Description (podcaster-provided):
Coffee table conversations with people thinking about foundational issues. Multiverses explores the limits of knowledge and technology. Does quantum mechanics tell us that our world is one of many? Will AI make us intellectually lazy, or expand our cognitive range? Is time a thing in itself or a measure of change? Join James Robinson as he tries to find out.
Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Foundational philosophy of science • Quantum mechanics interpretations, realism, modality • Mind, consciousness, cognition, mind-wandering, animal minds • AI capabilities, limits, ethics, future • Mathematics, infinity, computation • Language evolution, meaning • Climate, energy, astrobiology, networks, complexity • Science–art intersections
This podcast features wide-ranging, conversational interviews about foundational questions at the intersection of philosophy, science, and technology. Across the episodes, the host speaks with researchers and writers who use tools from physics, mathematics, cognitive science, biology, and the humanities to probe the limits of what we can know and how we come to know it.
A recurring theme is how abstract frameworks—such as quantum mechanics, theories of infinity, or accounts of explanation and reduction—shape our picture of reality and possibility. Listeners will encounter debates over scientific realism versus instrumentalism, the status of probability and “could have been” claims, and competing interpretations of quantum theory, alongside discussions of whether space and time are fundamental or relational.
Another thread focuses on minds and intelligence, spanning neuroscientific and philosophical approaches to consciousness, animal cognition, spontaneous thought and mind-wandering, and what human reasoning might do that computation cannot. Several conversations examine contemporary AI and large language models: how to conceptualize their capabilities, how they may change work and knowledge-sharing, and what fairness, responsibility, transparency, and safety could mean in practice.
The show also explores how scientific understanding is produced and situated—through the history of science and mythmaking around genius, the role of thought experiments, and the interplay between empirical evidence and philosophical analysis. Beyond traditional “hard science,” it includes episodes on chemistry’s conceptual foundations, astrobiology’s challenge of defining life and biosignatures, climate concepts like net zero and carbon storage, and cultural or artistic domains where scientific methods meet aesthetics, language, literature, and constrained poetic experimentation.
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Episodes:
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A Story For Humanity — Minhyong Kim on Why Maths Will Never End
2026-Feb-09
72 minutes
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Molecules & Mirrors —Vanessa Seifert on the Philosophy of Chemistry
2025-Dec-05
69 minutes
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Consciousness is not Computation — Christof Koch
2025-May-02
62 minutes
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Where Does It End? — Adrian Moore on The Infinite
2025-Mar-14
76 minutes
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37| Mind-Wandering — Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva on the Science of Spontaneous Thought
2025-Jan-31
98 minutes
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36| History of Science: Mythmaking & Contingency — Patricia Fara
2024-Dec-23
89 minutes
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35| Hypercomputation: Why Machines May never Think Like Humans — Selmer Bringsjord
2024-Nov-08
99 minutes
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34| Animal Minds — Kristin Andrews on why assuming consciousness would aid science
2024-Aug-27
74 minutes
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33| Taking Chance Seriously — Alastair Wilson on Quantum Modal Realism
2024-Jul-19
85 minutes
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AI Moonshot — Nell Watson on the Near & Not So Near Future of Intelligence
2024-Jun-21
71 minutes
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Do Electrons Exist? — Céline Henne: Physicist's Views on Scientific Realism & Instrumentalism
2024-Jun-04
98 minutes
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30| Thinking Beyond Language — Anna Ivanova on what LLMs can learn from the brain
2024-May-15
99 minutes
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29 | What are words good for? — Nikhil Krishnan on Ordinary Language Philosophy
2024-Apr-12
97 minutes
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28| Music Evolution & Empirical Aesthetics — Manuel Anglada Tort
2024-Mar-28
96 minutes
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27| Why Knowledge is Not Enough — Jessie Munton
2024-Mar-14
84 minutes
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26| Networks, Heartbeats & the Pace of Cities — Geoffrey West
2024-Feb-29
114 minutes
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25| Peter Nixey — AI: Disruption Ahead
2024-Feb-15
77 minutes
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24| How Philosophy Serves Science — David Papineau
2024-Feb-01
76 minutes
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23| Paulina Sliwa — Moral philosophy as puzzles of daily life
2024-Jan-18
71 minutes
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22| Sean McMahon — Astrobiology: what is life & how to know it when we see it?
2024-Jan-04
80 minutes
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21| How and why do animals play? — Gordon Burghardt
2023-Dec-21
72 minutes
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20| Simon Kirby — Language Evolution & Emergence of Structure
2023-Dec-07
93 minutes
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19| The Meaning of Net Zero — Myles Allen
2023-Nov-16
54 minutes
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18| Feeling Right: Emotions & Ethics — James Hutton
2023-Nov-02
108 minutes
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17| Santiago Bilinkis — Artificial Intelligence: Risks & Rewards
2023-Oct-19
93 minutes
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16| Gábor Domokos — The Gömböc, a shape at the limit of possibility
2023-Oct-05
85 minutes
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15 | Simon Critchley — Philosophical itches & how to scratch
2023-Sep-21
89 minutes
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14| ChatGPT as a Glider — James Intriligator
2023-Sep-07
97 minutes
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13| Phylogeny & The Canterbury Tales — Peter Robinson
2023-Aug-24
68 minutes
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12 | The Long Now — Peter Schwartz
2023-Aug-10
87 minutes
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11| AI, Risk, Fairness & Responsibility — John Zerilli
2023-Jul-20
100 minutes
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10| Plants, Roots, Spirals and Palaeobotany — Sandy Hetherington
2023-Jul-13
82 minutes
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9| The Hunt for Hydrogen — Rūta Karolytė
2023-Jul-06
112 minutes
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8 | Harald Wiltsche — Thought Experiments, Mach, Galileo & Phenomenology
2023-Jun-29
99 minutes
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7| Anna Lewis — Genomics, polygenic risk scores, genetic ancestry, race & ethics
2023-Jun-22
107 minutes
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6| Christian Bök — Poetry, Constraints, DNA & The Xenotext
2023-Jun-15
111 minutes
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5| QBism: The World is Unfinished — Ruediger Schack
2023-Jun-08
93 minutes
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4| Science & Poetry — Sam Illingworth
2023-Jun-01
77 minutes
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3| Julian Barbour — Relational Space and Time
2023-May-25
75 minutes
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2 | David Wallace — The Emergent Multiverse
2023-May-18
87 minutes
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1 | Casey Handmer — Mining the Air
2023-May-11
91 minutes
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