As to the question- What is Life?

I agree with many that life needs meaning and purpose- and the person needs to give it to themselves or get it from their culture.

Also your place in the universes hierarchy from the inside out.

Foxy seems to put it like this...
"The relationships I have created with members of my family and the way I maintain and build those relationships add meaning to my life.
Same goes for friends, neighbours, and others."

Maslow talked about another "the hierarchy of needs"- I've heard some with interesting and perhaps incorrect interpretations here.

The ideas of enlightenment luminary Emmanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer's "Four Fold Root Of Sufficient Reason" seem to give a view of meaning and a dilineated relationship between the small and the large scale- between nature the individual to society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Fourfold_Root_of_the_Principle_of_Sufficient_Reason

Some have said that life doesn't have intrinsic meaning or purpose.

The social engineering efforts of social de-re-constructionists such as the communists perhaps don't help here.

Jordan Peterson has some interesting ideas on god as being a cultural representation of the ideal person or leader.

Philosophers talk about life and consciousness- Descartes said I think therefore I am. Roger Penrose in the Emperors New Mind wrote that the mind is a quantum computer.

Mr Opinion's views seem quite clinical- perhaps I need to read them again in case I've missed some of the meaning. Though I agree that many things relate to evolution- nature, nurture, and prismatic perspicacity- as Orwell recognised

The brain our engine to perceive meaning- sorry to some that believe otherwise- has evolved from the worms brain stem or spinal cord, to the reptilian font and flight fight, to the mammilian brain and complex social structures, to the primate brain of some 8 million years ago, to early humans, to the awakening of the first large brained human that evolved 160,000 years ago, and on to human history.

As Paul Feyerabend says truth is existential not completely rational or empirical- but the doesn't mean that there can't be truth- this is one reason why cultural identity is valuable- if we are not to fall into nihilism- or communism.

Our very reality is built upon subjectivity and assertions but at some point this is all we have. This doesn't mean that Empiricism and Rationality is without value. If you take away meaning from someone in some ways you take away life and identity- I hope that people don't give up their personal meaning without good reason to themselves and their hierarchy- and allow themselves and their hierarchy to be replaced

Toni The Barbarian- now that is amusing. Looking to "hear the lamentations of their women" hey Toni.

//I see LIFE as a water-based feeder.//

I consider that to narrow a definition. Whilst it's hard to envisage life which doesn't have some sort of respiration/metabolism, there's no pressing reason that life would have to be water based if it developed on planets with different chemical environments to Earth. Water's really important role in sustaining life is basically as a solvent, and there are number of chemical substances that could do the same job - based on it's chemical properties, ammonia is a strong contender for solvent that might be able to support life on exoplanets.

This is, of course, all purely speculative. What is best in life? Speculating about the possibility of life on other planets... and how you might crush those lifeforms, see them driven before you, and hear de lamentation of der vimmen.

Organic life and chemistry are mediums for the expression of a greater purpose. There is a temporary unfolding in His Story, yet there is an eternal story. The individual human story is about eighty years + or - and during that life span every cell of the body has been renewed at least every twenty one years. So we are more than just a body, what do people talk about at funerals, is not the body, but the history. The persons contribution to others lives and society. Life is about serving others, supplying needs, building improvements for life, to raise the poor, weak, sick and oppressed. Luke 4: 18. A society that does that will prosper. It is those that are serving humanity in that field during this time we give praise too.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Thank you for your profound questions. I keep appreciating your spirit of inquiry.

The question "What is life", is one of the most worthwhile to ask and contemplate on. Therefore please let it not discourage you when I tell you that it has no verbal answer.

For how can "Life" be described when you have no terms to use that are outside of life?! Can you even think of anything that is outside of life?

Yes, the dictionary has quite a number of definitions for the word 'Life', but these are only partial, only aspects of life rather than Life itself.

Biology for example is one such aspect - but many things in life are not biological.
Vigour is another - but many people's lives lack vigour.
The period of usefulness is another - but many things in life are past their use.
And so on...

Foxy mentioned "reproduction, growth, metabolism, movement, responsiveness and adaptation", yet decay and death are also parts of life. It is common to label what is desirable by us as "life" and the rest (like having to share one toilet between 80 people, as Chris Lewis noted), well, it's "not a life", but this is only colloquial: both are life!

As for "what makes it worth living?", since worthiness is part of life, since we cannot imagine any worthiness outside of life, this question is meaningless.

Some here tried to circumvent it by speaking of "meaning", but meaning only exists within the human mind, which is made of opposites. Certain aspects of life can be mentally considered "meaningful" only because other aspects are considered "meaningless", but as life contains all its aspects, it can have no meaning.

"In conclusion, all is heard, fear God and keep his commandments, for this all what man is about." [Ecclesiastes 12:13, my translation].