Chris Gordon-Smith  wrote or quoted:

> haiguang wrote:

> > In his book "the origins of life", Freeman Dyson showed
something more
> > important than metabolism: replication. In his opinion, life must be
> > able to reproduce itself, and that is really the meaning of life.
> > Nowadays, more and more scientists agree with this idea.
> 
> The key point about Freeman Dyson's book is that he is making the case for
> life having a metabolic origin, rather than having an origin as a template
> replicating molecule. 
> 
> I don't think anyone doubts that life must be able to reproduce itself,
> although it is of course possible for an individual organism to be alive
> without having the ability to reproduce.

Life needs to be able to perpetuate itself.

Reproduction dosen't seem to be logically necessary - it would be
possible for a living system to consist of a single large entity
that grew into new environments rather than reproducting itself -
and most would still judge such an organism to be alive.

There are large plants that operate like this - vegetative growth -
rather than reproduction.

Consider, for example:

``Lomatia tasmanica: the oldest clonal plant on the planet''

http://www.research.utas.edu.au/reports/1998/clone.htm

....an article about the world's oldest known living thing.
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