[thibauts]

I’d say life is defined by identity (a bunch of information defining a structure), or a self, and the processes that allow this self to stay identical to itself in time. Something like homeostasis at the organism level. #1 and #2 would be utilities to realize this, and not necessarily integrated. Arguably #3 isn’t necessary as others have said and could be seen as only one manifestation among others of the self-preservation process. A trivial illustration of this definition on which we can all agree is death, where self-preservation processes break and identity disintegrates.

Interestingly this definition would encompass countries and probably any social group as long as they have a name, an identity and processes to maintain it. I think life doesn’t need integrated intelligence to be life, though intelligence could probably be defined as a predictive kind of self-preservation process. Essentially devising a chain of actions for moving from state A to state B with a limited set of possible operations and minimized energy consumption. An efficient way to return to initial state, or to another state that increases likelyhood of identity preservation.

As someone else said in a comment, life may be seen as a continuum where these characteristics are more or less developed and integrated, for instance making coutries or viruses living organisms while still distinguishing the unique character of humans or animals.