A Definition for Life?

There’s a fascinating article over on space.com (
Hot Gas in Space Mimics Life) describing the life-like behavior of interstellar gases. What caught my interest is the effort to define this behavior as either living or non-living, and the almost desperate sense that there’s no real definition for what life is.

I think the difficulty with finding a definition is the hidden assumption that some things are alive and some things are not. Why not recognize that the beauty and purposefulness (order) of existence is itself a living reality? While interstellar gas does not speak the human language or pro-create in the same manner as a human being or other biological organisms, why should that imply that inorganic matter, or space itself for that matter, is dead or non-living? Let it all be alive until we truly know differently. It’s far more fun that way and opens one up much more to the wonder of the living cosmos.