Life is a dynamic, interrelated, systemic pattern generated over time that organizes components, environmental contexts, and behaviors simultaneously and relationsally. It is an emergent phenomenon, not reducible to its components, that relies on information exchange with its environment to resist entropy and be sustained. Life is not a linear set of causal relationships, but a reciprocal, nonlinear interplay of contexts, relationships, and energy flows. It is the unique product of millions of years of collective evolutionary experimentation, and the source from which new knowledge and understanding is created.

See also: living system, complexity, relationship, human being, natural world