Reproduction (n.) is exactly what machines cannot do: an engine can wear out and be copied but never begets another, so every technical lineage passes through an inventor's head.
Reproduction (n.) differs from mere splitting not by the size of the pieces but by their age: a parent that stays old while the young are new has not been renewed.
Reproduction (n.) is what life did with crystal growth: each individual is mortal, but the series of them is unlimited, because each one makes analogues of itself.
Reproduction (n.) and death are kin: the drives toward both belong to the individual as a carrier of life, and both are strangers to the tendencies of community.
Reproduction (n.) is always regeneration: all the tentacles of a hydra are equally hereditary substance, and no part is only body.