What does it really mean to be alive? Is life on Earth primarily a matter of biology and mechanics, or is there a form of intelligence inherent in all living things that we have yet to fully understand?

In this lecture, Melanie Challenger challenges established ideas about life, consciousness, and agency. Drawing on biology, philosophy, physics, and ecology, she outlines a new picture of the living: not as machines governed by genes, nor as something purely spiritual detached from the body, but as organisms that act, respond, and navigate the world through being embodied.

Life is full of forms of intelligence we have long overlooked or underestimated – from plants reaching toward the light, to birds navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, to single-celled organisms solving problems. Perhaps we need to expand our very concept of what intelligence actually is.

In an age shaped by AI technology and environmental crisis, Challenger poses a fundamental question: what happens if we truly recognise that we ourselves are part of this living, acting world? And how might that change the way we live – and how we relate to all other forms of life around us?

With:

Melanie Challenger, a British writer and researcher, particularly concerned with the relationship between humans and other species. Among her recent publications are How to Be Animal: What It Means to Be Human (2021), Animal Dignity: Philosophical Reflections on Non-human Existence (2023), and Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World (2026).