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The Essential Difference Between Life and Non-Life
The widely accepted view in biology is that the characteristics of living things include replication, metabolism, and respiration. However, the bigger question is why living things have these characteristics and what is the essential difference between life and non-life. The central difference is identified as activity, characterized by living things being hives of chemical activity that work to keep themselves alive. Each process within a living system contributes to all the constraints that keep the system organized, creating a closed system of control aimed at persistence.