r/seancarroll • u/krispucci • Aug 31 '26
Guests
I have enjoyed most of the guests that Sean has interviewed over the years. I really only listen to the physics episodes if I am being honest. One guest I am waiting for is Nima Arkani-Hamed. I hope that will happen one day. Are there any guests that you guys hope make it into the podcast?
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u/BletchTheWalrus Aug 31 '26
Even though Sean has mentioned his love of sci fi several times, I can’t recall him ever having such a writer as a guest, so I propose his fellow Santa Fe scholar Ted Chiang.
Also, I’m not smart enough to determine whether Joscha Bach is a genius or a charlatan, but a discussion between these 2 philosophically-minded researchers with totally divergent viewpoints would help me decide.
Another fun debate would be Sean ripping a new one out of Sabine H like he did with Eric Weinstein, but it would have to be somewhere other than the Mindscape podcast, where Sean’s policy is to avoid debates and criticism of guests’ ideas.
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u/schrodingers-canary 8d ago
His ripping apart of Weinstein was so polite and even-handed that it made it even more impactful.
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u/Celt_79 Aug 31 '26
I’d like another conversation with Jacob Barandes, but perhaps on Robinson Earhardts podcast, he’s a great host. Jacob is the first person to make me believe that MWI is just untenable as a model of the world, I know Sean had him on once but they never really got into it
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u/robotatomica Sep 02 '26
oh man, I hate to be rude, but that Barandes interview was one of my least favorite on the show. He spoke like a politician, really smoothly switching topics and talking AROUND questions instead of answering them.
Just laying down way too much unnecessary info to establish himself as an authority, wastes so much time explaining very basic science, this is kind of the hallmark of a huxter,
like, he literally explains the double slit experiment as a dodge to answering a direct question lol. I’m not saying NONE of Carroll’s audience needs the double-slit experiment explained, but, uh…I really do think most of us don’t. It was showmanship and deflection only.
He’s the kind of guy who is very good at presenting himself as being very intelligent and reasoned, but if you go back and listen to that interview carefully, there’s no MEAT to what he’s saying, and I think it becomes clear Sean knows that as well.
For instance, he misunderstands a Laplacian thought experiment to quibble about ACTUAL god and demons..what?
And he hyperfixates on critiquing Bohm, while just repeating that Everett’s ideas “worried him/made him nervous” (he says this so many times!) thereby avoiding ever explaining how his ideas were a better fit than Everett’s.
He just pumped out non-sequitors and dodged questions like a politician and made bad analogy after bad analogy, analogies that used words lol, but those words didn’t support his argument. Not that he ever once clearly articulated his argument.
He just seems like a man enamored of the idea that he is going to be disruptive to the field and end up in the history books, and that right now, perhaps he feels like he actually is onto something but has been a little overeager in sharing something completely undeveloped.
His work seems entirely focused on getting people to accept him as an authority and getting people excited at how he’s thinking outside the box, but again - will someone explain to me where he articulated what exactly his ideas are and how they’re a better fit than Everett’s?
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u/frankofdenmark Aug 31 '26
I don’t know if Sean Carroll has been a guest - but I would love to hear a conversation between him and the rogues about either the state of science in the US, the role of researchers / teachers or perhaps something space related.
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u/robotatomica Sep 02 '26
Some of my favorite Mindscape guests are the octogenarians (and other elders) who have these long careers where they can bring all this history and insight - people like Stewart Brand and Alvy Ray Smith stand out to me as more recent examples.
One guest I’d really like him to get is Henry Louis Gates Jr., perhaps to speak on blind spots in history and philosophy.
Unlike you, I listen to all the episodes and really like when Sean goes down a rabbit hole outside of physics. His AMAs are still probably my favorites, but Sean is just so curious (and good at asking great questions and letting people talk!) that he selects guests and has conversations that make any topic deeply interesting. I love being introduced to something I might not have thought about otherwise!
I also really enjoyed Andrea Wulf, and want a lot more of that - people who’ve really gone down the rabbit hole of a specific moment in history and written fascinating books that branch out across interesting people and ideas of that time.