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 science-and-philosophy conversations • Quantum mechanics, multiverse, realism, measurement • Consciousness, animal minds, cognition, mind-wandering • AI capabilities, ethics, risk, computation limits • Maths, infinity, networks, emergence • Language, evolution, culture • Climate, energy, astrobiology
This podcast features long-form conversations with researchers, philosophers, and practitioners about foundational questions at the edges of science, mathematics, and technology. Across the episodes, the host uses current scientific ideas as entry points into wider issues about what we can know and how we should interpret our best theories. Recurring topics include the philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics, chance and possibility, the status of scientific entities, and debates over reductionism—often using case studies from fields beyond physics, such as chemistry.
A substantial throughline is the nature of mind and cognition. Discussions range from scientific theories of consciousness and the relationship between experience, computation, and causal structure, to comparative approaches that treat animal minds and play as legitimate subjects for explanation. Several conversations connect cognitive science and neuroscience to contemporary AI, exploring what large language models imply (and do not imply) about thinking, how humans rely on cognitive prosthetics, and how questions of ethics, responsibility, transparency, and safety arise in real-world deployment.
The show also returns to the structure of reasoning and knowledge: how mathematics develops, how humans handle infinity, what thought experiments do, how language shapes inquiry, and how social and psychological factors influence what people attend to and believe. Alongside these, episodes sometimes extend into applied, future-facing domains—climate policy and “net zero,” carbon capture, alternative energy resources, astrobiology, and scenario planning—while keeping the emphasis on concepts, assumptions, and the limits of explanation.
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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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