Living systems are mechanisms, with moving parts and a control device. And typically a means of reproducing themselves. Even apparently simple single cells have very small moving parts and a control device. And, as you point out, separate the parts from one another, or separate them from their control device, and whatever else they are, alive they are not.
Typically, also, cells that work in concert with other cells have a means of organizing themselves, which is to say communications, either with those adjacent cells, or with another higher control device, or probably both.
We know that for us to devise something similar, or something analogous, takes some fairly talented people. Its difficult to imagine such things assembling themselves.
Fascinating in this regard is that afterwards, especially the Stoics, supposed a World Soul.
marron: And, as you point out, separate the parts from one another, or separate them from their control device, and whatever else they are, alive they are not.... Typically, also, cells that work in concert with other cells have a means of organizing themselves, which is to say communications, either with those adjacent cells, or with another higher control device, or probably both.
It seems to me that people over the ages understand a clear distinction between life and death. Historically, the dead bodies of human relatives are not left to decompose – but are dispatched with reverence. Usually, people don’t bury the living or set a place at the table for the dead at family gatherings.
Therefore, the denial of a bright line between life and death (or non-life) seems to me like taking a bazooka to biology whether one believes it or not - hence my bantering posts. There remains much to discuss regardless of the position of an advocate, but hopefully this little 100 post sidebar has revealed some of the consequences of the assertion.
On the one hand, when the advocate accepts there is no bright line, then the subject of life and death – or life and non-life - is outside the reach of science. It is theology, philosophy or metaphysics. Therefore, there can be no credible scientific theory of abiogenesis. And, applied to the geological record as the continuum, the fallacy of quantizing a continuum authenticates the position that the theory of evolution is capricious.
On the other hand, by accepting there is a bright line, then the difference as you say is information (Shannon: communication) – which is a phenomenon without a known origin in space/time. Some expect an origin will be found. Some will identify the information with harmonics in the universe, or perhaps a universal vacuum field or mathematical structures in parallel universes. Such positions do not broach metaphysics and are compatible with most Judeo/Christian theology and philosophy.
At the end of the day, it is revealing that a person’s answer concerning life and death is both part of his spiritual compass and also his compass for science. (1 Timothy 6:20)