Just like I mentioned in a previous comment, there is a curious aspect about these chemical reactions. You see, a rock will decade eventually and so do we, but our reactions constantly try to adjust to the thermodynamics instead of following them. A structure in our body was broken by giving it energy? No problem, so long as I feed the system with new energy I can rebuild the damaged part and make it back to what it is not supposed to be anymore. It’s even more curious knowing that this can’t happen forever but does happen.

But the relations between my atoms are the same as the ones between a rock’s atoms. They still exchange electrons, they still answer the physical laws in the same way. But my relations, differently from a rock, have a sense which is literally trying to go against the universe thermodynamic fundamentals: we constantly try to overcome entropy. Why a rock doesn’t do the same?

I like your answer but leaves plenty of room for doubts. If, let’s say, carbon atoms that compose your body are considered alive, then it means that the mineral that will be formed in billions of years somewhere else in the universe - with the very same carbon atoms that make you today - will also be alive.

They don’t meet the criteria to be considered alive, yet when they are all together in particular order and groups they do meet the criteria as a whole. Where is the line that separates alive to not-alive?