The Meaning of Life

We create life, we search for it, we manipulate and revere it. Is it
possible that we haven't yet defined the term?

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/09/the_meaning_of_life.php

To quote:

"A science in which the most important object has no definition--that's
absolutely unacceptable," says Popa. "How are we going to discuss it if you
believe the definition of life has something to do with DNA and I think it
has something to do with dynamic systems? We cannot have a conversation on
any level. We cannot make artificial life because we cannot agree on what
life is. We cannot find life on Mars because we cannot agree on what life
represents."

Recently, a new voice has entered the debate. Carol Cleland, who teaches
philosophy at the University of Colorado and works with NASA's National
Astrobiology Institute--essentially as their philosopher-in-residence--is
making a more radical argument: Scientists should simply give up looking for
a definition of life. They can't even begin to understand what life really
is, she claims, until they find forms of life profoundly different from
those we know here on Earth. Only when we can compare alien life with life
on our planet will we understand the true nature of this ubiquitous,
ephemeral thing.