Hello everybody, welcome to the October 2021 Ask Me Anything Edition of the Mindscape Podcast.

I'm your host, Sean Carroll.

And greetings from Sonny Boston, Massachusetts, where I remain from my visit here to the Harvard

Philosophy Department. It is Sonny actually at this exact moment, but as cliche as it is,

what I have to comment on is the weather here in the northeastern United States.

Because you know, I live in Los Angeles and have for the past 15 years or so, where it's Sonny

and dry almost all the time and the right temperature. And actually, I've been blessed with the

right temperature pretty much here in the northeast, but boy is it humid. And I say this as someone

who lived in Boston for eight years and before that in Pennsylvania for many years, but I kind of

forget that 75 degrees in the northeast is just not the same weather as 75 degrees in Los Angeles.

That's about it for my deep insights here because I've mostly for the past month been just

concentrating on getting books written and other things that I've had to do, you know,

revising papers and writing letters of recommendation. It's that part of the year.

Doing a tiny little bit of traveling, not too much. So yeah, no real big news other than that.

So with that spirit in mind, let's go.

James Fakorato says,

great podcast on paleogenetics toward the end of the discussion, the idea of kickstarting

life processes on other planets came up. Do you think we are or ever will be wise enough to

evaluate and take that step? We do not have a good track record on such past intrusions despite

whatever good intentions may have been in play. Well, you're absolutely right. We do not have a

good track record by we, I mean the human race, generally. And the question of the question that came

up for those of you who didn't listen to the podcast, this is with a virtual goods are,

...