Jim please change the title to: "Life and non-life, what lies in between and how do we define it?". It's a bit simplistic but it conveys what I originally meant much better. Thanks!

I think self organisation is a much better criteria than complexity, as complexity can mean chaos as much as something highly ordered. Functional organisation also sounds good, but I expect there is a lot of cross over of meaning between the two, so in my opinion they should really come under one criteria if possible.

So:
(Self/Functional)Organization Yes but I disagree with the wikipadea definition of it as most life is single celled but still by necessity highly organised.

Metabolism: yes no argument there.

Reproduction: Again no objection although I can imagine that some highly organised metabolising growing systems that do nor produce offspring (like a hinny or mule)

Growth: It's important but if reproduction is present is it vital, some systems may reproduce themselves without increasing the individual?

Adaptation: It sticks in my craw to say this but in a very stable environment I can imagine life doing without adaptation, though that makes it much less interesting. Perhaps the potential for adaptation could be substituted?

Response to stimuli: Isn't this just another form of adaptation? A tree turning its leaves to follow the sun is adapting to meet its environment, as is a leopard pouncing on its prey.

And we should bear in mind that to develop a life scale(s) or a 'life space' where these things could be mapped we need some way of quantifying them. Metabolism might be fairly easy, but I think the others will be more challenging.
What do people think?

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"Many of those people are not getting four when adding two and two; many of them aren't even getting five or twenty-two. They're getting potato."
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