[PatrickHenry]

Perhaps we ought to coin a mneumonic for it when we have these discussions. How about something like Cellcom?

How about sticking with "alive" and "dead" to describe the conditions in question? Those words are already well-understood. Thus we avoid fuzzy words that untintentionally may, of themselves, suggest the presence of non-existent complexities.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

How about sticking with "alive" and "dead" to describe the conditions in question?

Those are adjectives and not nouns and thus will not help the inquiry.

IOW, if the question is the “origin of life” then one must first have an understanding of what life is.

This is the epistemological failure of the biological sciences (Pattee). Physics and math do not make this error and thus have asked the question and answered that “life” is information (Shannon paraphrased, successful communication).