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.