The 6-Step Loop That Runs All Life — Recap
Before going further — a moment to take stock of what we actually have.
Two things. Sharp and testable.
What life is
Filtering Using Chemistry for Self-Continuation — a definition that draws a clean line between living and non-living. Tested against viruses, cancer, fire, AI. Held across all of them.
How life does it
A six-step loop: Input → Gate → Reference → Comparison → Switch → Action. The same structure operating at every scale — from a bacterium with no brain to human attention.
Life doesn't just react to its environment — it filters inputs against an internal reference for self-continuation. That's not a metaphor. It's a measurable, falsifiable mechanism that appears identically from bacteria to neurons to your attention right now.
The molecules are the substrate. The loop is the function.
We have the definition. We have the mechanism. Now we test both against the hardest cases — starting with the virus.
→ Read the paper: Filtering Accounting Law (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18677815) → Read the paper: The Behavioral Grammar of Life (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18376534)