“Life is a self-sustaining, reproductively-anchored pattern of organized complexity, capable of adaptive interaction with its environment and continuous transformation through evolutionary processes.”

• Self-sustaining → preserves its internal pattern through internal processes

• Reproductively-anchored → part of a lineage or capable of initiating one

• Organized complexity → follows the Law of Complexity; not random chaos, but structured interaction

• Adaptive interaction → responds to external stimuli in a way that feeds back into survival

• Continuous transformation → evolution over time, even if not at the level of the individual