Modularity, A distinguishing property of life

False.The problem is that there isn't a 'fine line' between living and non-living. We can't get it clear now when organisms have had lots of time to sharpen the line, it would have been even fuzzier as life got going.The spectrum analogy is a very good one. There is no sharp line that says you have crossed from red to orange. There is also no sharp line to say that something is now 'life' rather than non-life, especially at the beginning.

Of course it is not "biological" decay. Because rocks aren't alive. But they are not not alive because they don't decay. If life was defined by only the fact of decay then rocks would be alive.If you say it is only an analogy then you are assuming that rocks can't biologically decay because they aren't alive. That is circular. The issue is exactly one of separating the biological from the non-biological. The point is you can't use "decay" to do that.Only when you have some independent definition of what makes something biological can you say that rocks don't biologically decay.