While I totally agree with you, there is some value in having a clear definition of life if you're trying to do something like determine if it exists on other p

While I totally agree with you, there is some value in having a clear definition of life if you're trying to do something like determine if it exists on other planets. In that sense, you're looking for some kind of self-separating chemical unit, which looks very different from a homogenous soup which happens to undergo complex chemical reactions.