the question is "what is life" ... that something you said science had no proof of its beginning.
That depends on what life is.
"Science has no proof of its beginning" is misinterpretation of how science deals with "what is life" issue. Science can not pinpoint the beginning of life, because there is no such a point. It took around a billion years for DNA to evolve as a code carrier for life, and no body can select a date, a particular specific event to show as "the beginning". When you ask "what is life"? The answers require time specification. Then we can start to talk about, or define the "life of this or that era": It could be "life on planet earth 3.5 billion years ago", "2 billion years ago", "a billion year ago", or "life on planet earth today". Each stage has different catalogue of species, environmental conditions, and level of evolution. There was no "initial", "unchanged" state that we could call it as "life".
Just as everything else, DNA did not come out of nowhere, and suddenly. DNA itself has been evolving as a code generator of life, and mutating in different levels; forming new species, can/can not protect existing species, adapting/is not adapting according to changing conditions and many other functional improvements. You can call this as a mechanism, but calling it a "machine" requires a second thought.
Another issue about science dealing with life is that science has a dynamic, yet restricted definition of life: It is dynamic, because last 250 years of history brought the definition of "life" from animals and plants to bacteria, viruse and ultimately the complex structure of code sharing, mutating, evolving DNA and RNA molecule regime of planet earth. Yet, science did not extended the definition of life to atoms, or galactic systems: Because the major characteristics of life differ from non-alive things such as rocks, minerals or a burning star.
Separation points are already there: Life tends to grow (through replicating, copying genes, having sex, depending on species and their cell structures), non-life does not. The term "organic" does not make sense without life: At the end of the day, moleculer materials of DNA are lifeless chemicals, molecules. What makes this chemistry alive, is code, RNA or DNA. We define life on these basis, since earth has the only example of life we know. If any other life form exists in somewhere in the universe, science can not speculate about it, it is out of observation. Could there be a self replicating inorganic material out there? Nobody knows as fact.
Is a machine life or not is a different question than which came first life or non life.:bugeye: Is a machine life or does there have to be biological components too?
And I have a problem with this "machine life" expression: If you say that atoms are the expression of quantum "mechanism", I can understand that. However, atoms, planetery systems do not have internal replicating systems, which are crucial for out definition of life. They do evolve, like everything else in the universe. That doesn't mean that they evolve, or transform same as life do: Their existential dynamics are different than life. Moreover, you can predict the cycles of planets or reactions of atoms, while you can not guess how life will evolve in billion years time. Just as you couldn't guess human existence while dinosaurs were ruling the planet; or you couldn't guess animal and plant existence when you examined so called primordial soup of 3.7 billion years ago.
Machines, are parts of a project, or system. You can call a kidney as a machine within a living animal, yet animal itself is not a machine. You can call a clock as a machine, but not it is not the time itself. Clock only make sense if there is a civilization with a perception of time expressed as this clock machinery.
There is another problem with alinging mechanic existence with organic existence: They can both depend upon same material (let's say atom) and same conditions (gravity, pressure, light, etc.); yet performance and existential roles differ depending on the project: A carbon atom can be found as a piece of diamond, as well as an important component of life's cellular ingredients.
PENROSE: "But when you accept the weirdness of quantum mechanics [in the macro world], you have to give up the idea of space-time as we know it from Einstein. The greatest weirdness here is that it doesn’t make sense. If you follow the rules, you come up with something that just isn’t right."
You see, each levels of existence has different set of weirdness. If you are serious about this idea, you should also ask yourself how weird to have moving, caputulating, talking animals out of molecules.
