Hello Malcolm,
One of the truly yawning chasms in our current knowledge is a description, definition & understanding of just exactly what an everyday, common, ordinary, garden variety 'material object' is !!
Laudably enough but physics has been so preoccupied with the fundamental units of reality, it has entirely omitted to describe, firstly, matter 'up here' at the 'macro' level in its generic form - aka 'solid objects' - & then recognise that 'life' is 'just' a variation on this particular 'macro' form of the stuff.
My own investigations have led me to recognise that the definition of any 'proper macro' - of any 'solid, material body' (animate or inanimate) - is any self-assembling//self defending entity; is anything that can assemble itself altogether into one unitarily-acting entity all by itself without any outside assistance; & which can also continue on holding itself together in this self-powered, self-directed, self-defending manner for at least some certain interval of time - & in the face of at least some threats to its personal integrity of being. Please note that even rocks & stones 'kick back' at you if you ever assault them ...... And for heavens sakes, don't go trying to split an atom without being prepared for its kick back reaction .......
My investigations also lead me to recognise that life is 'just' any otherwise perfectly ordinary self-assembling, self-defending entity - any perfectly ordinary atom, molecule, crystal - which nevertheless does so 'transformationally' - that is to say by first taking in at least some initially inimical elementary elements, & then either immediately or after some period of safe storage, transform them into some productive/contributive element of itself - discriminatively expelling any still toxic or unusable by-products as it does so.
By the way, 'life' is a crystal but NOT one of DNA but is quite unequivocally one of phospholipids, in short it's a liposome - DNA is just one of the many contaminants that life learned - evolved the ability - to use to its own advantage.
Why we live in a universe where matter can assemble itself ultimately into us remains a total mystery - but it has, & if you read & rate my essay "How Should Humanity Steer the Future ?" by Margriet Anne O'Regan, you will see what it has in store for us - if only we will obey all its laws, including the one of 'female centrality' ....!!!!
I enjoyed your essay. I agree with you - life is just a variation on the stuff that makes up everything else of which we are cognizant here in our universe, & is as subject to nature's laws no less than the rocks & stones beneath our feet & the atoms & molecules of which we are all composed.
Cheers, Margriet.