VIRUSES & THE ONE THING

The greatest biologists can't agree on whether viruses are living organisms. They may be just large molecules behaving in some ways like living things. Don't forget that viruses can't reproduce without hijacking the replication machinery of cells in other organisms, so they're not really independently free-living. Some experts describe them as "at the edge of life."

From my perspective as a monist, the question as to whether viruses are alive is a matter of humans trying to pigeonhole everything in a Universe where a very great deal can't be assigned to any concept humans have words for. I like to conceive of life as one feature of the One Thing/Great Spirit, a feature that manifests here and there, sometimes coinciding with and/or diffusing into other manifestations such as physical presence, consciousness, understanding and feeling. All these contribute to the One Thing's general isness.

However you like to think about it, the nature of viruses is worth taking into consideration. Wikipedia has a good Virus page, discussing the life question under the heading "Life properties."