Cosmic Consciousness
An Original Podcast
Professor Mickūnas discusses topics from Philosophy to Politics, Zen to the Cosmos, Communication to Democracy, and much more. Listen to this much-celebrated philosopher as he takes you on a journey of learning, understanding, and discovery.
Episode 1 (27 Jan 2026)
The birth of philosophy as a search for the ways we understand the world, resulting in the discovery of diverse levels of consciousness--from empirical to rational.
Episode 4 (15 Feb 2026)
In this episode, the fundamental question is what constitutes the most basic components of reality: is it an experienced thing or the parts of which the thing is composed? The resolution is indefinite.
Episode 7 (15 Mar 2026)
This discussion focuses on the modern subject and what methodological and theoretical means it has to establish in order to access the material world. The method had to be mathematical which, in correlation to the homogeneous reality, could treat the latter with indifference to qualitative, perceptual environment. The latter couldbe reconstructed in terms of mathematically calculated conditions and material results.
Episode 10 (05 Apr 2026)
The basic issue of time as being fundamental to all experiences: despite all efforts to explain time physiologically, mathematically, psychologically, assume time consciousness which is not a feature of anything. How do we extricate ourselves from the "thing mentality"?
Episode 2 (1 Feb 2026)
To reach the rational consciousness, classical philosophers argued for universal education--Plato established a school called "Academy." The quest for rational consciousness is also a quest for freedom of discussion and responsibility.
Episode 5 (22 Feb 2026)
The previous debate resulted in the acceptance of the universe as composed of "atoms" and that all objective reality is physical parts. All other features of consciousness became "subjective," from qualities, through values and even mathematics.
Episode 8 (22 Mar 2026)
This discussion shows the failure of one universal mathematical "language" resulting in a fragmentation of discourses and multipledisciplines. The latter are empowered to construct the environment in accordance with their mathematical definitions and thus increase the power to use the constructed material reality as means for novel constructs: here we have progress. Finally, to regard everything "objectively", including humans, the latter were also redefined in terms of diverse disciplines--physiology, biology, chemistry, genetics.
Episode11 (12 Apr 2026)
The prevailing explanation of consciousness is reductionism to modern materialism in such forms as biology, chemistry, physiology, which, in fact, fail to explain time awareness and even how we access scientific hypotheses.
Episode 3 (8 Feb 2026)
In this episode, the discussion focuses on the main arguments for the place of reason: is it distinct from the body or is it a form and essence of embodied rational consciousness?
Episode 6 (01 Mar 2026)
And now comes the question of time. Back to classics. What is time, and what are the ways that time is experienced? If everything is "now," what happens to past and future? The issue is discussed by Aristotle and very profoundly by St. Augustine.
Episode 9 (29 Mar 2026)
Contemporary global understanding is using a language of "perspectivity." It is a modern philosophical "discovery" of the universe as infinite. The issue: infinity has no center; therefore, any point one selects can be a chosen perspective from which the universe is seen. Meanwhile, infinity can be quantified into infinitesimal divisions such that everything can be interpreted mathematically. The issue: numbers are ot temporal and cannot measure time.
Episode 12 (19 Apr 2026)
The issue with "in" metaphor--being "in" space and time locations. First effort to "exit" this metaphor is imagination and images, which cannot be located--they are "intersubjective", but not psychological.