A virus is not exactly alive. It is an inert packet of chemicals without a host -- it has no cells, no ability to turn food into energy,
Carbon is in every living thing on the Earth
A virus is not exactly dead. It has genes, reproduces, and evolves through natural selection
Life is a biological and material given, and also a social and experiential reality. In both cases it in inextricably linked with the representations and practices this concept generates.
Life is a concept too generic and crude to be productive. ''The living,'' differs further from ''life,'' la vie, in that it is mediated, as living, by the specific milieu it experiences.
A virus is partially living --- viruses can sometimes insert DNA into a bacterium through it appendage
Life is a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.