In a letter to the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, Albert Einstein argued that free will was an illusion. Our lives are as given by natural laws as everything else in the universe. But many naturalistic philosophers disagree. They argue that phenomena like life, sentience and even free will actually did emerge in a universe that totally lacked these phenomena.

Such developments are often referred to as "emergence" - the alleged fact that totally new qualities can appear in the universe: Life emerged from inanimate matter, consciousness emerged from unconscious matter, free will emerged from a universe completely determined by natural laws. This is maybe the default stand by many scientists and educated people today.

In this session we will discuss if the concept of emergence helps us understand phenomena such as consciousness, life and freedom, perhaps even morality, or if it is more or less an empty concept that does more to explain away these phenomena than to explain them.

Short introduction by Lars Risan.

In the panel:

Rupert Sheldrake is a british biologist, philosopher, and author of more than one hundred scientific articles and nine books, including The Science Delusion. He is best known for his theory of morphic resonance. From 2005 to 2010, he was the director of the Perrott-Warrick project for the study of unexplained abilities in animals and humans, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge.

Lars Risan is an anthropologist at Historical Museum, and has previously worked at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. Risan has written on a variety of topics. His latest book "Ulvebarna: Omsorgens naturhistorie» (2022) deals with subjects like with freedom and morality in nature and how these qualities are central in evolution of life.

Carl Tollef Solberg is a medical doctor, philosopher, and associate professor at the University of Oslo.

Are Raklev is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oslo and a prominent science communicator. His research field is particle phenomenology, and as a communicator he covers many areas within physics.

Moderator: Johanne Pontoppidan Tuxen, journalist in the Danish newspaper Information with a focus on science journalism. She has also been a freelance journalist for Politiken for many years. She is the author of the book "Naturvidenskaben genfortalt" (2021).