Sean Carroll on Theoretical Physics and Interdisciplinarity

<p>Ultimately, this episode is about science and scholarship. As Sean says,  “understanding something as well as you can in science means that you need to confront the data and be pushed out of your comfort zone.” I find it counterintuitive but true: this episode shows us that theoretical physics and indeed science pushes us into the subjunctive. It’s our job as scholars to think beyond  what’s given, beyond what’s happening right now around us, and think about what <em>could </em>happen, perhaps what <em>would </em>happen if certain constraints were lifted. </p><p>If we suffered a mass extinction, what would life look like? If the mouth were configured differently, how would phonetic change have been different from the beginning? What about the uniformitarian hypothesis? If a language dies out and a new hybrid language forms, what are the possibilities and impossibilities? And then what happens when we think about this space of possibilities combinatorially vs. probabilistically vs. normatively?</p><p>Among other things, Sean and I discuss the romance of the university, the merits of interdisciplinarity, his blog posts from 20+ years ago on Zizek, language, and metaphor—we inevitably touch on AI and writing—and, of course, we discuss what it means to host podcasts and present public scholarship. </p><p>Sean Carroll, the host of Sean Carroll&#39;s <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Mindscape</a>, is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of several books including <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/biggestideas/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><em>The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion</em></a>, and <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/somethingdeeplyhidden/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><em>Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime</em></a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/</a> </p><p><a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2006/05/22/the-universe-is-structured-like-a-language/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">The universe is structured like a language</a><br><a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/writings/metaphor05/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">From experience to metaphor by way of imagination</a></p><p><a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/12/22/holiday-message-2025-the-romance-of-the-university/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Holiday message 2025</a><br><a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4455" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">The Universe as a Quantum Computer</a></p><p><a href="https://libraryofbabel.info/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">The Library of Babel </a></p><p><a href="https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/david-krakauer" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">David Krakauer</a></p><p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/22/maine-senate-graham-platner-janet-mills-susan-collins-00791784" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Maine senate primary</a></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Max Weber </a></p><p><a href="https://www.sessions.blue/">⁠Music by Blue Dot Sessions ⁠</a>(https://www.sessions.blue/)</p>