I had a thought about this recently. I can't prove it, but it seems to me that the "value" of life in an entropic system is that, although it retains an island of low entropy, and sort of "bucks the trend" (locally), that in order to do this it must, on average, cause greater increase of entropy (globally), faster burnup of energy, stronger randomisation, than would a Random process alone.

Random processes are inefficient. Panicking people jam into doorways and block fire escapes. Ants march through steadily and more escape, even though the ones at the back burn to death and don't rush to save themselves.

Without Life, the Universe is chaotic, random, and CAN't go quicker.

WITH life, it finds new ways to catalyse energy consumption, like concentrating the fissile elements to make a nuclear weapon to get a little bit closer to "Iron"