320 | Solo: Complexity and the Universe

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Our universe started out looking very simple: hot, dense, smooth, rapidly expanding. According to our best current model, it will end up looking simple once again: cold, dark, empty. It's in between -- now, roughly speaking -- that things look complex. I have been working to understand the stages by which complexity comes into existence, thrives, and eventually disappears. Without going into technical details, in this solo episode I give an overview of the general picture and the clues we are looking at to better understand the process of complexogenesis.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/06/30/320-solo-complexity-and-the-universe/

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The Santa Fe Institute has recently published a four-volume set of classic papers on complexity. David Krakauer provided a comprehensive introduction that has been published as a standalone book.

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