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.

翻译：关于人工生命模型（亦称数字有机体）是否真正具有生命，学界一直存在持续的哲学争论。主要难点在于如何为生命寻得一个包罗万象且确定的定义。通过审视近期不同生命定义中的异同，我们将生命定义为："任何具备以下特征的系统——拥有界定明确体积并保护系统免受外界影响的边界，包含具备即兴能力、能对环境做出反应并适应、能再生自身局部或整体、其能量系统由非干扰性隔离反应集合构成以实现自我维持的程序——即被视为具有生命或构成生命系统。任何含有程序且可被重组成生命系统的不完整系统，其重组目的与不完整系统一致，亦被视为具有生命。"基于这一定义，我们认为数字有机体可能并非生命的边缘案例，尽管某些数字有机体不被视为具有生命；由此主张某些形式的数字有机体可被视为具有生命。此外，我们提出了一个基于系统整体连续性与系统内元素潜在不连续性的实验框架，用于检验未来的生命定义。