Parrello, Damien (2025) A Natural Definition of Life. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Numerous definitions of life have been proposed to date. Nevertheless, a consensus remains elusive, as existing definitions ultimately fail to identify the fundamental elements that distinguish living from inanimate matter. Consequently, robust counterexamples and arbitrary constraints have systematically undermined their significance. Here, we show that all cellular processes can be unified within a single conceptual framework we term imperiosis, and identify the universal characteristic of cell death from which the concept of cell life is established. By integrating both concepts, we derive a single principle that appears both necessary and sufficient to define life: Life is Self-compartmentalizing Imperiosis. From this perspective, our proposed definition naturally captures the foundations of life, offering unique explanatory and predictive power. Notably, it explains and resolves the long-standing ambiguity regarding the status of viruses, predicts a new taxonomy of life forms beyond life as we know it, explicitly defines the minimal life form, and shows that the two leading origin-of-life hypotheses represent two facets of the same phenomenon. Finally, the versatility and scale-free nature of imperiosis provides an unprecedented theoretical basis for understanding biological properties and organization at both intra- and intersystem levels across diverse contexts.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | definition of life, theoretical biology, philosophy of biology, biology first principles | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology General Issues > Natural Kinds |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Damien Parrello | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 08 Oct 2025 11:07 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 08 Oct 2025 11:07 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 26852 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology General Issues > Natural Kinds |
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| Date: | 6 October 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26852 |
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