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If you try to define 'life' at the fundamental level it is most probably self organising information or data set carried by matter that is capable of replication by copying information to another data set as is the case with simple viuses or bacteria
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Bert
A good point you raise. Even smaller than the smallest virus is the prion, one of which causes BSE (Bovine Spongioform Encephalopathy) or mad cow disease. Others include Kreutzfeld Jakob disease in people and also Scrapie in sheep. These "information carrying particles" can hardly be decribed as being alive, and yet they manage to carry information and reproduce themselves. Is this life? or is it not? Some far better biologists than myself are still debating this.
Stuart