A podcast and a free course

CosmopolitiGAL

The politics of the cosmos, and the consciousness that meets it.

with Laerta Mitro

What happens when it is real?

CosmopolitiGAL is a show about the largest questions we have: who we are, what else may be out there, and how we would meet it without losing ourselves.

I'm Laerta Mitro. I came to these questions through economics, systems thinking and two decades of reading far outside my field. I take consciousness and contact seriously, and I hold my own views to evidence. I won't tell you contact has happened, and I won't give you a date. Preparation has value precisely because we don't know.

Every idea on the show is heard twice: once from the model I think with, and once from the strongest model that disagrees. Where the evidence runs against me, I'll say so.

The working model

Consciousness-first
  • Consciousness is more than the brain
  • Each of us expresses something larger
  • Embodiment is a way of experiencing

The counter-model

Naturalist
  • Consciousness is what brains do
  • The self is a biological fact
  • Contact is between evolved organisms

Not a belief. A capacity: to meet extraordinary information and still think for yourself.

Season 1: Preparing for Contact

Inter-Consciousness Relations, in thirteen episodes. From what we are, to who could legitimately speak for Earth.

    The free course

    The written course behind the season, free for anyone new to these questions. Read along with the episodes or on its own.

    Appendix papers

    Earlier papers that led to the course, kept as written. Each shows the positions held on its date; the master document is the current framework.