What is life really about?

Life is self-organising chemistry which reproduces itself and passes on its evolved characteristics, encoded in DNA. In thermodynamics terms, it has the ability to reduce local entropy or disorganisation, thus locally contravening the third law of thermodynamics. But what is life really about, if anything?

What counts as life?

What counts as life is still being defined. The question of what it means to be alive remains unresolved. For instance, viruses—tiny protein and nucleic acid structures that can only reproduce inside host cells—have many of the properties of life. However, they do not have a cellular structure, nor can they reproduce without a host.

What are the characteristics of life?

Life, living matter and, as such, matter whose attributes include responsiveness, growth, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction. Each individual is composed of one or more minimal living units, called cells, and is capable of transformation of compounds, growth, and participation in reproductive acts.

What does life mean in biology?

Since there is no consensus for a definition of life, most current definitions in biology are descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of something that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment. This implies all or most of the following traits: