Tag: Collapse

Sean Carroll on future and prediction

If you’re interested in the future of society and human culture (and who is not?) then you’ll be fascinated to hear what Sean has to say in this podcast episode.

A recent Sean Carroll podcast considers the future, and in particular how humanity lives and how this may change. He discusses the nature of predictability, and its limits. Fascinating stuff!

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Sean Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher specialising in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He’s the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.

He’s also active on the internet with his website, Preposterous Universe and interviews experts on a host of topics on his podcast Mindscape. For fuller details about Sean and his work, it’s worth reading the Wikipedia article about him and/or visiting his website (both linked below).

Episode 270

Most episodes of the podcast are interviews with scientists, philosophers and others. But Episode 270 is a solo appearance in which Sean thinks aloud on a topic by himself, and that’s not to say he ignores the ideas and work of others – far from it. He discusses his own ideas and those of others, explaining why the early stages of exponential growth may not be easily distinguishable from other kinds of curve such as asymptotic (where growth eventually slow and creeps ever closer to a maximum) or even a singularity or a phase transition (where growth may suddenly settle into a new and altogether different pattern).

Sean unpacks a lot of ideas here, and he’s careful to express his thoughts in ways that most people will be able to understand and digest. Sean is a mathematician (a necessary skill for any physicist) but even non-mathematicians will be able to follow his arguments here.

If you’re interested in the future of society and human culture (and who is not?) then you’ll be fascinated to hear what Sean has to say in this podcast episode. He will certainly cut the ground out from under your feet if you hold the opinion that we will go on expanding and thriving indefinitely.

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