That’s Life?-Yes, No, Maybe

Contrary to the cherished beliefs of many physicists and other unreconstructed materialists, there's a lot more to life than mere matter. What distinguishes life from non-life is how the matter is organized. This paper argues that by retreating from a resolutely Newtonian view of life and returning to the Aristotelian notion of causal categories, we open up new avenues of approach to understanding the interconnections among earthly life forms, artificial life in machines, and possible types of extraterrestrial life.