  There has been on-going philosophical debate on whether artificial life
models, also known as digital organisms, are truly alive. The main difficulty
appears to be finding an encompassing and definite definition of life. By
examining similarities and differences in recent definitions of life, we define
life as "any system with a boundary to confine the system within a definite
volume and protect the system from external effects, consisting of a program
that is capable of improvisation, able to react and adapt to the environment,
able to regenerate parts of it-self or its entirety, with energy system
comprises of non-interference sets of secluded reactions for self-sustenance,
is considered alive or a living system. Any incomplete system containing a
program and can be re-assembled into a living system; thereby, converting the
reassembled system for the purpose of the incomplete system, are also
considered alive." Using this definition, we argue that digital organisms may
not be the boundary case of life even though some digital organisms are not
considered alive; thereby, taking the view that some form of digital organisms
can be considered alive. In addition, we present an experimental framework
based on continuity of the overall system and potential discontinuity of
elements within the system for testing future definitions of life.
