“We are anthropocosmic expressions of this universe… the nature and character of the universe hibernates within us and shines through us.”
In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with Dr. Andrew M. Davis, process philosopher and author of Metaphysics of Exo-Life, to explore how we might think about extraterrestrial life, consciousness, and our place in the cosmos through the lens of process philosophy and Alfred North Whitehead’s revolutionary worldview.
Here’s the ground (and sky) we cover:
- How our physical insignificance in the cosmos doesn’t diminish our metaphysical significance
- Why we might be “anthropocosmic” rather than anthropocentric – expressions of the universe’s deeper patterns
- The recent Congressional UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, aka UFOs) hearings and what they might mean for our understanding of consciousness
- Moving beyond “dead matter” materialism to a universe where experience goes “all the way down”
- How aesthetic value might be fundamental to cosmic evolution and alien ethics
- The difference between supernatural intervention and a naturally strange, interconnected universe
- Why truth and meaning might require some form of cosmic consciousness
- The “great chain of being and becoming” – how we might prepare ethically for contact with far more advanced civilizations
- Process theology’s “dipolar God” – how the divine can be both the ground of cosmic evolution AND its culminative outcome
- Why panpsychism and process philosophy offer a middle path between religious fundamentalism and scientific reductionism
- The connection between UFO/UAP phenomena and broader questions about the nature of consciousness and reality
- How Indigenous wisdom traditions and mystical experiences might find validation in a process worldview
- Preparing for potential extraterrestrial contact as planetary citizens
This conversation offers a refreshing philosophical framework for thinking about some of our deepest questions around meaning, consciousness, and humanity’s cosmic future. Tune in here!
Dr. Andrew M. Davis, Ph.D. is an American process philosopher, theologian, and scholar of the cosmos. He is research and academic director for the Center for Process Studies where he researches, writes, teaches, and organizes conferences on various aspects of process-relational thought. An advocate of metaphysics and meaning in a hospitable universe, he approaches philosophy as the endeavor to systematically think through what reality must be like because we are a part of it. He is author, editor, and co-editor of nearly a dozen books including Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (2020); Process Cosmology: New Integrations in Science and Philosophy (2022); Metaphysics of Exo-Life: Toward a Constructive Whiteheadian Cosmotheology (2023); and Whitehead’s Universe: A Prismatic Introduction (forthcoming, 2026). Andrew’s work bridges the often-contentious divide between science and spirituality, offering a sophisticated philosophical framework that takes both cutting-edge cosmology and anomalous phenomena seriously. His approach to “exo-philosophy” represents a new frontier in thinking about extraterrestrial life that goes beyond both naive materialism and supernatural explanations.
Connect with Andrew:
- Website: AndrewmDavis.info
- YouTube channel for lectures and talks
- Whitehead course info
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