An immersive and awe-inspiring exploration of the diversity of life on earth that reveals humans are far from the only intelligent species in our restless, ever-evolving world
What does it mean to be alive, to be conscious, to possess a soul? If the Big Bang was an effect without a discernible cause, what does it mean to create meaning-to move through a seemingly arbitrary world with purpose and intelligence? Do we have free will? And if so, are we the only ones?
Drawing on modern science and ancient wisdom, Alive argues that purpose-the capacity to act intelligently and with intention-is life's defining quality. Rather than locating that purpose in a divine creator or the human mind, Challenger reveals it as something that arises from within our own intelligent, self-organizing bodies.
Part personal essay, part natural history, part philosophy, this searching examination guides readers through the vastness of life from its emergence on a cellular level to its unfolding into the realms of perception, consciousness, and agency. The result is the profound and revelatory assertion that intelligence is both far more common-and more extraordinary-than we could have ever imagined. Melanie Challenger is a writer, researcher and broadcaster working at the intersection of environmental history, philosophy, and the life sciences. She is the author, among others, of How to Be Animal and On Extinction. She has been an active member of the UK's Nuffield Council on Bioethics and is the current Vice President of the RSPCA. Challenger's writing appears regularly in publications such as the Guardian and New Scientist and she is the host of the "Psychosphere" podcast, where she dives into the world of the diverse intelligences with guests like Peter Godfrey Smith and Daniel Dennett. She is also active in the arts and collaborates frequently with the British composer Mark Simpson. She is co-founder and co-director of Animals in the Room and a National Geographic Explorer. She lives with her family in England.
