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

337 | Kevin Zollman on Game Theory, Signals, and Meaning

Game theory is a way of quantitatively describing what happens any time one thing interacts with another thing, when both things have goals and potential rewards. That's a pretty broad class of interesting events, so it is unsurprising that game theory is a useful way of thinking about everything from international relations to the evolution of peacock feathers. I talk with philosopher Kevin Zollman about what game theory is and how it gets used in biology and human interactions. We discuss how thinking in game-theoretic terms can help understand the origin of meaning and intentionality in human language. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/01/337-kevin-zollman-on-game-theory-signals-and-meaning/ [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/01/337-kevin-zollman-on-game-theory-signals-and-meaning/] Support Mindscape on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll]. Kevin Zollman received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. He is currently the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and a visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. He serves as the Director of the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics [https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/social-dynamics/] at CMU. He is the co-author, with Paul Raeburn, of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting [https://www.amazon.com/Game-Theorists-Guide-Parenting-Negotiators-ebook/dp/B015CLB53M/]. * Web site [https://www.kevinzollman.com/] * CMU web page [https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/people/faculty/kevin-zollman.html] * Google Scholar publications [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XMu62aQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao] * PhilPeople profile [https://philpeople.org/profiles/kevin-zollman] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

336 | Anil Ananthaswamy on the Mathematics of Neural Nets and AI

Machine learning using neural networks has led to a remarkable leap forward in artificial intelligence, and the technological and social ramifications have been discussed at great length. To understand the origin and nature of this progress, it is useful to dig at least a little bit into the mathematical and algorithmic structures underlying these techniques. Anil Ananthaswamy takes up this challenge in his book Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI [https://anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines-learn]. In this conversation we give a brief overview of some of the basic ideas, including the curse of dimensionality, backpropagation, transformer architectures, and more. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/24/336-anil-ananthaswamy-on-the-mathematics-of-neural-nets-and-ai/ [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/24/336-anil-ananthaswamy-on-the-mathematics-of-neural-nets-and-ai/] Support Mindscape on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll]. Anil Ananthaswamy received a Masters degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is currently a freelance science writer and feature editor for PNAS Front Matter. He was formerly the deputy news editor for New Scientist, a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and journalist-in-residence at the Simon Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California, Berkeley. He organizes an annual science journalism workshop at the National Centre for Biological Sciences at Bengaluru, India. * Web site [https://anilananthaswamy.com/] * Amazon author page [https://www.amazon.com/stores/Anil-Ananthaswamy/author/B001HPNL1M] * Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Ananthaswamy] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

AMA | November 2025

Welcome to the November 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll] (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://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/17/ama-november-2025/ [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/17/ama-november-2025/] In the intro I mentioned a couple of my favorite TV shows of this year. Here is a more thought-out list (no particular order): * Slow Horses [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Horses] * Murderbot [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murderbot_Diaries] * The Residence [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residence_(TV_series)] * Poker Face [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_Face_(TV_series)] * Severance [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)] Pluribus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluribus] and Down Cemetery Road [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Cemetery_Road] also look promising, but too early to tell. (There are a huge number of shows I've never seen, so feel free to add recommendations.) Support Mindscape on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

335 | Andrew Jaffe on Models, Probability, and the Universe

Science has an incredibly impressive track record of uncovering nonintuitive ideas about the universe that turn out to be surprisingly accurate. It can be tempting to think of scientific discoveries as being carefully constructed atop a rock-solid foundation. In reality, scientific progress is tentative and fallible. Scientists propose models, assign them probabilities, and run tests to see whether they succeed or fail. In cosmologist Andrew Jaffe's new book, The Random Universe [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300250503/the-random-universe/], he illustrates how models and probability help us make sense of the cosmos. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/10/335-andrew-jaffe-on-models-probability-and-the-universe/ [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/10/335-andrew-jaffe-on-models-probability-and-the-universe/] Support Mindscape on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll]. Andrew Jaffe received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. He is currently a professor of astrophysics and cosmology and Director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology at Imperial College, London. His research lies at the intersection of theoretical and observational cosmology, including the Planck Surveyor, Euclid, LISA, and Simons Observatory collaborations. * Web site [https://andrewjaffe.net/] * Imperial web page [https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.jaffe] * Google Scholar publications [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g-x0VlsAAAAJ&hl=en] * Amazon author page [https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrew-H.-Jaffe/author/B0FZVMC2SG] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

334 | Daniel Whiteson on the Physics of and by Aliens

The universe as revealed by physics is objective: it's out there, existing and behaving in ways that are completely independent of human thought. But the process by which we learn about the universe, and the language with which we talk about it, is extremely human-dependent. Does that mean that aliens would do science differently, and even think differently about physics, even if we all live in the same universe? Physicist Daniel Whiteson has teamed with cartoonist Andy Warner to investigate these questions in their new book Do Aliens Speak Physics? [https://sites.uci.edu/alienphysics/] Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/03/334-daniel-whiteson-on-the-physics-of-and-by-aliens/ [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/11/03/334-daniel-whiteson-on-the-physics-of-and-by-aliens/] Support Mindscape on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll]. Daniel Whiteson received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of an Emmy nomination. He is the author of several books, often with co-author Jorge Cham [http://jorgecham.com/]. He is the co-host (with Kelly Weinersmith [http://www.weinersmith.com/]) of the podcast Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe [https://sites.uci.edu/danielandkelly/]. * UCI web page [https://sites.uci.edu/daniel/] * Google Scholar publications [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C21&q=daniel+whiteson&btnG=] * Amazon author page [https://www.amazon.com/stores/Daniel-Whiteson/author/B078H9D52X] * Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Whiteson] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].