Moving beyond the definition of biological life, what universal properties exist between all conceptions of “life” (including xeno concepts)? For example, is self sustaining metabolism a universal property? If so, are stars “alive”? Are galaxies alive? If not, why, considering biological life is a subset of those physical interactions?
We are biased toward the chain that spawned humans (which is the basis of our definition of biological life), however it’s almost certain that there were many chains that were destroyed and ours is simply the one that survived?
Looking at our definition, can we assert that life requires not just responsiveness to external stimuli, but some level of cooperation with life of a similar metabolic niche? Are there any one off types of “life” which are not bound to the metabolic cycle we experience in our chain (similar to the concept of “gods”)?
Is it a function of metabolic niches to establish super-organisms (roughly “species” from our current reference frame)? If so what are the universal properties of super-organisms (e.g. must they require inter organism communication)?