On the 5th to 7th September of 2023, the Portuguese Catholic University, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (FFCS) campus, gathered around 30 researchers, including students and experts, to discuss issues related to the concepts of emergence and time. The first 'Emergence and Time' (1EaT) conference had as its main guests Professor Christian Wüthrich from the University of Geneva, Vera and Chris Sinha from the University of Bergen and East Anglia, respectively, and Professor David Yates from the University of Lisbon. Wuth the participation of students and researchers from various countries, in particular from the United States, Italy, Turkey, Iran, Portugal, England, France, and Germany, the presenting works demonstrated excellent quality.
Throughout the three days of the conference, topics such as 'What is emergence?', 'What does it mean to say that time is emergent?', 'How can we represent a timeless reality?', 'What is atemporalism?', 'The relationship between the passage of time and entropy', 'Idealism about time', 'Can time be both emergent and fundamental simultaneously?', 'Temporality and its mental and cognitive aspects', 'The importance of the concept of time in different cultures', etc., were debated.
The 1EaT was an interdisciplinary event, bringing together philosophers from different traditions to discuss authors such as Kant, Bergson, Schelling, Aristotle, and many others, as well as topics such as 'quantum gravity and emergence', 'the interaction between philosophy and science', 'the phenomenology of temporal passage', 'the importance of the concept of time for languages and cultures', etc.
The conference beneffited of the collaboration of several students from undergraduate and master's programs at the FFCS, who joined the Organizing Committee, helping to welcome all participants and thus allowing an excellent moment of integration of ongoing work at the CEFH and bringing together part of the teaching and student participants.
The 1EaT thus constituted an excellent opportunity for socializing among the attendees, especially during moments of event such as, the reception with the 'vinho verde de honra', the conference dinner, embellished with Coimbra's fado, and a guided tour through the historic city of Guimarães. It is also worth noting the good atmosphere among everyone, combined with a high technical profile of the debates that took place, both in plenary sessions and parallel sessions.
