Frank White - The Overview Effect and a planetary civilization

Frank White is a philosopher of space. In 1987 he coined the term "the overview effect," referring to the life-altering experience astronauts received upon witnessing our planet from outer space. His work, as his life, bring this transformation of perspective into sharper focus, presenting an alternative perception of ourselves, our world, and our future.

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Frank is author of the groundbreaking book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of space exploration. The enduring life of the ideas are evidenced by the fact that the book is now in its fourth edition. In 2018 he published The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect that constructs the overview effect as a philosophy of space exploration. His driving questions in it are, "What is the purpose of human space exploration? Why has the evolutionary process brought humanity to the brink of becoming a spacefaring species?"

He co-founded the Overview Institute to bring vitality to the philosophy through research and education on the nature and psychosocial impact of the space experience.

He's a graduate of Harvard and earned a Master of Philosophy from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Frank is about defining a new philosophy for humankind as a space-faring species. At its core, Frank's philosophy is one of togetherness and of a planetary civilization, in a strange boomerang across time reaching back to ancient and indigenous wisdom of oneness just as it looks out ahead into the deep and perhaps not so distant future.

So, this is a conversation about the philosophy of humanity as cosmological beings, how Frank came to this philosophy in his life, and the lessons it has for each of us personally and collectively.

But it is also a conversation about Becoming. How this philosophy is evolving just as each of us and our planet change continuously. To speak with Frank is deeply renewing, perhaps not unlike the overview effect itself.