In this episode, Samuel Arbesman speaks with Julian Gough — a writer, musician, and now researcher in cosmology. Julian was part of Toasted Heretic, an Irish rock group, has written novels for both children and adults, and even composed Minecraft’s end poem. More recently, he has turned his attention to cosmology, exploring ideas at the intersection of evolution and universe formation to better understand why the cosmos is the way it is. He writes about this work in his newsletter The Egg and the Rock, where he argues that “our universe appears to be the result of an evolutionary process at the level of universes,” drawing on recent data from across many fields.

Samuel and Julian discuss his career in music and writing, and how he gradually became drawn into big questions about cosmology. Their conversation explores cosmological natural selection, the idea of the universe as a developmental process, Julian’s blowtorch theory, and the challenges and opportunities of doing research outside the scientific establishment. Along the way, they consider the implications for our understanding of the cosmos, the role of intelligent life in the universe, how scientific paradigm shifts occur, and the value of interdisciplinary thinking.