What is Life?

A new topic today, one with fervor: define life.

Oh, it's true, many different groups have their own definitions; many individuals, too, the actions of which definition are promptly followed by the colloquial phrase, "Ah, now this is the life." But if one were to examine the details honestly, to really find out what it is that makes people move and pursue, yearn and act, the question can oft be one of very great difficulty. What does it mean, not to be "living", but merely to be "alive"? Is it a system of complex sub-systems, or a functioning protease akin to pre-biological mixtures of chemists' dreams? A heart-beat? A mind? What if both of these are unideal? Something able to be self-sufficient? That's a lofty goal, considering that which is purely self-sufficient (in a philosophic sense) would need nothing else around it to exist, but in order to exist it had to come from what existed prior to itself, which was almost indubitably inanimate.

To be quite frank, I am asking what one would put in the dictionary (without looking at what exists there now) as the definition to the term "life". So:

Life (n.): ____________________________________________________________


Have fun.