But how is life defined? Isn't that almost the same question?
Is it the abillity to self-replicate or does it take more? Is some level of awareness required?
I agree that life is a continual pregression of complexity, and that there is no actual border, only an illusion of one.
In simple life it might be true that what atoms can do relays into what it can do. But more complex life forms seems to be working on another level also. So how or what the individual atoms are capable of is superseded by their complex interaction with eachother.
So I'm not sure that learning how atoms functions will tell you how complex life works. I mean isn't that occuring at a higher level. Knowing how semi-condoctors within a computer function can't tell you anything about how Internet Explorer works.