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We have a definition: life is Filtering Using Chemistry for Self-Continuation. But does it actually work? Is it operational?

There is one way to find out. Test it against the hardest cases — the ones that broke every definition before it. If it fails even one, it's wrong. If it holds across all of them, we have something real.

We have a life detector.

Virus Filters for its own continuation using host chemistry. Alive.
Protocell Filtering performed by the scientists maintaining it. Not alive — the agency is external.
Cancer cell Filters for its own continuation — not the organism's. Alive. The beneficiary matters.
Fire No internal reference. No self to continue. Reacts — doesn't filter. Not alive.
AI Filters for goals we gave it. Not for its own continuation. Not alive. Not yet.

The pattern held. Not because the cases were cherry-picked — but because the definition draws a real line. Observable. Testable. Rigorous.

It works on Earth. It will work beyond it.

Test it yourself. Find what breaks it.

→ Read the paper: FUCSC — full systematic testing (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16593646)

The foundational FUCSC paper underwent formal peer review at three respected scientific journals: Astrobiology, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres (OOLEB), and Biological Theory (Springer). Reviewers identified no fatal logical flaws, empirical contradictions, or fundamental errors in the framework.

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