“Between Life and No Life” explores the question of whether life can exist
independent of the physical body. The discussion starts with a brief introduction to the
scientific definition of life. It explains that life in science is supposed to exist within
microscopic units called cells, and these cells can only be created by dividing other cells
in two. The story then talks about the theory of evolution, the motivations for the
theory, and how it was apparently validated by the theory of molecular genetics. This
chapter concludes that, if the theory of molecular genetics is correct, then there is an
obvious paradox in the definition of life; the creation of life contradicts its own
definition. Regardless of the efforts to explain this paradox during the last century,
scientists have still not found the law of nature that can fill this gap. In contrast, the
hypothesis proposed by the author asserts that life behaves as if it is has consciousness
of its own existence.
Keywords: The wrong assumption, theory of vitalism, organic and inorganic
matter, body and consciousness, life definition, capability of self-replication,
spontaneous life generation, the theory of evolution, natural selection, common
ancestor, inheritance, genes, classic genetics, molecular genetics, chromosome,
DNA, mutations, synthetic life, stem cells, sexual reproduction.
