think his book on Jerusalem is being adapted to tv drama on the scale of Game of Thrones
British Historian Simon Schama
Many topics could be discussed, art history, European/American history
British Anthropologist Alice Roberts
Evolution, human evolution,
French mathematician Cedric Villani
Mathematics, politics
British physicist Helen Czerski
Physics of bubbles/ocean
British mathematician Hannah Fry
The mathematics of pandemics
British architectural designer Jony Ivy
Designer of the iphone
Proposing myself as a guest.
I propose that companion dog training is driven by pseudo-science as opposed to science. As a result, many companion dog owners end up endlessly wondering, ‘Why My Dog Doesn’t Listen – And What To Do About It.’ A lecture I have on this topic typically attracts seminar audiences between 100 and 200.
As your guest, I want to argue that companion dog training has historically been shaped not by science, but more by politically correct ideologies based more on pseudo-science and cognitive bias than critical thought. Furthermore, it has spread due to the armies of lovers of dogs that become amateur dog trainers. There are times I wonder if they thought that the movie, The Lady and The Tramp was a dog behavior documentary.
Why does this matter enough to discuss on your podcast? I want to argue that the way companion dog training has evolved to the detriment of both companion dog owners and their dogs, and it is a problem with a relatively simple fix. I propose discussing the reasons why dogs don’t listen (ironically, dog trainers, and dog training) and how we might instead embrace legitimate behavioral science(s). The end results minimally would be an improvement in the quality of our dog’s lives. But additionally, so that amongst other things, dog owners can return from walks with their arms still the same length. As importantly, making meaningful progress in reducing canine aggression (one out of two children are bitten by a familiar dog before they reach the age of twelve), and anxiety. Also worthy of mention’ impacting the number of dogs surrendered to rescues, and, or euthanized.
However, after 30 years of working full-time as a companion dog trainer, serving on the board of dog training associations, and exploring other various aspects of the dog world. I don’t believe we have a hope in hell of changing the way dog trainers train until we make companion dog owners aware they’re being fed a lot of’ hooey.’ One step in that direction would be making your podcast audience aware, many of which are dog owners, or love dogs, or know someone that loves dogs, that how we’re told to train dogs is much nonsense, and there are far better and arguably easier ways to go about it.
– John Wade 🐾 (www.askthedogguy.com)
Nice job. Keep up the great work!
Donald Hoffman please. Especially interested in theories of reality based on experimental simulations of evolution and game theory. Also to talk through conscious agents and see if this idea holds water. It seems a natural choice for you Sean, given previous podcast episodes on game theory, consciousness and the nature of physical reality.
Hi Sean:
I recommend that you look into having a conversation with David Reich. He is a geneticist that studies the DNA of ancient hominins, and reconstructs the migrations of these ancient peoples out of Africa and around the world. He has outlined these findings in a recent (2018) book entitled “ Who We Are and How We Got Here – Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past”
Check out this link to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_We_Are_and_How_We_Got_Here
This Wikipedia account describes the scope and depth of Dr Reich’s work better than I can. I am sure your listeners will be intrigued by the extent to which our ancestral species had sex with each other. It was not just between Sapiens and Neanderthals. You know, everybody did it!
Two warnings though. First, this stuff is really complicated. I am sure it will challenge even you. You will, however, be gratified to find that there is a lot of statistics involved. Second, there are those who hold that because Reich shows that people from different regions of the Earth have different genes, his views are racist. The Wikipedia article touches on this controversy. After reading the book I am sure that anyone can come to no other conclusion than that the whole concept of racism is absurd.
If this is too much for you, you could always interview Richard Dawkins.
I’m mostly suggesting David Attenborough because I want to know that he’s been suggested, but I would like to hear him talk about narration rather than (or in addition to) wildlife. What makes a good narrator?
In that vein, I would also like to suggest Peter Cullen or Frank Welker or Sumalee Montano to talk about voice acting. I’m mostly suggesting them because they are who I know (Transformers fan), but what I really want is an episode on voice acting.
This one is perhaps more for curiosity’s sake, but I would like to know what would happen if William Lane Craig were invited to the podcast.
Matthew Walker. An expert on sleep and the consequences of getting too little.