Any individual yardstick is going to be inadequate; A forming hurricane has negative entropy homeostasis and self organization, Jupiter's great red spot sustains itself by consuming smaller storms, crystals of all types can grow and self replicate if the conditions are right. The boundaries of life get pretty fuzzy when we look at things like viruses and prions, down to self replicating molecules which, under lab conditions, both replicate and undergo Darwinian evolution.
I think a continuum is an oversimplification, since 'life' has a great many properties, some of which are considered more important than others, and which appear in different strengths in different life forms. That said in my opinion there is no hard boundary between life and non life, and even systems 99% of westerners would class as not alive can show life like properties under certain circumstances .
Space/Science » in reply to re: What is life ? neagtive entropy??
Negative entropy??